Under the heading Impressions of a Non-combatant a writer in the

Washington _Times_ gave the following opinion:

If there is one convention among the many Washington has seen

which may be called unique, it is that of the National Suffrage

Association. There is nothing like it in the world. There is only

one Susan B. Anthony and there is practically only one suffrage

fight.... In the old days the power of an idea was the only thing

that could have waked up an interest and held the suffragists

together. It took faith and zeal and lots of other things to be a

believer in woman suffrage then. Now it only takes executive

ability and vim and a general interest in public affairs.... The

problems discussed were almost purely legal and economic, dealing

with the suffrage question proper, the wages of women and their

occupations. There was very little empty rhetoric but a good deal

of fun. In short, there are two extra senses with which most of

the delegates seem to be provided--common sense and a sense of

humor--excellent substitutes for emotion when it comes to

practical affairs. If the association ever loses the idealism

which is still its backbone it will be a political machine of

much power; it seems likely to be for the present a decided force

in the direction of civic reform.

* * * * *

For a quarter of a century during the first session of each Congress

committees of Senate and House had given a hearing to representatives

of the National Suffrage Association to present arguments for the

submission of an amendment to the Federal Constitution which would

enfranchise women, and at an earlier date to advocate other suffrage

measures. Because of the distinguished speakers from abroad the

hearings at this time were of unusual interest. The convention

adjourned for them on the morning of February 18 and the Senate and

House Committee rooms were crowded.

All the members of the Senate Committee were present--Augustus O.

Bacon (Ga.) chairman; James H. Berry (Ark.); George P. Wetmore (R.

I.); Thomas R. Bard (Calif.); John H. Mitchell (Ore.). Miss Susan B.

Anthony, honorary president of the association, presided and said:

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, this is the

seventeenth Congress that has been addressed by the women of this

nation, which means that we have been coming to Congress

thirty-four years. Once, in 1887, the Senate brought the measure

to a discussion and vote and defeated it by 34 to 16, with 26 not

wishing to go on record. We ask for a 16th Amendment because it

is much easier to persuade the members of a Legislature to ratify

this amendment than it is to get the whole three million or six

million, as the case may be, of the rank and file of the men of

the State to vote for woman suffrage. We think we are of as much

importance as the Filipinos, Porto Ricans, Hawaiians, Cubans and

all of the different sorts of men that you are carefully

considering. The six hundred teachers sent over to the

Philippines are a thousand times better entitled to vote than are

the men who go there to make money. The women of the islands are

quite as well qualified to govern and have charge of affairs as

are the men. I do not propose to talk. I am simply here to

introduce those who are to address you.

Miss Anthony then presented Miss Harriet May Mills (N. Y.), who spoke

from the standpoint of tax paying women, who in the towns and villages

alone of her State paid taxes on over $5,000,000 worth of property;

Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg, president of the Pennsylvania Suffrage

Association, who showed the connection between politics and conditions

in Philadelphia; the Rev. Olympia Brown, president of the Wisconsin

association, who pointed out the need of both the reason and the

intuition in the country to govern it wisely. Mrs. Mariana W. Chapman,

president of the New York association, called for a Federal Amendment

to enfranchise women because of the principles on which this

Government was founded. Miss Gail Laughlin, a graduate of Wellesley

College and Cornell University Law School, made a strong argument on

the effect enfranchisement would have on woman's economic independence

and greater efficiency. Mrs. Jennie A. Brown, of Minneapolis, told of

the unlimited opportunities allowed to the women of the great

northwest which were largely counteracted by their political

restrictions. Mrs. Mary Wood Swift of California, president of the

National Council of Women, declared that the countless thousands of

the educated, developed women of today were fully equal to the

responsibilities of citizenship. Mrs. Lucy Hobart Day, president of

the Maine association, demonstrated the inferior and unfortunate

position of disfranchised women. Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, editor of

the _Woman's Journal_ (Boston), indicated how every step of the

progress of women had been opposed by the same objections now made to

woman suffrage and submitted these objections and the answers to them

in a convincing statement which filled ten pages of the printed report

of the hearing.

Miss Anthony introduced Mrs. Gudrun Drewsen, one of the foreign

delegates to the convention, who said in part: "Norwegian women look

back to the 25th of May, 1901, as a day of great victory, for on that

day a bill was passed in our Parliament which granted Municipal

suffrage to all women paying taxes on a certain limited income, about

$100 a year, or whose husbands paid on such income. This law has

thoroughly changed the position of the married woman and from having

always been a minor she has suddenly become of age. It may be of

interest to you of the United States, who can show so many tax paying

women without any right to vote, to know that we were not able to get

our Parliament interested in tax paying woman suffrage until the bill

included wives also. The immediate result of this law has been the

election of several women to important municipal positions; for

instance, members of the common council in the capital; members of the

board of aldermen; at one place chief assessor. Women may serve on

juries and grand juries and have been appointed members of special

congressional commissions. Several women doctors have been appointed

in public institutions, on boards of health as experts for the

Government, etc. Matrons have been employed at prisons where women

are and special prisons for women in charge of a matron have been

established. On the whole we begin to see the glory of the rising sun

which will give us in a little while the bright, clear day."

Miss Vida Goldstein, a delegate from Australia, began her address: "I

am very proud that I have come here from a country where the woman

suffrage movement has made such rapid strides. The note was first

struck in America and yet women today are struggling here for what we

have had in Australia for years, and we have proved all the statements

and arguments against woman suffrage to be utterly without foundation.

It seems incredible to us that the women here have not even the School

and Municipal suffrage except in a very few States. We have had this

for over forty years and we have never heard a word against it. It is

simply taken as a matter of course that the women should vote. They

say that as soon as women get this privilege they are going to lose

the chivalrous attentions of men. Let me assure you that a woman has

not the slightest conception of what chivalry means until she gets a

vote...." Miss Goldstein told of woman suffrage in New Zealand and

produced the highest testimony as to its good results in both

countries.

In closing the hearing Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, national vice president,

said in part:

Our association desires you not only to report the resolution for

this amendment favorably but to recommend the appointment of a

committee to investigate this subject. Years ago when our women

came before you we had nothing but theory to give you, what we

believed would be the good results of woman suffrage if it were

granted. The opponents had their theories and they stated the

evils they believed would follow. The theory of one person is as

good as that of another until it has been put to the test, but

after that both sides must lay aside all theory and stand or fall

upon facts. In four States women have the full suffrage. For more

than thirty years they have been exercising it in Wyoming equally

with men; in Colorado for nine years and in Utah and Idaho for

six years. We do believe that from six to thirty years is long

enough time to measure its effect. What we would like better than

anything else is that Congress should appoint a committee of

investigation, and that such a committee should investigate the

result of woman suffrage in the States where it has already been

granted.... So sure are we its report would be favorable that we

are perfectly willing to stake our future on it. While we do not

claim that only good would come from woman suffrage, we do

believe that among all the people of a community or of a nation

there are more good men and women than there are bad men and

women, and that when we unite the good men and good women they

will be able to carry measures for the general welfare and we

will have better laws and conditions.

* * * * *

At the hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Representative

John J. Jenkins, in the chair, expressed regret that George W. Ray of

New York, the chairman, was unavoidably absent and said: "He is very

much in sympathy with what the ladies desire to say this morning--much

more so than the present occupant of the chair." Mrs. Carrie Chapman

Catt, president of the National American Suffrage Association, who had

charge of the hearing, said: "Mr. Chairman, we have just been holding

an International Woman Suffrage Conference in the city of Washington,

eight nations having sent official delegates from woman suffrage

organizations, and several others have cooperated through

correspondence, and we have invited representatives of these nations

to come to you this morning and present some facts concerning the

practical operation of suffrage in countries other than our own. Our

first speaker will be Miss Vida Goldstein of Australia." Miss

Goldstein gave in substance the address which will be found in the

report of the Senate hearing, after which Mrs. Catt said: "Although I

have been a resident and taxpayer in four different States and able to

qualify as a voter I have never been permitted any suffrage whatever.

I now have the privilege of introducing a Russian woman who has been a

voter in her country ever since she was 21." Madame Friedland said in

part:

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: In a country like

Russia, with an absolute government, there is but little suffrage

for either men or women but the little there is is equally shared

by both. We do not, of course, vote for Czars; neither do we vote

for Governors but the municipal officers are elected by the votes

of the real estate owners regardless of sex. The woman, however,

does not vote in person but transfers her vote to her husband,

her son or her son-in-law and in case these are unable to vote

for her she has the right to delegate her vote to an outsider. He

simply has the proxy and votes as the woman dictates.

Russia, whose political institutions are the least liberal in

Europe, has the most liberal laws in regard to the civil capacity

of her women. Every woman, married or single, if she is of age,

enjoys complete civil capacity. Marriage does not in any way

change the rights of husband and wife over the property they

possess or may acquire. The husband has no legal right whatever

over the property of his wife and she is by no means under his

guardianship. This may account for the fact that we have less

divorce than in many other countries. We have different laws for

the different social classes. A nobleman will pay his taxes

according to the law for the nobility, while his wife may be a

commoner and have to pay hers according to the laws for the

commoners, but both are taxpayers and consequently both are

voters. It is quite a common thing to see a woman of the people,

a peasant woman, take her place and often her husband's place, as

he has a right to delegate his vote to her at elections, and she

may also take it at county meetings and assemblies of every kind.

Lately the government of the peasantry have made an effort to

deprive the women of the right to hold office but the Senate has

prevented them on the ground that if women share the hard

struggle for existence with the men, as they do in our remote

rural districts, they must also share the privileges. Gentlemen,

I hope I have your sympathy with the ideas practiced in my

country for our women.

Mrs. Catt said of her next speaker: "It is eminently proper that a

woman of Sweden should address you, where women have voted longer than

anywhere else in the world."

Mrs. Emmy Evald. I stand before this legislative power of America

representing a country where women have voted since the 18th

century, sanctioned in 1736 by the King. The men gave suffrage to

the women without their requesting it, because they believed that

taxation without representation is tyranny. The taxpayer's vote

is irrespective of sex. Women vote for every office for which

their brothers do and on the same terms, except for the first

chamber of the Riksdag. They have the Municipal and School

suffrage, votes for the provincial representatives and thus

indirectly for members of the House of Lords.

Women are admitted to the postal service on equal salaries with

men. In the railway service, which is controlled by the

Government, women have ever since 1860 been employed in the

controlling office and ticket department and in the telegraph and

telephone service, which are owned by the Government. In 1809

women were given the rights of inheritance and in the same year

equal matrimonial rights. The colleges and universities are open

to them and they receive degrees the same as men. All professions

are open except the clerical. Women teachers are pensioned

equally with men. Tax paying women have voted in church matters

since 1736. Every woman is taxed in the Lutheran Church in

America but has no vote and the women blame the Americans because

the clergy educated here imbibed the false spirit of liberty and

justice.

You can not trust the ballot into the hands of women teachers in

the public schools but you give it to men who can not read or

write. You can not trust the ballot to women who are controlling

millions of money and helping support the country but you give it

to loafers and vagabonds who know nothing, have nothing and

represent nothing. You can not trust the ballot in the hands of

women who are the wives and daughters of your heroes but you give

it to those who are willing to sell it for a glass of beer and

you trust it in the hands of anarchists. Oh, men, let justice

speak and may the public weal demand that this disfranchisement

of the noble American women shall be stopped.

Mrs. Catt then introduced to the committee Miss Isabel Campbell,

daughter of former Governor Campbell of Wyoming, who in 1869 signed

the bill which enfranchised the women of the Territory; Prof.

Theodosia Ammons of the Colorado University of Agriculture and Mrs.

Ida M. Weaver, a resident of Idaho. Each gave a comprehensive report

of the practical working of woman suffrage in her State; the large

proportion of women who voted; their appointment on boards and

election to offices; the result in improved polling places, better

candidates and cleaner politics; higher pay for working women; the

advantages to the community; the comradeship between men and women and

the general satisfaction of the people with the experiment. Their

reports as a whole offered unimpeachable testimony in favor of the

enfranchisement of women.

Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller in her address said:

I have been asked to direct especially my attention to the

position of women in England. I hope you, as members of a

republic, will be ashamed to hear that the monarchy of England

gives its women citizens a great many rights which you deny to

yours, that we have had those rights for so many years that

nobody talks about them. When I am asked to give you testimony as

to the smooth working of the women's vote in all local affairs, I

am at a loss to know what to say, because it runs along so easily

and naturally, so like breathing the air in a thoroughly healthy

state of the lungs, that there is absolutely nothing to be said.

