Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/600

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
574
History of Woman Suffrage.

"Burleigh," "Root," "Truth," "Shut up," "Take a drink," "Greedey," etc., prevented anything orderly being heard, and the Convention, on the motion of Mrs. Rose, was adjourned sine die; the following resolution having first been read by Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, and passed without dissent:

Resolved, That the members of this Convention, and the audience assembled, tender their thanks to Lucretia Mott for the grace, firmness, ability, and courtesy with which she has discharged her important and often arduous duties.

Daily Tribune, Sept. 8, 1853.

WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION:—Meeting At The Tabernacle.

Evening Session.—Tremendous uproar—close of the Convention. Yesterday evening being the last sitting of this Convention, the approach to the Tabernacle was thronged long before the hour for opening the doors, and considerable excitement seemed to prevail. At about seven o'clock the Tabernacle doors were thrown open, and the rush for tickets and admission to the anxious throng could only be equalled by that of a Jenny Lind night. The building, capable of holding some 2,000 persons, was immediately filled to excess, and the principal promoters of the movement took their places on the platform.... Mr. George W. Clark, who had been requested to sing a song on "Freedom of Thought," did so in a style apparently not much approved by the audience, who at a very early stage began to give vent to all kinds of groans and ironical cheers.

Mrs. Martin, of this State, was then introduced, and with considerable difficulty began her address.

(Cries—"No! no!" and tremendous yells and laughter). "Time's up," "That'll do." (Loud hisses, groans, laughter, tigers, and demoniac sounds from the galleries). Cries of "Phillips! Phillips." (Hisses and yells).

Tribune, Sept. 9, 1853.

We do not know whether any of the gentlemen who have succeeded in breaking up the Woman's Rights Convention, or of the other gentlemen who have succeeded in three sessions at Metropolitan Hall in silencing a regularly appointed and admitted delegate, will ever be ashamed of their passion and hostility, but we have little doubt that some of them will live to understand their own folly. At any rate, they have accomplished a very different thing from what they now suppose. For if it had been their earnest desire to strengthen the cause of Woman's Rights, they could not have done the work half so effectively. Nothing is so good for a weak and unpopular movement as this sort of opposition. Had Antoinette Brown been allowed to speak at Metropolitan Hall, her observations would certainly have occupied but a fraction of the time now wasted, and would have had just the weight proper to their sense and appropriateness, and no more. But instead of this the World's Convention was disturbed and its orators silenced. The consequences will be the mass of people throughout the country who might otherwise not know of its