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finished his eventful life, this proved to be his last message to our association:

Boston, June 30, 1878.

My Dear Miss Anthony—Your urgent and welcome letter, inviting me to the thirtieth anniversary of the woman's rights movement at Rochester, came yesterday. Most earnestly do I wish I could be present to help mark this epoch in our movement, and join in congratulating the friends on the marvelous results of their labors. No reform has gathered more devoted and self-sacrificing friends. No one has had lives more generously given to its service; and you who have borne such heavy burdens may well rejoice in the large harvest; for no reform has, I think, had such rapid success. You who remember the indifference which almost discouraged us in 1848, and who have so bravely faced ungenerous opposition and insult since, must look back on the result with unmixed astonishment and delight. Temperance, and finance—which is but another name for the labor movement—and woman's rights, are three radical questions which overtop all others in value and importance. Woman's claim for the ballot-box has had a much wider influence than merely to protect woman. Universal suffrage is itself in danger. Scholars dread it; social science and journalists attack it. The discussion of woman's claim has done much to reveal this danger, and rally patriotic and thoughtful men in defense. In many ways the agitation has educated the people. Its success shows that the masses are sound and healthy; and if we gain, in the coming fifteen years, half as much as we have in the last thirty, woman will hold spear and shield in her own hands. If I might presume to advise, I should say close up the ranks and write on our flag only one claim—the ballot. Everything helps us, and if we are united, success cannot long be delayed.

Very cordially yours,Wendell Phillips.

 

Boston, July 16, 1878.

My Dear Friend—The thirtieth anniversary of the first woman's rights convention ever held with special reference to demanding the elective franchise irrespective of sex well deserves to be commemorated in the manner set forth in the call for the same, at Rochester, on the 19th instant. As a substitute for my personal attendance, I can only send a brief but warm congratulatory epistle on the cheering progress which the movement has made within the period named. For how widely different are the circumstances under which that convention was held, and those which attend the celebration of its third decade! Then, the assertion of civil and political equality, alike for men and women, excited widespread disgust and astonishment, as though it were a proposition to repeal the laws of nature, and literally to "turn the world upside down"; and it was ridiculed and caricatured as little short of lunacy. Now, it is a subject of increasing interest and grave consideration, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and what at first appeared to be so foolish in pretension is admitted by all reflecting and candid minds to be deserving of the most respectful treatment. Then, its avowed friends, were indeed "few and far