Men and women vote on equal terms and the woman's vote is as much

a matter of course as the man's.

The local government of England is divided among a number of

different bodies. We have the school boards, established in 1870,

which have managed the elementary education of the country, now

compulsory and free. They spend very large sums of the taxpayers'

money and for them every woman who pays taxes has a vote. Any

woman whom the electors choose is entitled to take a seat on

them. There are at present not only hundreds of thousands of

women voting for the school boards but there are 276 women

sitting as representatives upon those of England alone. I myself

have for nine years been a member of the school board of London,

sitting for one of the great divisions called Hackney, which has

60,000 voters. My election committee was composed of men and

women. Men worked for me very hard indeed!... The next great

local governing bodies are the boards of guardians of the poor.

These bodies spend annually about $127,000,000, which they raise

from the taxpayers, men and women. These are huge organizations.

Many of the workhouses contain over 1,000 persons; besides which,

outside relief in money or food or medical aid is given. Every

woman who is a taxpayer can vote for a member of these boards.

Women are eligible to sit on them the same as men. There are

nearly 1,000 women on the boards.

Women may vote for the municipalities, for the town councils. I

can not offer you any illustration of how the women's vote has

improved them for the simple reason that when those councils were

instituted in 1869 the Parliament of a monarchy was sufficiently

large-minded to perceive that women ought to vote for them; that

they have to pay their taxes and where a woman stands at the head

of a household she is not only equally entitled to representation

in regard to the spending of her money but also she is as much

concerned with the work that the councils have to do as any man.

This was so obviously just that women were given the right to

vote on them and have exercised that right ever since.... The

women vote as fully as the men do.

We have district, parish and county councils, which have to a

considerable extent the moral and the intellectual government of

the cities under them, licensing of places of amusement, public

parks, technical education for young people over school age and

so on. The building of homes for the poor, the oversight of

lunatic asylums and matters of that kind, they have under their

authority. These were established in 1884 and the women who had

voted so well for many years for school boards and town councils

of course were given the right to vote for the new county

councils.

Mrs. Miller went fully into the work of women on borough and county

councils and closed her valuable address by saying: "Gentlemen, the

work of women in English public life has not only been unattended with

any mischief but has been a great force for service and benefit.

Surely American men can trust their sisters as our men have for the

past generation trusted us, to their own as well as our advantage."

In closing the hearing to which the committee gave the strictest

attention, Mrs. Catt said in part:

I have a favor to ask of this committee in an official capacity;

it is something we have never asked before.... We have brought to

you testimonials of the success of woman suffrage in operation

throughout the world and I think that if any man among you were

called to stand before a committee and give in five or ten

minutes some proof of the favorable results of man suffrage, he

would find it a very difficult thing to do. What I now ask in

behalf of our association is that this committee will request the

House of Representatives to appoint a commission to investigate

the results of woman suffrage in operation. This has never been

done....

We ask you in the interest of fairness to see that this

commission is appointed to investigate woman suffrage in exactly

the same spirit it would use if it were investigating man

suffrage in Cuba. We ask you to chase down to its lair every

single charge and objection that has been made and if when an

honest commission has made an honest investigation you discover

that woman suffrage has proved a good thing, if you find that it

has proved as beneficial to women as man suffrage has proved to

men, then we shall expect that another Judiciary Committee will

give a favorable report and ask Congress to submit a 16th

Amendment. And if you discover that it is not a good thing, then

I promise you in behalf of our association that we will turn our

guns into those States and see that it is made a good thing; for

never so long as there are women who are educated, women who

think for themselves, will they rest content until they have the

only weapon that governments can give them for defending liberty

and pursuit of happiness. We stand before you as citizens of the

United States, qualified, intelligent, taxpaying women, who

demand for ourselves the same right to make the Government under

which we live that has been given to men.

No commission was appointed, no report was made by Senate or House

Committee and there were no definite results of such appeals as never

had been made by men for the franchise in this or any other country.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Part of Call: An International Woman Suffrage Conference will be

held in connection with this annual convention, to which suffrage

associations of fourteen countries have been invited to send

delegates.

The principles which for a century have stood as the guarantee of

political liberty to American men, "Taxation without representation is

tyranny," and "Governments derive their just powers from the consent

of the governed," can no longer be claimed as belonging to the United

States alone for they have been adopted by all civilized nations. The

steadily increasing acceptance of the belief that self-government is

the highest form of government has revolutionized the popular thought

of the world within the last fifty years. During that period all newly

established governments have been fashioned after the model of a

Republic; while in most European nations and their colonies the

suffrage has been so largely extended that the mere skeleton of a

monarchy remains.

Logical thinkers the world over have been led in consequence to ask:

Are not women equally capable with men of self-government? What

necessary qualification fits men for the exercise of this sacred right

which is not likewise possessed by women? Are they less intelligent?

The statistics of schools, colleges and educational bureaus answer

"No." Are they less moral, peaceful and law-abiding than men? The

statistics of churches, police courts and penitentiaries answer "No."

Are they less public spirited and patriotic than men? The labors of

millions of organized women in noble reforms, in helpful charities and

wise philanthropies answer "No." ...

An International Woman Suffrage Conference for the exchange of

greetings, reports and methods forms a natural milestone on the march

of progress. All persons believing that the fundamental principles of

self-government contained in the Declaration of Independence and the

Constitution of the United States apply to women as well as to men,

are invited to visit the convention and to unite in welcome to our

foreign guests.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, }

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, } Honorary Presidents.

CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT, President.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, Vice-President-at-Large.

KATE M. GORDON, Corresponding Secretary.

ALICE STONE BLACKWELL, Recording Secretary.

HARRIET TAYLOR UPTON, Treasurer.

LAURA CLAY, }

CORA SMITH EATON, } Auditors.

[15] History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I, page 543.

[16] "February could be appropriately marked on the calendar as

woman's month at the national capital. For many years one or more

national bodies of women have met in Washington some time in February.

This year an unusually large number are assembling. On February 17,

the day before the National Suffrage Convention ends, the Continental

Congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution will open to

continue five days. The fourth triennial of the National Council of

Women of the United States will begin on February 19 and extend over

the 25th. The National Congress of Mothers will convene February 25

and be in session until the 28th."

[17] The following pioneer workers for woman suffrage were seated on

the platform, their ages averaging more than 75 years: Mrs. Virginia

Clay Clopton, Ala.; A. E. Gridley, the Hon. Simon Wolf, Mrs. S. E.

Wall, Mrs. Olive Logan, Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, Dr. A. D. Mayo, Miss

Eliza Titus Ward, D. C.; Mrs. Mary B. Trimble, Ky.; Mrs. Caroline E.

Merrick, La.; Mrs. Helen Coffin Beedy, Dr. Abbie M. Fulton, Mrs.

Charlotte Thomas, Me.; Mrs. Harriet Jackson, Md.; Mrs. William Lloyd

Garrison, Mass.; Mrs. Helen P. Jenkins, Mrs. Emily B. Ketcham, Mich.;

Mrs. Phoebe Wright, N. J.; Mrs. H. E. Burger, Miss Mary Anthony, Mrs.

Elizabeth Smith Miller, N. Y.; Mrs. Harriet B. Stanton, O.; Dr. Jane

V. Meyers, Mrs. G. M. S. P. Jones, Dr. Agnes Kemp, John K. Wildman,

Dr. and Mrs. C. Newlin Pierce, Penn.; Mrs. Virginia D. Young, S. C.;

Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells, Utah; Miss Laura Moore, Vt.; Mrs. M. H. Grove,

W. Va.

[18] Miss Anthony had objected strongly to Mrs. Stanton's letter to

the convention of 1901 criticising the church, and she did not approve

of demanding an educational requirement for the suffrage when women

would have to obtain it by consent of men of all classes. Mrs.

Stanton's letter, therefore, was sent for Mrs. Colby to read, who was

in sympathy with its sentiment.

[19] The Charleston conference was held in the Assembly Room of the

Woman's Building, welcomed by Mayor Smyth, Mrs. S. C. Simons,

president of the women's department, and Mrs. Virginia D. Young in

behalf of the State Press Association. Mrs. Catt responded and later

Mr. Blackwell made an address. Among the speakers here and in German

Artillery Hall was the Hon. R. R. Hemphill (S. C.), always a staunch

advocate of woman suffrage. An afternoon reception was given by the

Woman's Board. The _News and Courier_ and other papers had long and

excellent reports.

The Baltimore conference was held a few days later in the main

auditorium of the Central Y. M. C. A. Hall, with the Rev. Anna Howard

Shaw presiding. It was welcomed by Dr. E. O. Janney of Johns Hopkins

Medical School, and the national speakers were Miss Laura Clay,

president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association; Dr. Cora Smith

Eaton, Judge J. G. Flenner of Idaho; the Rev. Olympia Brown, Mrs.

Colby, Miss Gordon and Mr. and Miss Blackwell.

[20] A Washington paper said: "There were a good many men in the

audience and they did not look much as they do in the comic papers.

The suffragists' husbands in caricature are consumptive, cadaverous,

insignificant mortals, trailing around in the wake of rambunctious and

overwhelming wives; but most of the men who mixed themselves up with

this convention looked as if they could not very easily have been

dragged there if they had not wanted to come. Some of them were six

feet tall and broad in proportion and none of them looked as if they

had been in the habit of asking their wives for permission to think.

They did not act like cats in a strange garret either but as if they

were having the time of their lives. No wonder; when a man does make

up his mind to come out for woman suffrage he can depend upon it he is

going to be appreciated."

[21] Besides the women ministers mentioned in this chapter sessions

were opened by the Rev. Ulysses G. B. Pierce, the Rev. John Van

Schaick, Jr., the Rev. Alexander Kent and the Rev. Donald C. McLeod,

all of Washington.

The excellent musical program was in charge of Miss Etta Maddox of

Baltimore. She was a graduated lawyer but the courts of Maryland had

refused her permission to practice, as contrary to law. After the

convention she was accompanied to Baltimore by Miss Laura Clay, Mrs.

J. Ellen Foster, an attorney of Iowa; Miss Gail Laughlin, a New York

lawyer; Dr. Cora Smith Eaton and Mr. Blackwell. The Judiciary

Committee of the State Senate granted a hearing conducted by Miss

Maddox. By the end of March both Senate and House had passed a bill

giving women the right to practice law.

[22] Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Upton and Miss Blackwell were made

a committee to present the matter to President Roosevelt. Protests

arose from all parts of the country and before they had time to call

on him he declared himself opposed to "regulated vice." The dispatches

of March 22 announced that a general order signed by Secretary Root

had gone from the War Department to Manila that no more "certificates"

would be issued but that soldiers as well as women would be inspected

and cases of disease would be sent to the hospital.

CHAPTER III.

THE NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1903.

In 1903 the National American Suffrage Association for the second time

took its annual convention to a southern State and held it in New

Orleans, March 15-25, in Athenaeum Hall.[23] The _Woman's Journal_

said: "To the northern delegates there was something almost magical in

the sudden change from snowdrifts and nipping winds to balmy air and a

temperature like June. The delicious climate of Louisiana in spring

has not been exaggerated and it seems wonderful to find roses in bloom

in March, the wistaria vines in a cloud of purple blossom and the

grass an emerald green.... The delegates were enthusiastic over the

quaint houses surrounded by palms, bananas and great live oaks, a

pleasing novelty to most of them."

The hostess of the convention was the Era Club, the largest

organization of women in the city, its title--ERA--cleverly concealing

Equal Rights Association. It was founded in 1896; Miss Kate Gordon,

the present secretary of the National Association, was formerly its

president and her sister, Miss Jean M. Gordon, now filled that office.

On the first afternoon the spacious and beautiful home of Mrs. Reuben

Bush, prominent in club and civic work, was opened for the club to

entertain the officers, delegates and a large number of invited

guests. Sunday evening all were received informally in the charming

home of Misses Kate, Fanny and Jean Gordon.

The excellent convention program was prepared by Miss Kate Gordon. The

first evening session was opened with prayer by the Right Reverend

Davis Sessums, Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana, who said in the course

of it: "Prosper, we beseech thee, the deliberations of this

association whose representatives are here assembled and direct and

rule their judgment and actions in all things to the furtherance of

truth and justice, so that their work may be an abiding work and

contribute to the growth of true religion and civilization, to the

happiness of homes and to the advancement of Thy Kingdom."

The _Picayune_ thus described the occasion: "In the presence of a

magnificent audience that packed the Athenaeum to its utmost capacity,

the thirty-fifth annual convention of the National American Woman

Suffrage Association was formally opened last night, with the

president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, in the chair. Seldom perhaps in

its history has the association received such a greeting, for the

audience was not only deeply interested and sympathetic but it was

representative of the finest culture in the city and State.

Distinguished jurists, physicians and teachers, staid men of business

and leaders in many lines united with women of the highest social

standing in giving the convention a hearty and earnest welcome. Many

were no doubt attracted by the memory of the former visits of Miss

Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt and the remarkable

personality of the pioneer suffrage workers, but whether they came

from pure interest in these famous leaders or deep sympathy with the

cause, all were generous in giving to both the credit and applause

they justly deserved....

Mayor Paul Capdeville, who was to welcome the convention, was ill and

this was very acceptably done by "Tom" Richardson, secretary of the

Progressive Union, an important commercial body of 1,600 members that

had joined in the invitation for it to come to New Orleans and

contributed the rent of the Athenaeum. He expressed his pleasure at

being associated with the suffragists of the city, "who had never

neglected any opportunity to promote its best interests," and said:

"No other class of our citizens have done it so much good." He was

followed by the Hon. Edgar H. Farrar, an eminent lawyer, author of the

Drainage and Sewerage plan, who told of the valuable assistance of

women in the strenuous fight against the State lottery ten years

before and described the splendid work of the women since the

constitutional convention of 1898 had given them taxpayers' suffrage.

Miss Gordon read a poem of welcome by Mrs. Grace G. Watts and gave the

Era Club's welcome and then Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, who was presiding,

introduced Miss Anthony to respond. The _Picayune_ said in its report:

Seated upon the platform was Miss Susan B. Anthony, the woman who

for two-score years stood the brunt of ridicule, sarcasm and

cartooning and never once was deterred from the course that she

fully believed to be the just and true one. Of the great leaders

in this movement she alone remains.... Spanning a distance of

forty years stood at her side Mrs. Catt, the younger woman who

has taken up the battle, and grouped around were earnest young

girls and middle-aged women fired with her enthusiasm and looking

up to her with a reverence that was very beautiful and a most

gracious tribute from youth to old age. When Miss Jean Gordon

advanced to present her with a great cluster of Marechal Neil

roses and took her so sweetly by the hand and in the name of the

young women of today and of the Era Club thanked her for the

battles she had fought, the scene was most touching, representing

as it did the two extremes of the suffrage workers, those of

half-a-century ago and those of today.

There was another there, a woman who has been very near to the

hearts of New Orleans people, who has never been aggressive in

her advocacy of the cause but whose quiet approval, whose

earnest sympathy, whose expenditure of time and money and whose

high social standing gave to it a strength even in those early

days that one of less ability and social position and more

pronounced opposition could not have secured. Mrs. Caroline E.

Merrick, the pioneer suffragist of Louisiana and the lifelong

friend of Miss Anthony, came in for her share of the honors of

the evening. With equal grace and tenderness Miss Gordon advanced

to her and offered her too the fragrant expressions of more

youthful workers. For a moment Miss Anthony and Mrs. Merrick

stood together, and the audience, rising to its feet in a great

wave of enthusiasm, waved handkerchiefs and fans in greeting.

Perhaps that precious hour of triumph, away down here in this old

southern State, as she stands nearing the border land of another

world, recompensed the great pioneer for much that she had borne

when life was young and audiences, as she said, less sympathetic.

Mrs. Merrick's remarks, also, touched a deep chord and roused the

audience to a state of earnest sympathy.

Miss Anthony told of her visit to New Orleans in 1884 during the

Centennial Exposition, when she was the guest of Mrs. Merrick, and

spoke of Mrs. Eliza J. Nicholson, owner and editor of the _Picayune_,

paying a tribute to her and to the gifted writer, "Catharine Cole," of

its editorial staff, both now passed from earth. In Dr. Shaw's

eloquent response to the greetings she said: "Nothing has given me

greater hope for women and has made me prouder of women than the

splendid reserve power shown by southern womanhood for the last

twenty-five years. When your hearthstones were left desolate and your

bravest and strongest had gone forth never to come back, your women,

who had been cared for as no other women ever were cared for, who were

uneducated to toil, unacquainted with business requirements, averse to

them by instinct and tradition--when they had to face the world they

went out uncomplaining and worked with sublime heroism.... I am glad

to come among you southern women and to say that you have been an

inspiration to the women of the North and to whole world. The

daughters of those women of twenty-five years ago are the ones who

have made this splendid convention possible. Over our country now

there floats only one flag but that is a flag for women as well as

men. If there are any men who ought to have faith in women and in

their power to dare and do it is southern men, who owe so much to

southern women."

Mrs. Catt then gave her president's address of which an extended

press notice said: "Never was there a more masterly exposition of a

theme, never a more earnest or cogent argument. A distinguished

Justice of the Supreme Court who was present remarked to the writer:

'I have heard many men but not one who can compare with Mrs. Catt in

eloquence and logical power.' So the entire audience felt and at the

close of her magnificent discourse she was the recipient of an ovation

that came spontaneously from their hearts. The scene presented in the

Athenaeum was indeed a remarkable one." The address was not written and

no essential part of it can be reproduced from fragmentary newspaper

reports.

A discordant note in the harmony was struck by the _Times-Democrat_,

which, in a long editorial, Woman Suffrage and the South, assailed the

association because of its attitude on the race question. The board of

officers immediately prepared a signed statement which said in part:

The association as such has no view on this subject. Like every

other national association it is made up of persons of all shades

of opinion on the race question and on all other questions except

those relating to its particular object. The northern and western

members hold the views on the race question that are customary in

their sections; the southern members hold the views that are

customary in the South. The doctrine of State's rights is

recognized in the national body and each auxiliary State

association arranges its own affairs in accordance with its own

ideas and in harmony with the customs of its own section.

Individual members in addresses made outside of the National

Association are of course free to express their views on all

sorts of extraneous questions but they speak for themselves as

individuals and not for the association....

The National American Woman Suffrage Association is seeking to do

away with the requirement of a sex qualification for suffrage.

What other qualifications shall be asked for it leaves to each

State. The southern women most active in it have always in their

own State emphasized the fact that granting suffrage to women who

can read and write and who pay taxes would insure white supremacy

without resorting to any methods of doubtful constitutionality.

The Louisiana association asks for the ballot for educated and

taxpaying women only and its officers believe that in this lies

"the only permanent and honorable solution of the race question."

...

The suffrage associations of the northern and western States ask

for the ballot for all women, though Maine and several other

States have lately asked for it with an educational or tax

qualification. To advise southern women to beware of lending

"sympathy or support" to the National Association because its

auxiliary societies in the northern States hold the usual views

of northerners on the color question is as irrelevant as to

advise them to beware of the National Woman's Christian

Temperance Union because in the northern and western States it

draws no color line; or to beware of the General Federation of

Women's Clubs because the State Federations of the North and West

do not draw it; or to beware of Christianity because the churches

in the North and West do not draw it....

The _Times-Democrat_ published this letter in full and endeavored by

its press reports afterwards to atone for its blunder. It had been

feared that trouble over this question would arise but no other paper

referred to it. The _Picayune_, _Item_ and _States_ were most generous

with space and complimentary in expression throughout the

convention.[24]

The reports at the executive sessions were possibly of more interest

to the delegates than the public addresses. Miss Gordon in her

secretary's report spoke of the 12,000 or 13,000 letters which had

been sent out since the last convention, many of them made necessary

by the International Conference of the preceding year, and of the

ending of its proceedings. To the 14,000 newspapers on the list to

receive the quarterly _Progress_ the names of legislators in various

States had been added, and to the latter leaflets attractively

prepared by Miss Blackwell also were sent. She described the new

suffrage postage stamp, a college girl in cap and gown holding a

tablet inscribed: "In Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho women vote on

the same terms as men," to offset the prevailing ignorance of this

fact. Resolutions endorsing woman suffrage had been secured from the

National Grange, the American Federation of Labor and a number of

large labor unions. For the first time in the history of the National

Education Association, three-fourths of whose members are women, a

woman had been invited to address their annual convention and the one

selected was the president of the National American Suffrage

Association. Mrs. Catt was cordially received by them in July at

Minneapolis.

Four of the five morning sessions were given over completely to Work

Conferences. The usual ones on Organization and Press were held with

Miss Mary Garrett Hay and Mrs. Elnora Babcock respectively presiding.

The conference on Enrollment gave way to one on Literature, Dr. Mary

D. Hussey presiding, and a new one on Legislation was added. A

president's and a delegates' conference completed the list. The Plan

of Work again presented by the Executive Committee emphasized the line

of action adopted in the first year of Mrs. Catt's presidency and

urged that the States endeavor to secure recommendations of their

Legislatures asking the submission of a 16th Amendment; that special

efforts be made to secure the appointment of a Commission to

investigate the working of full suffrage in States where it now

exists; that correspondence be taken up vigorously with all members of

Congress giving them the arguments in favor of a Federal Amendment and

of a Commission on Investigation; that the association aim to double

its membership the coming year and that a catalogue of woman suffrage

literature be prepared for libraries.

Only $3,000 in pledges were called for and $3,200 were quickly

subscribed.[25] The treasurer, Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, announced

receipts during the year of $18,310 with a balance of $6,183 now in

the treasury. "New York has always been the largest contributor and

paid the largest auxiliary fee," she said, "and it never has any aid

from the national treasury. Its temper is always sweet and its

methods always business-like but to be sure it has always been blessed

by having one of its citizens as national president. This year,

however, Massachusetts has won the place at the head of the list."

Mrs. Catt reported for the Congressional Committee that Congress had

entirely ignored the urgent appeals of last year for a committee to

investigate the effects of woman suffrage in the equal franchise

States. Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett (Ky.) made her usual strong plea for

an effort to secure from Congress Federal suffrage or the right to

vote for members of Senate and House Representatives. For many years

Mrs. Bennett, as chairman of the committee, had appealed to the

association for action but while it considered that the measure would

be perfectly valid it believed it to be hopeless of attainment.

[History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV, page 6.] Mrs. Elnora M. Babcock

(N. Y.), chairman of the Press Committee, made a comprehensive report

of the constantly increasing favorable comment of the newspapers. Mrs.

Boyer, chairman for Pennsylvania, had placed 5,700 suffrage articles

and the chairmen of various other States had a proportionate record.

Miss Blackwell gave as a recipe for finding favor with editors: "Make

your articles short; make them newsy; don't denounce the men." Mrs.

Priscilla D. Hackstaff (N. Y.), chairman of the Enrollment Committee,

reported a good start on the nation-wide enrollment of men and women

who believe in woman suffrage.

Henry B. Blackwell, chairman of the Presidential Suffrage Committee,

urged the southern women to petition their Legislatures, seven of

which would meet during the year, to give women the right to vote for

presidential electors. "The choice of President and Vice-president of

the United States," he said, "is the most important form of suffrage

exercised by an American citizen.... The King of England and the

Emperor of Germany are practically possessed of no greater political

power than our President during his official term," and he continued:

Here then is an open door to equal suffrage. Once let the women

of any State take their equal part in this great national

election and their complete equality is assured. Without change

of State or Federal Constitution, without ratification by the

individual voters, a simple majority of both houses of any

Legislature at any time in any State can confer upon women

citizens this magnificent privilege, which will carry with it a

certainty of speedy future concessions of all minor rights and

privileges. It is amazing that no concerted effort has been made

until recently to secure this right, so easily obtained and of so

much transcendent importance. Especially is it strange that in

States where iron-bound constitutional restrictions forbid any

exercise whatever of local or municipal woman suffrage and where

the social conditions make an amendment of State constitution

almost impossible, suffragists allow year after year to elapse

without any effort to get the only practical thing possible,

action by the State Legislature conferring Presidential suffrage

on women. Suffrage in school or municipal elections cannot give

us a full and fair test of the value of equal suffrage or of

woman's willingness to participate. Suffrage in State elections

cannot be had without amendment of State constitutions, always

difficult and usually impossible of attainment in the face of

organized opposition. Why not then avail ourselves of this

unique, this providential opportunity?

Among other committees reporting was that on Church work, Miss Laura

De Merritte (Me.) chairman, and her recommendations were adopted that

the committee on National Sunday School lessons be asked to prepare

one each year on the rights and duties of women citizens; that

ministers of all denominations be urged to preach one sermon each year

on this topic; that all women's missionary societies be requested to

make it a part of their regular program at their annual conventions

and that a place be sought on the program of national conventions of

the Epworth League and Christian Endeavor Societies to present the

question of woman's enfranchisement. The valuable report of the

Committee on Industrial Problems Relating to Women and Children by the

chairman, Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby (D. C.) said: "Everyone can recall

instances of discrimination against women by factories, business

firms, school boards and municipalities, making it plain that women

are at a disadvantage as non-voting members of the community. As a

recent fact in regard to the government I would cite the order by

Postmaster-General Payne that a woman employee must give up her

position if she marries." The report continued:

Nearly all the appointments in the departments obtained last year

by women were as printers' assistants at a small salary. Not a

woman has been selected by the Pension Office in six years. In

1902 twenty-seven women were chosen as typewriters and

stenographers and 114 men. The Civil Service Commissioners are

compelled by law to keep separate lists of men and women who have

passed examinations and must certify to the appointing officers

from either list as specified by the heads of the bureaus, so

that it is quite possible for these to keep women out and fill

the places with voters. Commissioner W. D. Foulke not long ago

called the attention of the chiefs of bureaus to the fact that by

taking from the men's list down to the lowest point of

eligibility, while women who passed with a rank of 90 and over

were not chosen, the Government was not getting the skilled labor

to which it was entitled.

The continued defeat of child labor protection laws in some of

the southern States and the conditions of children working in the

mines of Pennsylvania, as shown in testimony before the Coal

Strike Commission, show the need of woman's help in shaping

social economics and her powerlessness without the ballot.... How

can we get hold of the wage-earning women in mass and convince

them that from their own selfish and personal standpoint, if from

no other, they should join the ranks of those that are working

for the ballot? Talented speakers from the ranks of wage-earners

have thrilled audiences with their impetuous oratory but there

has been no general rally of working women to secure the ballot

for themselves....

How can we stimulate in women of wealth and opportunity, whose

influence would be invaluable and whose support might give the

movement the financial backing it needs, a consciousness of the

solidarity of human interests, so they will see that from an

impersonal, unselfish standpoint, if they have no personal need,

they are under the most commanding obligation to add their

strength to ours to make better conditions for working women? We

might despair of reaching either the overworked, underpaid and

unresponsive wage-earner, or the indifferent, irresponsible and

almost inaccessible woman of fortune, were it not that all along

the social line we are linked by one common possession, our

womanhood, which, when awakened, is the Divine Motherhood and it

is to this we must appeal.

Miss Anthony presided at the Friday evening public meeting, which was

opened with prayer by the Rev. Gilbert Dobbs, who said: "We invoke Thy

divine blessing, O God, upon this assembly and we rejoice that Thou

hast always opened the way for Thy consecrated servants--women--to do

well from the time of Miriam and of Deborah to the present. While not

often has the call been to women to don armor and press on to battle,

yet it may be that Thou hast reserved them for the battle of ballots,

in which they can secure victory for all moral good and aid in the

overthrow of every organized vice and infamy, so that there shall be a

higher type of public morals and nobler methods of government."

Mrs. Bennett spoke in her humorous and inimitable way on The Authority

of Women to Preach the Gospel of Christ in Public Places. Mrs. Rachel

Foster Avery (Penn.) under the title What's in a Name? told of the

efforts that were being made by the conservative women of Philadelphia

to reform municipal conditions through Civic Betterment Clubs, not by

the ballot in the hands of women but through the men voters. "Yet,

after all," she said, "are not these clubs doing good work for woman

suffrage under another name? For as these earnest but conservative

women find themselves in contact with life at so many new points they

are getting so used to all the things which go to make up that awful

bugaboo, 'politics,' that they will soon begin to realize that

politics affects for good or evil all the things which touch the daily

lives of every one of them. After awhile, perhaps sooner than most of

us think, they will join the ranks of the wiser women who are now

suffragists and who know that they want the vote and why they want

it."

Miss Frances Griffin (Ala.) kept the audience in a gale of laughter

from the first to the last of her speech, which began: "My address is

put down on the program as 'A Song or a Sermon.' It is going to be

neither, I have changed my mind. Mrs. Catt's address last night

furnished argument enough to lie three feet deep all over Louisiana

for three years."

The talented young lawyer, Miss Gail Laughlin (Me.), gave an address

entitled The Open Door, during which she said:

Suffrage is not the ultimate end but it is the golden door of

opportunity. Through the open door of suffrage the mother may

follow her child and still guard him after he passes the

threshold of home, and through it she can extend a helping hand

to mothers whose children toil in the mills of Alabama, the

factories of the eastern States and the sweat-shops of New York.

Through this door the protected women of the world may go out to

bind up the wounds of those who have fallen in the battle of

life.... The old-fashioned Chinese man thought his wife was not

beautiful unless she had little feet on which she could not walk.

Some of the young Chinese are learning that it is pleasanter for

a man to have a wife who can walk by his side. Formerly men

thought it desirable that a woman's mind should be cramped. The

modern man is beginning to find that it is more satisfactory to

have for a wife a woman whose mind can keep pace with his.... It

is more womanly and dignified for women to sit in legislative

halls than to stand around the lobbies.... This exclusion of

woman from the government today is a relic of the dark ages when

they were regarded as appendages to men and it was even doubted

if they had a soul. Men and women must rise or fall together and

travel the pathway of life side by side. We shall not attain to

the heights of freedom unless we have free mothers as well as

free fathers, free daughters as well as free sons.

One of the notable addresses of the convention was that of the eminent

physician, Dr. Henry Dixon Bruns--a lifelong advocate of woman

suffrage--on Liberty, Male and Female, a part of which was as follows:

I can conceive of but one watchword for a free people. It is

written between the lines of our own constitution and underlies

the institutions of every liberal government: "Equal rights and

opportunities for all; special privileges to none," understanding

by this that the Government shall protect all in the enjoyment of

their natural rights--life, liberty and the pursuit of

happiness--and that all who measure up to a certain standard

shall have a voice in shaping the policy and choosing the agents

of the government under which they live. I can imagine none

better than that now accepted by a majority, I believe, of the

American people, namely, evidence of intelligence and the

possession of a certain degree of education and of character

evidenced by the acquirement of a modicum of property and the

payment of a minimum tax. It was for regulation of the full

suffrage in this manner that I contended in our constitutional

convention of 1898, to wit: the admission to the franchise of all

women possessing these qualifications. I still believe that this

would have afforded the best solution of our peculiar

difficulties and have spared us the un-American subterfuge of

"mother tongue" and "grandfather" clause. If a vote could have

been taken immediately after the notable address made by your

distinguished president before the convention, I feel confident

that women would have been admitted to the suffrage in this

State....

Keep ever in your mind that the professional politician is your

implacable enemy. To him an election is not a process for

ascertaining the will of the majority but a battle to be won by

any strategy whose maneuvers do not end within the walls of a

penitentiary. He knows that yours would be an uninfluenceable

vote, that you do not loaf on street corners or spend your time

in barrooms and he could not "get at" you; therefore he will

never consent to your enfranchisement until compelled by the

gathering force of public opinion; then, as usual, he will

probably undergo a sudden change of heart and be found in the

forefront of your line of battle.... Do not rely upon wise and

eloquent appeals to Legislatures and conventions. It is in the

campaigns for the election of the legislative bodies that you

should marshal your forces and use to the full the all-sufficient

influence with which your antagonists credit you. Secure the

election of men who do not give up to party all that was meant

for mankind and your pleas are not so likely to be heard in vain.

The nomination and election of officers, both by secret ballot, were

almost unanimous and no change was made. A cordial letter was received

from Miss Clara Barton. Fraternal greetings from the Baltimore Yearly

Meeting of Friends (Quakers) were given by Mrs. Mary Bentley Thomas

(Md.); from the Supreme Hive of the Ladies of the Maccabees, the

largest business organization of women in the world, by Mrs. Emma S.

Olds, (O.); and from the Central Socialist Club of Indiana. The report

from the Friends' Equal Rights Association, an affiliated society, was

made by its president, Mrs. Mariana W. Chapman (N. Y.). In the report

for New York by its president, Mrs. Ella Hawley Crosset, she called

attention to the completion of the Fourth Volume of the History of

Woman Suffrage by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Ida Husted Harper. During the

convention word was received that the Territorial Legislature of

Arizona had given full suffrage to women but before they had time to

rejoice a second telegram announced that the Governor had vetoed it!

The resolutions presented by Mr. Blackwell, chairman of the committee,

and adopted, rejoiced over the extension of national suffrage to all

the women of the newly federated Australian States; noted the granting

to Kansas women of the right to vote on issuing bonds for public

improvement and of an equal guardianship law in Massachusetts;

protested against "the recent action of the Cincinnati board of health

in introducing without legal warrant the European system of

sanctioning the social evil ... the object of a strong and growing

opposition wherever it prevails and favored the settlement of all

national and international controversies by arbitration and

disapproved of war as a relic of barbarism." Mrs. May Wright Sewall

(Ind.), president of the International Council of Women, who had come

to New Orleans to attend the executive meeting of the National Council

of the United States, as chairman of the International Committee on

Peace and Arbitration, spoke earnestly in favor of this resolution.

Miss Nettie Lovisa White (D. C.) was appointed a delegate to represent

the association at the Council meeting.

The Saturday evening public session, with Mrs. Catt presiding, was

opened with prayer by the Rev. R. Wilkinson, in which he said:

"Almighty God, Thou hast always been pleased with consecration. We

pray Thee to look down upon these people gathered here--the women

whose lives have been devoted to a great cause. Send forth Thy light

so that they may achieve still more for Thee. In this work, men and

women, animated with a noble purpose, are combining their forces to

bring about the reign of righteousness and when that comes it will

take all that both can do to eradicate the great evils which men have

already wrought.... God bless this organization and may the

realization of its hopes be not far off! God bless the women engaged

in this work! God knows that if this city has in any way been lifted

up, it has been through the efforts of noble women. God bless them! We

want to feel that men and women are actuated by righteousness and are

working together to bring about its social and political

regeneration."

Dr. Cora Smith Eaton (Minn.) thus began her address, Westward Ho: "The

geologists tell us that Louisiana and her sister State Mississippi are

built up of the particles of earth brought down by the great river

through the Mississippi valley," and after a picturesque description

she said: "Coming from the source of this river, travelling 1,500

miles to its mouth, I find myself still on my native soil and I feel

at home; so all who have joined me on the way down the valley claim

kinship with you of New Orleans." She then paid tribute to the State

and its people and closed: "O, men of the South, your saviour is the

southern woman! Put into her hand the ballot of full enfranchisement,

like that you carry in your own hand on election day. Her interests

are identical with your own and she will hold your ideals sacred even

more loyally than you do yourselves." Mr. Blackwell gave one of his

customary logical and carefully reasoned addresses on Domestic

Imperialism.

The Rev. Marie Jenney (Iowa) discussed the question Why Women do Not

Vote. She compared them to some wild ducks that were born in a

farmyard and as they were stepping timidly about the farmer said:

"Them ducks can fly, they can fly miles, but they don't know it." "One

reason why women do not vote," she said, "is the entire

self-effacement of many, and another is the kindness of many men.

These are lovely traits but they may be misapplied. Women sometimes

efface themselves to an extent that is bad for their men as well as

themselves, and men out of mistaken kindness shield their women from

responsibilities that it would be better for them to have." Mrs.

Virginia D. Young (S. C.), owner, manager and editor of a weekly paper

in Fairfax, announced her speech From the Most Conservative State, but

she did not say, as she might have done, that she had leavened the

State with woman suffrage sentiment. Her address was bubbling over

with the humor which seems inherent with Southern women.

The Sunday services were held at 4 o'clock in the Athenaeum, which was

crowded. The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw gave the sermon from the text:

"Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." The Rev.

Kate Hughes and the Rev. Marie Jenney assisted in the services. That

morning the latter had preached in the Unitarian church and Mr. and

Miss Blackwell had spoken in the handsome Temple Sinai to a cultured

Jewish audience by invitation of Rabbi Max Heller. A fine musical

service was arranged by Cantor Julius Braunfels. The next day they

received from the Council of Jewish Women a large bouquet of bride

roses and red carnations. Miss Blackwell spoke on A Righteous Reform

and Mr. Blackwell on A Modern Deborah. He paid a splendid tribute to

the Jewish race and declared that "the Hebrew history as recorded in

the Old Testament has been the principal source of our nobler

conception of woman's nature and destiny." He spoke of the prophetess

Miriam, of the daughters of Zelophehad, described the great work of

Deborah and said: "If, therefore, Divine Providence, for the guidance

of mankind, selected a married woman to be the supreme judge, the

supreme executive, the commander-in-chief of the army; to lead the

chosen people in war and peace, to rescue the nation from enslavement

and to rule over it in peace and prosperity for forty years, may we

not hope that He will raise up in your race modern Deborahs to

cooperate with the men of their race in the redemption of American

democracy from political corruption and misrule?"

The interest did not diminish during the eight evening sessions. In

his invocation Monday night the Rev. Wallace T. Palmer said: "O Lord,

we account it a high honor and privilege to take part in this grand

work.... May those who are to speak tonight speak for Thy glory and

honor."[26] Dr. Shaw presided Monday and thus introduced the first

speaker: "Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago is an attorney and

the wife of an attorney. The sign on the door is 'McCulloch and

McCulloch.' My interest in the firm dates from the time when I

performed the ceremony that united them for life." Mrs. McCulloch

began her address on Woman's Privileges by saying: "One of the

principal reasons why women do not obtain the ballot is because there

is rooted in the popular mind the notion that now the laws in all

respects are so favorable to women and grant them such great

privileges that they would gain nothing more by a vote but instead

might lose these privileges. A careful investigation of laws relating

to women's property, earnings, rights of action, eligibility to paying

positions, selection of family home, guardianship of children and many

others where women's interests are involved shows that these so-called

privileges usually give women less than men enjoy in the same States

and that the vote in their own hands is the only assurance of equal

privilege." After referring to the laws in other States Mrs. McCulloch

made a thorough analysis of those relating to women in Louisiana,

showing them to be archaic and unjust and wholly without special

privileges.

The address of M. J. Sanders, president of the Progressive Union, was

enthusiastically received as representing the best thought of advanced

Southern men. He said in beginning: "I believe my own state of mind on

the woman suffrage question when I attended your first public meeting

last Thursday evening represented fairly the average male opinion in

this city--one of moderate ignorance and considerable indifference.

Since listening to the addresses here I have had my ignorance largely

dispelled and my indifference dissipated, I hope forever. It has been

my lot to attend meetings all over the country but never in my life

have I heard such eloquence, such logic and such glorious oratory as

in this hall during this convention. A cause that can bring forth

such talent and devotion must have in it a great truth.... I have come

now to see that the franchise is not an end but a means to an end;

that the object of these women is not merely to escape injustice done

to themselves but to be able to take part in the great work of reform

which is calling for the best energies of the nation. I have seen

sufficient of the women who are working in this fight for suffrage to

believe that hand-in-hand with earnest men, as co-workers and equals,

in no way subordinate, they can furnish brains and power to remove a

vast load of the iniquities and inequalities of life and even in our

generation lift this country to a plane of civilization wherein the

masses shall have a chance for happiness and freedom."

In explaining the absence of Dr. Julia Holmes Smith of Chicago Dr.

Shaw said: "She is detained because of illness of her husband and like

a good wife she puts him first and the convention second." Mrs.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (N. Y.) spoke on the Duties of Today,

outlining her address by saying: "The strongest feeling of most women

is the sense of duty. The reason they do not see the practicability

and immediate need of suffrage is because they do not see the duty of

it. There is a gradual development of the sense of duty. The first

duty that we recognize is that of self-preservation--our duty to

ourselves. Then comes duty to our own, to our family, to those dear to

us, before which duty to self must and does go down unfailingly. These

two duties to one's self and to one's family are the foundation but

they are the beginning of life, not the end of it. Next comes social

duty.... In America we rank high in personal and family virtues but

not in public virtues. Our great need is for the deep and broad civic

virtues...."

An interesting symposium took place one afternoon on The Need of Women

in Municipal Politics, with the following speakers: Mrs. Marie Louise

Graham (La.), City Politics is but a Broader Housekeeping; Mrs. Carrie

E. Kent (D. C.), The Home--the Ballot the Only Weapon for its Defence;

the Rev. Kate Hughes (Ill.), Justice Dictates, Expediency Confirms;

Dr. Sarah M. Siewers (O.), Men's and Women's Votes the Only True Basis

of Reform; Miss Laura E. Gregg (Kans.), The Stepping Stone to a Yet

Untried System of Government; Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg (Penn.),

Municipal Corruption under the Present System a National Disgrace.

Each topic was treated in a keen, incisive manner. Miss Gregg

described the practical benefit that the women's municipal vote had

been to Kansas. Dr. Siewers gave a dramatic illustration of the need

of women's votes in her own city of Cincinnati, which applied with

equal force to all cities. Mrs. Blankenburg emphasized all that had

been said by an account of conditions in Philadelphia, saying:

Franchises worth millions of dollars are given away to the

faithful. Contracts are let to those who will divide with high

officials; they are granted to the highest "responsive" and not

to the lowest "responsible" bidder. Merchants of vice are

licensed and protected. The police are ordered to be blind when

they should see keenest. Nearly every office has its price. Even

school teachers are blackmailed and forced to pay for their

appointment and civil service fades before political influence.

The assessors' lists are padded by tens of thousands of dollars

and majorities are returned to keep the "machine" and the party

it represents in power, regardless of the actual vote cast....

The cry of the reformer is, "We must waken the better element to

save our cities. We must make honesty and morality the supreme

question in our politics." Who represents these if not women?...

Let us for the moment think of a great city where the mothers

have a voice in the laws which are designed to protect the

children and the interests of the home. Imagine the burdens of

city housekeeping being shared with the women who by training are

expert housekeepers. Picture a council meeting composed of

fathers and mothers discussing ordinances to promote honesty and

virtue, prevent vice and extinguish corruption. When this time

comes, we shall have less municipal depravity and shall prove to

the world that our experiment in democracy is not a failure.

Dr. Augusta Stowe-Gullen, a prominent physician of Toronto and an

early suffragist, who had come as a fraternal delegate from the

Canadian Association, spoke of the excellent results of the School and

Municipal vote in the hands of women. "We have better officials," she

said, "and therefore less dishonesty but the greatest gain has been in

the educative and broadening effect on women and men. The polls, which

used to be even in old stables, are now in the school houses and the

general tone of elections has been improved." Later Dr. Stowe-Gullen

gave a long and thoughtful address at an evening session on The

Evolution of Government.

The Memorial Service on March 21 was opened with prayer by the Rev.

Marie Jenney and the singing of "The Lord is my shepherd," by Miss

Gordon. Mrs. Catt, who presided, paid eloquent tribute to those who

had died during the year, among them Mrs. Esther Morris, to whom the

women of Wyoming were principally indebted for the suffrage in 1869;

to the Hon. Thomas B. Reed of Maine, one of the most distinguished

Speakers of the lower House of Congress and always a staunch supporter

of woman suffrage; to Madame Sophie Levovna Friedland, delegate from

Russia to the International Woman Suffrage Conference the preceding

year, who died soon after returning home; to Dr. Hannah Longshore, the

first woman physician in Philadelphia, and told of the bitter

opposition she had to overcome, adding: "She gave to the Pennsylvania

Association its splendid president, her daughter, Mrs. Blankenburg."

Mrs. Catt spoke also of Mrs. Cornelia Collins Hussey of New Jersey and

her boundless generosity, saying: "Often and often she sent a hundred

dollars to our treasury with a note: 'I have just sold a piece of real

estate and I want to give a part of the proceeds to the suffrage

cause.'" Miss Blackwell added to the tribute: "A quiet woman of Quaker

blood, never seeking office or prominence, she came to the relief of

our distressed officers on innumerable occasions. She once told me

that there were many who could write and speak for equal suffrage but

that the Lord seemed to have given her only one talent, that of making

money, and she meant to use it for the cause.... She was a great

believer in preaching the gospel of reform through the printed page

and she and her daughter, Dr. Mary D. Hussey, who was like-minded with

her, have sent out probably more equal suffrage literature than any

other two women in the United States. She placed the _Woman's Journal_

in a great number of college reading-rooms and sent it far and wide.

During the thirty-three years that the paper has been published--and

published always at a financial loss--she has been one of its most

steadfast and generous friends."[27]

"The palm of victory has come this year to Elizabeth Cady Stanton,"

said Mrs. Catt, "but though she has gone it is still our privilege to

have her friend and co-worker, Susan B. Anthony, and I echo the

prayer of every heart that she may be here till all women are

enfranchised." Miss Anthony was most affectionately greeted and said:

"I feel indeed as if a part of my life had gone. Mrs. Stanton always

said that when the parting came she wanted me to go first, so that she

might write my eulogy. I am not a 'word-artist,' as she was, and I can

not give hers in fitting terms." She read from the last volume of the

History of Woman Suffrage extracts from her great speeches and related

a number of instances showing her characteristics. Dr. Shaw then began

a eulogy, which can only be marred in quoting from memory, by saying:

"Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony and Lucy Stone held up the standard of

truth and when they were urged to lower it in order to suit the ideas

of the world they answered: 'We will not lower our standard to the

level of your world; bring the world up to the standard.' ... I shall

always be thankful that I lived in the present age and knew these

women who never quailed in the face of danger. The side of Mrs.

Stanton that I like best to think of is her home life, her family

affections and her friendships. I was once a guest for several days in

the same house with her and other leaders and she was so vivacious, so

fresh, so full of joy of life that it was delightful to be with her.

She was so witty that no one wanted to leave the room a minute for

fear of losing something she might say. I used to love to see her

after she took a nap; though so advanced in years she would always

awaken with a look of wonder and pleasure like a child just gazing out

upon life."[28]

Tributes also were paid to Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer of Massachusetts;

Mrs. Thomas M. Patterson of Colorado; the Hon. Albert H. Horton of

Kansas; Mrs. Addie M. Johnson of Missouri; Miss Anna C. Mott of Ohio;

the Hon. Lester H. Humphrey and Mrs. Hannah L. Howland of New York;

Dr. Marie Zakrzewska of Massachusetts and other workers in the cause.

Mrs. Gilman closed the services by reading her beautiful memorial

poem, In Honor, written for the occasion.

A unique feature of the convention which lightened its serious tone

was Dr. Shaw's "question box," into which any one might drop a

question and at intervals she would take them out and answer them on

the spur of the moment to the delight of her audience. "If women

voted," was one of them, "would they not have to sit on juries?" "Many

women would be glad of a chance to sit on anything," she answered with

a smile. "There are women who stand up and wash six days in the week

at 75 cents a day who would like to take a vacation and sit on a jury

at $1.50. Some women would like to sit on a jury at the trial of the

sharks that live by corrupting boys and girls. It would be easier for

a woman to sit on a jury and send to the penitentiary the men who are

trying to ruin her boy than to be always watching the boy." Another

question was: "Have not men a better right to the suffrage because

they have to support the family?" She answered: "It is fallacy to say

that the men support the women. The men by their industry provide the

raw material and the women by their industry turn it into clothing and

nourishment. When my father sent home a barrel of flour my mother did

not lead us eight youngsters up to that barrel of raw flour at

mealtime and say, 'Children, here is your dinner.' When he bought a

bolt of cloth she did not take that bolt of cloth and wind it around

us and say, 'Children, here are the clothes your father has sent you.'

The woman has always done her full share of supporting the family. In

the South under the old regime she bore more than an equal part of the

care, for the planter could hire an overseer for the plantation work

but the wife could not hire one for the work of the house."

Notwithstanding the utmost care and tact on the part of those who had

the convention in charge the "color question" kept cropping out.

Finally Dr. Shaw said: "Here is a query that has been dropped in the

box again and again and now I am asked if I am afraid to answer it:

'Will not woman suffrage make the black woman the political equal of

the white woman and does not political equality mean social equality?'

If it does then the men by keeping both white and black women

disfranchised have already established social equality!" The question

was not asked again.

One of the able addresses during the convention was that of Mrs. Hala

Hammond Butt, president of the Mississippi Suffrage Association,

entitled, Restricted Suffrage from a Southern Point of View. After

referring to the man's all-mastering desire for liberty from the early

history of the race the speaker said: "Did women not share with men

this craving for freedom, then would they justly be reckoned as

unnatural and unworthy members of the human family, but the same red

blood pulses in our veins as in yours, fathers, sons, brothers; we are

alive to the same impulses, our souls are kindled by the same

aspirations as are yours. Why should this, our ambition, be held in

leash by the same bond that holds the ignorant, the illiterate, the

vicious, the irresponsible in the human economy? What does the idea of

government imply? The crystallized sentiments of an intelligent

people? Then do we meet it with but half a truth."

The speaker denounced with much severity the 14th and 15th Amendments

and said that by the restrictive educational qualifications now so

generally adopted in the southern States the spirit of the amendments

had been practically set at naught. "It was born of the instinct of

self-preservation," she said, but she deplored the political crimes it

made possible and continued: "There is an undercurrent of thought that

recognizes in its true proportions the value of an educated suffrage

to the South, a restriction based not upon color, race or previous

condition of servitude, not upon sex, not upon the question of taxable

property, but its sole requirement is the ability to perform worthily

the functions of citizenship. This is the only honorable solution of

those questions that are vexing not only the body political but the

body social of this Southern country."

Mrs. Butt's speech was one of a symposium on the question: Would an

educational qualification for all voters tend to the growth of

civilization and facilitate good government? Mrs. Hackstaff discussed

The Relation which Government Bears to Civilization, saying: "The

government which will increase social and individual development most

is the best. Progress depends on whether the government will give the

opportunity for such development. The one that serves the people best

is the one that strengthens them by letting them take part in it."

Mrs. Eleanor C. Stockman (Iowa) spoke strongly on Suffrage a Human

Right, not a Privilege; Mrs. Clara B. Arthur (Mich.) on A

Disfranchised Class a Menace to Self Government; Mrs. Mary Wood Swift

(Calif.) on Abolishment of Illiteracy, Its Ultimate Influence. After

calling attention to "the mass of ignorant immigrants who almost go

from the steerage to the polls"; to the enfranchisement of the

half-civilized Indian; to that of paupers, delinquents and defectives,

she said:

All this great mass of ignorance goes into the electoral hopper

and the marvel is that no worse quality of grist is turned out.

It is true that the chief political schemers are by no means

illiterate but it is upon illiteracy in the mass that they must

depend to carry out their plans. An ignorant voter may be an

honest one but unless he is intelligent enough to study public

questions for himself he is an easy prey for the political

sharper. It is beyond the power of the pen to portray what a

magnificent government would be possible with an educated

electorate. The idea can be approximated only when we consider

how much we have been able to accomplish even with all the

inefficiency, vice and ignorance which are permitted to express

their will at the polls.

It is because we have a noble ideal for the future of our

government that we make our demand for woman suffrage. We point

to the official statistics for proof that there are more white

women in the United States than colored men and women together;

that there are more American-born women than foreign-born men and

women combined; that women form only one-eleventh of the

criminals in the jails and penitentiaries; that they compose more

than two-thirds of the church membership, and that the percentage

of illiteracy is very much less among women than among men.

Therefore we urge that this large proportion of patriotism,

temperance, morality, religion and intelligence may be allowed to

impress itself upon the government through the medium of the

ballot-box.

Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer substituted for her own address on Universal

Suffrage a Pretence a paper sent by Rudolph Blankenburg, one of

Philadelphia's most distinguished citizens, entitled: Not Sex but

Intelligence, in which he said:

That universal suffrage--an arrant misnomer--has fallen short of

its well-meant original purpose is beyond dispute. We see its

baneful effect in municipal, State and national government. The

unparalleled political corruption in most of our large cities,

the narrowness of public men in State and nation, whose horizon

is bounded by the limits of their home districts or their own

sordid purposes, regardless of public interests, find their

culmination in the highest legislative body of our land. They

crowd seats of mental giants and honored statesmen of former days

with golden pigmies or political highwaymen of recent growth and

can be directly traced to our defective franchise system. It

permits the vote of the intelligent, law-abiding, industrious

and public-spirited to be overcome by that of the ignorant,

vicious, purchasable, lazy and indifferent. The ranks of the

latter are largely reinforced by the "stay-at-homes," who are a

permanent menace to good government.... Thinking people agree

that some qualification should be exacted from all voters. The

absurdity of the intelligent, tax paying but disfranchised woman

being governed by the vote of the illiterate, shiftless loafer or

pauper would be laughable were it not so serious. An educational

qualification should be a paramount requisite....

Mr. Blankenburg gave statistics of the illiterates in the United

States and said: "An educational qualification, wisely considered,

would within a few years entirely obliterate the whole mass of this

species of undesirable voters. The right of suffrage can not and

should not be taken from those who at present legally enjoy it. All

women of legal age with the proposed educational requirements should

be enfranchised without delay but laws should be enacted demanding

that all citizens, men and women alike, presenting themselves to cast

their ballot after 1910 must be able to read and write. If the women

suffragists will base their claim to vote upon the broad ground of

good government and not demand suffrage for the ignorant woman because

it is exercised by the ignorant man, they will make ten friends where

they now have one."

The audience had the northern and the southern point of view on

Educated Suffrage. Mrs. Gilman, who spoke on whether it would serve

the best interests of the laboring classes, was alone in objecting to

it. "Will exclusion from the suffrage educate and improve the

illiterate masses more quickly than the use of it?" she asked. "We

shall educate them sooner if we dread their votes and this is our work

in common." A great deal of sentiment was developed in favor of an

educational requirement for the suffrage and an informal rising vote

showed only five opposed, but most of the officers were absent. This

vote was due largely to the southern delegates and to the arguments

which had been made for its necessity in this section of the country.

The policy of the association had always been and continued to be to

ask and work only for the removal of the sex qualification.

One of the most popular speakers was Mrs. Elizabeth M. Gilmer, known

far and wide as "Dorothy Dix," whose home was in New Orleans. Her

address, quaintly entitled The Woman with the Broom, filled more than

four columns of the _Woman's Journal_ and an adequate idea of its wise

philosophy illuminated with the sparkling wit for which she was

renowned cannot be conveyed by quotations. "A few years ago," she

said, "a famous poet roused the compassion of the world by portraying

the tragedy of hopeless toil by the Man with the Hoe. He might have

found nearer home a better illustration of the work that is never

done, that has no inspiration to lighten it and looks for no

appreciation to glorify it, in the Woman with a Broom." "She is

understudy to a perpetual motion machine," was one of her epigrams.

She referred to the many successful business and professional women at

the convention and said:

But I am not here to speak for the wage-earning woman, she can

speak for herself. My plea is not for justice for her but for the

domestic woman--the woman who is the mainstay of the world, who

is back of every great enterprise and who makes possible the

achievements of men--the woman behind the broom, who is the

hardest-worked and worst-paid laborer on the face of the

earth....

Of the housekeeper we demand a universal genius. We don't expect

that our doctor shall be a good lawyer or our lawyer understand

medicine; we don't expect a preacher to know about stocks or a

stockbroker to have a soul; but we think the woman who is at the

head of a family is a rank failure unless she is a pretty good

doctor and trained nurse and dressmaker and financier. She must

be able to settle disputes among the children with the inflexible

impartiality of a Supreme Justice; she must be a Spurgeon in

expounding the Bible to simple souls and leading them to heaven;

she must be a greater surgeon than Dr. Lorenz, for she must know

how to kiss a hurt and make it well; she must be a Russell Sage

in petticoats, who can make $1 do the work of $2, and when she

gets through combining all of these nerve-wrecking professions we

don't think that she has done a thing but enjoy herself. It is

only when something happens to the housekeeper we realize that

she is the kingpin who holds the universe together.

"Every injustice is the prolific mother of wrongs," said Mrs. Gilmer,

"and the fact that the woman with the broom is neither sufficiently

appreciated nor decently paid brings its own train of evils. It is at

the bottom of the distaste girls have for domestic pursuits and the

frantic mania of women for seeking some kind of a 'career.'" She thus

concluded:

Always, always it is the frantic cry for financial independence,

the demand of the worker for her wage; the futile, bitter protest

of the woman with the broom against the injustice of taking her

work without pay. Men will say that in supporting their wives, in

furnishing them with houses and food and clothes, they are giving

the women as much money as they could ever hope to earn by any

other profession. I grant it; but between the independent

wage-earner and the one who is given his keep for his services is

the difference between the free-born and the chattel.... The

present state of affairs brings about a disastrous condition in

the woman's world of labor, so that the woman wage-earner must

not only compete with the man worker but with the domestic woman

who has her home and clothes supplied her and who does things on

the side in order to get a little money that she may spend as she

pleases.... When men grow just enough to abandon the idea that

keeping house and doing the family sewing and rearing children is

a "snap" and not a profession; when they grow broad enough to

realize that the woman with the broom is a laborer just as much

worthy of her hire as a typewriter, we shall have fewer women

yearning to go out into the world and earn a few dollars of

spending money.

Edwin Merrick, the son of a Chief Justice of Louisiana and Mrs.

Caroline E. Merrick, its pioneer suffragist, began his address on A

Political Anomaly by referring to the distinguished women he had been

privileged to meet in his home. He spoke of the constitution drawn up

on the Mayflower to give equal liberty to all without the slightest

conception of what true liberty really meant, and of the larger

conception of it which was imbedded in the Declaration of Independence

and the Constitution of the United States. "But," he said, "while the

words were there, slavery still existed and the people of the Union

were slowly led to see the handwriting on the wall and slavery had to

go. Had the great leader of his day, Abraham Lincoln, been preserved

to help shape the destinies of this country, what followed would not

have happened." He then spoke of the crime of enfranchising "a horde

of ignorant negro men when at that time there were nearly 4,000,000

intelligent white women keenly alive to the interests of their country

to whom the ballot was denied." He sketched the steady degeneration of

national and State politics and exposed the conditions in Louisiana.

He showed how the reforms that had been accomplished had been largely

aided by women and concluded:

If we concede that women have any moral strength, and it has been

conceded from the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to

the contrary, I now ask the question: Is there any one place in

the universe where moral strength and moral character are more

needed than in modern politics under a republican form of

government? In some of our western States we have already seen

what the women can do and the day will come when they will vote

with us just as they read with us, talk with us, ride with us and

consult with us. The most important object of our Government is

education. The most important part of education is the education

of the young. The most important factor in education of the young

is woman's influence, and when it comes to saying who shall

decide upon the proper laws for the education of children, the

women of Louisiana or the intelligent wiseacres who have in this

State emasculated civil service, massacred the Australian ballot

and assaulted with intent to kill each and every measure which

looks to the improvement of the State, we give our answer in no

uncertain terms.

Miss Mary N. Chase, president of the New Hampshire Suffrage

Association, made an earnest plea for the enfranchisement of women,

"the natural guardians and protectors of the home. It will strengthen

their minds and broaden their intellects and render them more fit for

its government," she said, "and until women join with men in

exercising the sacred right of the franchise we cannot hope for the

dawn of the kingdom of God on the earth." A letter was read from Mrs.

Harriot Stanton Blatch urging that for a year the organization should

be used nationally and locally to pursue and punish political

corruption. "The women in our association," she said, "are trained to

political action; we have had long experience in self-control; defeat

has taught us its lessons of poise; devotion to a great principle has

given us a faith almost religious in its optimism." The men were

taking no concerted action to protect the republic against this

menace, she thought, and the task seemed to be left to the women.

The formal address of Dr. Shaw on The Modern Democratic Ideal made a

profound impression but no record of it exists except in newspaper

clippings. She began by saying: "It is impossible to discuss the woman

question without discussing also the man question. What is fundamental

to one is fundamental to the other. It is argued by some that on

account of the difference in characteristics between men and women it

is the man who ought to govern. They are mistaken. It is now

recognized that the best and noblest men and women are those in whom

the different characteristics of each sex are most harmoniously

blended. The modern democratic ideal illustrates this fact. It is

greatly different from the ancient democratic ideal, as neither Plato

nor Aristotle nor Dante had a place in their ideals for the common

people, but when the French Revolution startled the world with the

idea of human rights, of natural rights common to all, there sprang

into life the conception of the same ideal among the men of our own

country." Dr. Shaw traced the progress of democratic ideals in this

country from the early days of the republic when property and not

manhood constituted the prerequisite for representation. She spoke in

glowing terms of the pure democracy of Thomas Jefferson, who extended

its privileges to the great masses of the people. "This ideal has been

growing," she said, "it will never stop growing, developing, widening

and changing and it must ultimately extend to women citizens the same

rights in the government that men have. This is the 20th century idea

of democracy."

The address of Miss Belle Kearney, Mississippi's famous orator, was a

leading feature of the last evening's program--The South and Woman

Suffrage. It began with a comprehensive review of the part the South

had had in the development of the nation from its earliest days.

"During the seventy-one years reaching from Washington's

administration to that of Lincoln," she said, "the United States was

practically under the domination of southern thought and leadership."

She showed the record southern leaders had made in the wars; she

traced the progress of slavery, which began alike in the North and

South but proved unnecessary in the former, and told of the enormous

struggle for white supremacy which had been placed on the South by the

enfranchisement of the negro. "The present suffrage laws in the

southern States are only temporary measures for protection," she said.

"The enfranchisement of women will have to be effected and an

educational and property qualification for the ballot be made to apply

without discrimination to both sexes and both races." The address

closed as follows:

The enfranchisement of women would insure immediate and durable

white supremacy, honestly attained, for upon unquestioned

authority it is stated that in every southern State but one there

are more educated women than all the illiterate voters, white

and black, native and foreign, combined. As you probably know, of

all the women in the South who can read and write, ten out of

every eleven are white. When it comes to the proportion of

property between the races, that of the white outweighs that of

the black immeasurably. The South is slow to grasp the great fact

that the enfranchisement of women would settle the race question

in politics. The civilization of the North is threatened by the

influx of foreigners with their imported customs; by the greed of

monopolistic wealth and the unrest among the working classes; by

the strength of the liquor traffic and encroachments upon

religious belief. Some day the North will be compelled to look to

the South for redemption from those evils on account of the

purity of its Anglo-Saxon blood, the simplicity of its social and

economic structure, the great advance in prohibitory law and the

maintenance of the sanctity of its faith, which has been kept

inviolate. Just as surely as the North will be forced to turn to

the South for the nation's salvation, just so surely will the

South be compelled to look to its Anglo-Saxon women as the medium

through which to retain the supremacy of the white race over the

African.

Miss Kearney's speech was enthusiastically received and at its end

Mrs. Catt said she had been getting many letters from persons

hesitating to join the association lest it should admit clubs of

colored people. "We recognize States' rights," she said, "and

Louisiana has the right to regulate the membership of its own

association, but it has not the right to regulate that of

Massachusetts or vice versa," and she continued: "We are all of us apt

to be arrogant on the score of our Anglo-Saxon blood but we must

remember that ages ago the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons were regarded

as so low and embruted that the Romans refused to have them for

slaves. The Anglo-Saxon is the dominant race today but things may

change. The race that will be dominant through the ages will be the

one that proves itself the most worthy.... Miss Kearney is right in

saying that the race problem is the problem of the whole country and

not that of the South alone. The responsibility for it is partly ours

but if the North shipped slaves to the South and sold them, remember

that the North has sent some money since then into the South to help

undo part of the wrong that it did to you and to them. Let us try to

get nearer together and to understand each other's ideas on the race

question and solve it together."

Mrs. Maud Wood Park (Mass.), who was introduced to the audience as "a

very unpopular woman with the anti-suffragists," did not prove to be

so with her audience, as in her brief address she charmed every one

with her beauty and womanliness and convinced by her delicate wit and

keen logic. The last address was made by the Rev. Ida C. Hultin

(Mass.), an eloquent summing up of the arguments for woman suffrage,

given with a dignity of manner and sweetness of words which thoroughly

eliminated any unpleasant feelings that might have been created and

diffused a spirit of forgiveness and consecration.

At the conclusion of the program, Mrs. Upton came forward and in the

name of the officers of the association presented to Miss Kate Gordon

a handsome loving cup with the injunction to "handle it carefully as

it is filled to the brim with love"; and to Miss Jean Gordon a large

bouquet of roses, "in appreciation of the perfect arrangements that

had been made for the convention." The _Picayune_ said: "The two

sisters stood side by side on the stage, a picture of feminine

loveliness and grace. They tried to speak but their hearts were too

full and Miss Kate could only express in a few words their thanks for

these tokens of affection and esteem."

All the expenses of the convention had been met by the citizens and

the collections had more than paid the travelling expenses of the

officers. Nothing had been left undone for the entertainment of the

visitors. The New Orleans Street Railway Company gave a trip of

several hours in special cars, taking them to Audubon Park and

Horticultural Hall, through the handsome residence sections, to the

Esplanade, City Park and famous cemeteries. They visited the Howard

and Fisk libraries, the Southern Yacht Club, the Exposition and the

antiquarian shops. An unusual experience was the boat trip on the

Mississippi, tendered by the Progressive Union. On a fine sunshiny

morning the several hundred visitors assembled in the palm garden of

the St. Charles Hotel, walked to the rooms of the Union and from there

to the steamer Alice. They crossed to Algiers, passed the French

quarter with the Ursuline Convent, the Stuyvesant Docks, the historic

houses and monuments, and saw the great Naval Docks, the large sugar

plantations with their big live oaks and magnolias, the immense sugar

and oil refineries and met a fleet of huge ocean steamers. Lunch was

served on board and the occasion was most interesting, especially to

the delegates from the North.

Although this was the longest suffrage convention ever held and the

sessions were crowded, the people wanted more. The Progressive Union

arranged for meetings Thursday night, to be addressed by Mrs. Catt on

The Home and the Municipality, and Friday night by Dr. Shaw on The

Fate of Republics. The Athenaeum Hall, seating 1,200, was overflowing

and as many were gathered on the outside. It was a ten days never to

be forgotten by the visitors or the residents, and the convention

undoubtedly gave a decided impetus to favorable sentiment for woman

suffrage in that section of the South.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Part of Call: The association goes to New Orleans in response to

an invitation from the Progressive Union, the Era Club of women and

many prominent individuals. It is especially appropriate that the

advocates of this important reform should assemble in Louisiana in

honor of the action taken by this State in 1898, when its

constitutional convention incorporated a clause giving to tax-paying

women a vote on all questions of taxation submitted to the electors;

and in commemoration of the splendid use they made of this privilege

at the election held to secure to New Orleans the completion of its

drainage and the establishment of a sewerage system and free water

supply....

Never in the fifty years of this movement have its advocates had such

a victory to record as was achieved in Australia in June, 1902, when

almost the first act of Parliament of the new Federation of States was

to confer the full national suffrage with the right to a seat in the

Parliament on all qualified women of the entire commonwealth. This one

act enfranchised about 800,000. These added to those of New Zealand

and of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho, it will be found that

1,125,000 English-speaking women are at the present time in possession

of the complete suffrage and all except those of Wyoming have been

enfranchised within the past ten years. By adding to these the women

of Great Britain and Ireland, who have all except the Parliamentary

vote, those of Kansas with Municipal, of Louisiana, Montana, and New

York with the Tax-payers' and of over one-half of the States with the

school ballot, the 1,125,000 will be multiplied several times....

It is, therefore, with courage and hope inspired by the glorious

promise of the new century for greater material and moral progress in

all directions than the world has ever known, that the advocates of

this measure, which ultimately will affect the destinies of the whole

American people, are called in convention to review the labor of the

past year, to plan that of the future, to strengthen the old

comradeship and greet new workers and friends.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Honorary President.

CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT, President.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, Vice-President-at-Large.

KATE M. GORDON, Corresponding Secretary.

ALICE STONE BLACKWELL, Recording Secretary.

HARRIET TAYLOR UPTON, Treasurer.

LAURA CLAY, }

MARY J. COGGESHALL, } Auditors.

[24] The colored women had some excellent organizations in New

Orleans, the most notable being the Phyllis Wheatley Club, which in

addition to its literary and social features maintained a training

school for nurses, a kindergarten and a night school. It invited Miss

Anthony, Miss Blackwell and Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller to address it

and they were accompanied by "Dorothy Dix," the well-known writer, a

New Orleans woman. In the large assemblage were some of the teachers

from the four colleges for colored students--Methodist,

Congregational, Baptist and the State. "Dorothy Dix" said in her brief

address that no woman in the city was more respected or had more

influence than Mrs. Sylvanie Williams, the club's president, and gave

several instances to illustrate it. After the addresses Mrs. Williams

presented Miss Anthony with a large bouquet tied with yellow satin

ribbon and said: "Flowers in their beauty and sweetness may represent

the womanhood of the world. Some flowers are fragile and delicate,

some strong and hardy, some are carefully guarded and cherished,

others are roughly treated and trodden under foot. These last are the

colored women. They have a crown of thorns continually pressed upon

their brow, yet they are advancing and sometimes you find them further

on than you would have expected. When women like you, Miss Anthony,

come to see us and speak to us it helps us to believe in the

Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, and at least for the

time being in the sympathy of woman."

[25] The important decision was made at this convention to remove the

headquarters on May 1 from New York to Warren, O., the home of the

national treasurer, Mrs. Upton. The burden of having charge of them

had borne heavily upon Mrs. Catt for the past three years and it grew

more difficult as each year she had to spend more time in field work.

Miss Gordon, the corresponding secretary, wished to remain in New

Orleans because of her mother's failing health and it was necessary to

have a national officer in charge. Mrs. Upton consented reluctantly to

assume the responsibility and only on the assurance of Miss Elizabeth

Hauser, a capable executive, that she would manage the details of the

office. The arrangement was to be temporary but it continued for six

years.

[26] Quotations are given from each of the opening prayers because

each of them endorsed woman suffrage.

[27] Mrs. Hussey left a bequest of $10,000 to the National American

Woman Suffrage Association.

[28] For appreciations of Mrs. Stanton see Appendix.

CHAPTER IV.

THE NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1904.

The Thirty-sixth annual convention opened the afternoon of Feb. 11,

1904, in National Rifles' Armory Hall, Washington, D. C., and closed

the evening of the 17th.[29] There was a good attendance of delegates

from thirty States and the audiences were large and appreciative. Mrs.

Carrie Chapman Catt, the president, was in the chair at the opening

session. The delegates were welcomed by Mrs. Carrie E. Kent in behalf

of the District Equal Suffrage Association and the response was made

by Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, vice-president-at-large, who began by saying:

"If the women here welcome us after we have been coming for thirty

years it must be because we deserve it; the men welcome us because in

the District they are in the same disfranchised condition as we are."

A cordial letter of greeting was read from Samuel Gompers, president

of the American Federation of Labor, whose headquarters were in

Washington.

Greetings were received from Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller of London,

whose letter commenced: "Beloved Friends: As president of the British

National Committee of the International Woman Suffrage Committee, I

write to send you greetings from English, Scotch, Irish and Welsh

fellow-workers in the woman's cause. It seems but a short time since

the convention of 1902, which I attended as the delegate appointed by

the British United Women's Suffrage Societies and also of the Scottish

National Society. The admiration and affection that the ability, the

earnestness and sincerity, the sisterliness and the sweetness of

temper and manners of the American suffragists then aroused in me, are

unabated at this moment." She told of the progress that had been made

by the various societies toward uniting in an International Woman

Suffrage Alliance, gave a glowing forecast of the ultimate triumph of

their common cause and ended: "With admiring and abiding love for

America's grand women, the suffrage leaders." The convention sent an

official answer. Mrs. Mary Bentley Thomas (Md.) read an interesting

paper, Our Four Friends, compiled from the answers by the Governors of

Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho to a letter from Miss Anthony asking

for a summary of the results of woman suffrage after a trial of from

eight to thirty-five years. A Declaration of Principles, which had

been prepared by Mrs. Catt, Dr. Shaw, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell and

Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, was read by Mrs. Harper and adopted by the

convention as expressing the sentiment of the association. [See

Appendix, chapter IV.] Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery (Penn.) and Dr. Shaw

were appointed delegates to the International Suffrage Conference at

Berlin in June in addition to the International Suffrage Committee

from the United States, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Lucretia L.

Blankenburg (Penn.), with three others yet to be selected.

In her report as corresponding secretary Miss Kate M. Gordon (La.)

told of the interest which the convention of the preceding year in New

Orleans had awakened in the South and of the generous donation of a

month of Dr. Shaw's valuable time which she had given to a Southern

tour. This included the State Agricultural, State Normal and State

Industrial Colleges of Louisiana and various places in Texas,

Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. "While it might be said

of her addresses, 'She came, she spoke, she conquered,'" declared

Miss Gordon, "it was clearly shown that the South was not ready for

organization." Miss Gordon said of attending the National Conference

of Charities and Corrections as a State delegate appointed by the

Governor of Louisiana: "I found that resolutions of endorsement were

contrary to the policy of the conference, yet, except in our own

organization, I have never met such a unanimity of opinion upon the

justice of woman suffrage as well as upon the expediency of the

woman's vote to secure intelligent and preventive legislation as a

remedy for the many evils they were seeking to combat."

The program for the first evening included short addresses by the

general officers and in opening the meeting Mrs. Catt said: "You will

all be disappointed not to have the promised addresses from Miss

Anthony and Mrs. Upton. It has been suggested that I might say that

Miss Anthony has been unavoidably detained but I can't see why I

should not tell the truth. Miss Anthony is out in society tonight. She

was invited by President and Mrs. Roosevelt to the Army and Navy

reception at the White House and Mrs. Upton is with her.[30] Our

vice-president-at-large will speak to you on What Cheer?"

Dr. Shaw said that once when she was travelling about the prairies of

Iowa she met a woman who was always referring to her home town "What

Cheer," and when she was asked to give a title to her address she

could think of nothing better. She continued: "There are no problems

so difficult to understand as those of our own time, because of the

lack of perspective. The arrogant and insistent and noisy things press

to the front and the silent and eternal fall into the rear. But as

time passes it is as when we climb a mountain--we gradually rise to

where we can see over the foothills and everything appears in its

proper place and proportion. Out of the present, its arrogant

militarism, its sordid commercialism and worship of gold, is there

anything to give us cheer and hope for tomorrow? There never was

greater reason for hope for humanity. Underlying all the tumult and

disorder of our time is one grand, golden thought, that of the human

brotherhood of the world. There never was a democracy comparable to

ours, faulty as it is and hopeless as it appears to some. Though the

ideal does not seem to impress itself upon the world, yet in the

silence it is there.... Today is the best this world has ever seen.

Tomorrow will be still better."

Miss Gordon spoke on A Sustaining Faith, showing that from labor, from

all forms of social service and from countless sources was converging

the demand for the reform which the suffrage association was seeking.

Miss Blackwell (Mass.) talked briefly as always but clearly and

convincingly on The New Woman. Miss Laura Clay (Ky.) began her address

on Dimes: "As an auditor I have been going over our treasurer's books.

Usually such books are mere debits and credits but in ours those stiff

rows of figures tell many beautiful things--the sacrifices of the poor

and the generosity of the rich--but best of all are the 'dimes'

because they are the dues paid to the association. They bear the

figure of Liberty and they stand for it.... These dimes are inspiring,

for they represent our membership when we gather here from the four

corners of the nation. Therefore I rejoice over these thousands and

thousands, each with a human heart behind it."

"No woman has a record of greater faithfulness in this cause," Mrs.

Catt said in introducing Mrs. Mary J. Coggeshall, who began her

remarks on Precedents by saying: "I come from Iowa where things are

very different from those in this beautiful capital. We do not see

Senators and Representatives on every hand but we have lent to

Washington, Secretary of Agriculture Wilson, Secretary of the Treasury

Shaw, Speaker of the House Henderson and also Mrs. Catt to lead the

suffrage clans."

The evening closed with Mrs. Catt's presidential address, the full

report of which filled eleven columns of the _Woman's Journal_. The

subject was the vital necessity of an educational qualification for

the use of the ballot in a country which opens its gates to

immigration from the whole world. Little idea of its logic and

virility can be conveyed by detached quotations. Referring to the

necessity for enfranchising women she said: "Despite the fact that

education even yet is not so generally advocated for girls as for boys

among our foreign and ignorant classes of society, the census of 1900

reveals that between the ages of ten and twenty-one, representing

school years, there are 117,362 more illiterate males than females. If

men and women had been entitled to the franchise upon equal terms in

1900, the political parties, which always make their appeals to the

young man just turned twenty-one to cast his first vote for 'the party

of right and progress,' would of necessity have made the same appeal

to young women, but they would have appealed to 20,000 fewer

illiterates among the women than the men of from twenty-one to

twenty-four. If the same conditions continue for the next twenty

years--that is, if there is no restriction in the suffrage for men and

women still remain disfranchised, and if the proportionate increase of

women over men in the output of our public schools continues, we shall

witness the curious spectacle of the illiterate sex governing the

literate sex."

Mrs. Catt did not, however, attribute all the evils of universal

suffrage to the ignorant vote but said: "It may be that an

investigation would reveal the fact that a very important source of

difficulty is to be found in the failure of intelligent men to

exercise their citizenship. If this proves true it may be found

necessary to turn a leaf backward in our history and adopt the plan in

vogue in some of the New England colonies which made voting

compulsory, and it may be found feasible to demand of every voter who

absents himself on election day an excuse for his absence, and when he

has absented himself without good excuse for a definite number

of elections, he may be made to suffer the punishment of

disfranchisement...." She called attention to the record that at the

last presidential election more than 7,000,000 men over twenty-one

years of age did not vote and asked: "What is to be done about it? Are

qualified women citizens to wait in patience until influences now

unseen shall sweep away the difficulties and restore the lost

enthusiasm for democracy? Or shall they attempt to determine causes,

apply remedies and clear the way for their own enfranchisement? That

is our problem. For myself, I will say I prefer not to wait. I prefer

to do my part, small as it must be, in the great task of the removal

of the obstructions which clog the wheels of the onward movement of

popular government."

The convention was especially fortunate in having among its speakers a

charming and gifted young woman, Mrs. A. Watson Lister of Melbourne,

Australia, a country whose first national Parliament had two years

before conferred on women full suffrage and eligibility to all

offices. She showed a remarkable knowledge of laws and conditions

affecting women and was thoroughly informed on every phase of the

suffrage movement. The second evening she spoke on Woman's Vote in

Australia to an audience that was not willing to have her stop, saying

in part:

Australia does lead the world in democratic government, a

government by the whole people, women as well as men, but we

realize the great debt that we owe to your brave pioneer women.

We are reaping the harvest which they planted. To us the names of

Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are

household words. It seems strange to me to be asked to come here

to tell you anything about suffrage, for with us the American

woman has been supposed to know and have everything.

Australia is as large as the United States and women have

national and municipal suffrage and in four of our six States

they have State suffrage--South and West Australia, New South

Wales and Tasmania. In Victoria and Queensland they do not yet

possess it. When the six States became federated it was provided

that federal suffrage throughout Australia should be on the same

basis as State suffrage where it was the most liberal. South and

West Australia had it in full, so the women obtained it

throughout Australia in national elections. There was so little

opposition or discussion, it was regarded so completely as an

accepted fact and foregone conclusion, that most women did not

even know the measure had passed. It was not an experiment, as

our men had seen its working in South and West Australia for

years and also in New Zealand, which is the most democratic and

best governed country in the world.

In Australia women are eligible to all offices, even that of

Prime Minister. At the last elections five stood for Parliament.

Miss Vida Goldstein was a candidate in Victoria. Although both

our large newspapers ignored her meetings she got 51,000 votes,

while the man highest got about 100,000. Not one of the five

women came out at the bottom of the poll....

After we had worked for years with members of Parliament for

various reforms without avail because we had no votes, you can

not imagine the difference the vote makes. When we held meetings

to advocate public measures that women wanted, we used to have to

go out into the highways and hedges and compel the members of

Parliament to come in; now the difficulty is to keep them out. I

have seen seven Senators at one small meeting. A prominent man

who, by an oversight, was not invited to the one held to welcome

Miss Goldstein on her return from the United States was decidedly

offended. Chivalry has not been destroyed but increased. On the

platform at one of our meetings the secretary happened to drop

her pencil and I saw the Premier and several members of

Parliament scrambling to pick it up. A woman is never allowed to

stand in a street car in Australia....

A good deal of light was shed on the inside history of the organized

anti-suffrage movement, which if turned on in other countries would

disclose a similar situation. "Our Anti-Suffrage Association," she

said, "died three months after it was born. It was formed by two of

our leading manufacturers, who hid behind their daughters. They had

plenty of money, took a large office on a main street, employed

several paid secretaries and spent more in three months than we had

done in all our years of work. They paid little boys and girls to

circulate their petition and got many signatures under false

pretences.... Much was made of their petition though it was not half

as large as ours. The daughters of these manufacturers drove up in

their carriages to their fathers' factories at the lunch hour and made

the working girls sign their petition."

A scholarly review of Morley's Life of Gladstone was given by Mrs.

Harriot Stanton Blatch (Eng.). Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman turned A

New Light on the Woman Question, saying:

My subject is a scientific theory as to the origin and relation

of the eternal duo. It was started by our greatest living

sociologist, Lester Ward--the explanation of the order in which

the sexes were developed. What is it that this suffrage movement

has had to meet, as it has plowed along up hill for fifty years,

with its tremendous battery of arguments which it discharges into

thin air? What it has to overcome is not an argument but a

feeling, which rests at bottom on the idea expressed in the "rib

story." As a parable this fairly represents the old belief that

man was created first, that he was the race, was "it," and that

woman was created, as modern jokers put it, for "Adams Express

Company." The poet expressed the same idea when he called woman

"God's last, best gift to man." ... Ward gives the biological

facts. In the evolution of species the earliest periods were the

longest. During ages of the world's history, while animal life

was slowly evolving, the female was the larger, stronger and more

representative creature; the male was small, often a parasite,

told off for the sole purpose of reproduction. By natural

selection, the female choosing always the best male, the male

was gradually developed until he became bigger and stronger than

the female. For a time natural selection continued to work, the

males competing for the favor of the female. Then the male

reduced the female to subjection. It occurred to him that it was

easier to fight one little female once and subjugate her than to

fight a lot of big males over and over.

The feminine ideal with many is the bee-hive--lots of honey, lots

of young ones and nothing else. It was necessary that the male

should become dominant for a time if the race was to progress.

Now women are ceasing to be subjugated and we are approaching a

state of equal rights. It was through a free motherhood and the

female's constant selection of the best mate that she brought

into the world power and brain enough to enable man to do what he

has done. That free motherhood, reinstated, choosing always the

best and refusing anything less, will bring us a higher humanity

than we have yet known.

The usual Work Conferences were held and the Executive Committee

presented the Plan of Work which was adopted. In addition to the usual

recommendations it urged that a Memorial Organization Fund be

established to perpetuate the memory of pioneers and that a legal

adviser for the association be appointed from its women lawyer

members. The morning meetings as always were given up to business and

reports of officers, chairmen of committees and field workers and the

afternoons to State reports. The latter, made for the most part by the

presidents, showed faithful work going on in every State and progress

in many. Miss Helen Kimber reported that the Legislature of Kansas had

added to the School franchise, which the women had possessed ever

since the State came into the Union, the right to vote on all public

expenditure of money for issuing of bonds, waterworks, sewerage,

libraries, etc. Miss Elizabeth J. Hauser, office secretary, told of

the removal of the national headquarters from New York, where they had

first been established, to Warren, O., where they occupied two large

rooms on the lower floor of an old vine-covered family residence in

the heart of town. From here 35,000 pieces of literature had been sent

out and here had been printed 2,000 each of Lucy Stone and Mrs.

Stanton birthday souvenirs, a booklet to be used on Miss Anthony's

birthday; 10,000 suffrage stamps, Christmas blotters, etc., and 10,000

letters written. The subscription list of _Progress_ had been

increased from 950 to 4,000 and a weekly headquarters' letter had

been sent to the _Woman's Journal_. Resolutions for woman suffrage had

been obtained in international, national and a large number of State

conventions.

Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, the treasurer, reported the receipts,

$21,117, the largest in the history of the association. It contributed

$3,255 to the New Hampshire campaign. Neither Mrs. Upton nor any of

the national officers received a salary (except the secretary, who had

a nominal one), and in referring to the immense amount of unpaid work

done by them and by women in the different States, she said: "People

outside of the association often ask why it is that women can be found

who are willing to give their time to a work without recompense. We

can not answer such inquiries and yet we ourselves know that, through

this devotion to a just and holy cause, we rise to a higher plane, we

see with larger eyes, we feel the presence of the real self of our

fellow-worker. We can no more explain why this is so than we can

analyze 'mother love,' or the love of a daughter for a father but we

know it. It is for this reason your treasurer rejoices over the day

she was so placed, either by design or chance, and so blessed with

perfect health that she was able to serve in the cause of woman's

political freedom." Mrs. Upton referred to Mrs. Cornelia C. Hussey's

bequest of $10,000 and that of Mrs. Henrietta M. Banker, from which

the association realized $3,000.

Detailed and valuable reports were made by the chairman of committees

on Presidential Suffrage, Federal Suffrage, Congressional Work, Civil

Rights, Church Work, Enrollment and others. Mrs. Catt reported for the

Committee on Literature. Mrs. Catt with Mrs. Blankenburg (Penn.), Mrs.

Lucy Hobart Day (Me.) and Mrs. Minola Graham Sexton (N. J.),

presidents of their State associations, presided over Work

Conferences. Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer, in her report on Libraries and

Bibliography, brought to light the lax manner in which many State

libraries are conducted. In that of New Jersey no catalogue had been

printed for fifty years. In Montana the collection of books was

thirty-five years old and had never been catalogued or classified.

Various librarians reported no works on woman suffrage and women from

those States rose in the audience and said that they had themselves

presented the History of Woman Suffrage--four large volumes. Mrs.

Elnora M. Babcock (N. Y.), chairman of the Press Committee, reported

93,600 general articles sent out; 3,665 special articles, much plate

matter, many personal sketches, photographs, etc., and a number of new

papers added to her list.

Mrs. Maud Nathan read the report of Mrs. Florence Kelley, chairman of

the Committee on Industrial Problems Affecting Women and Children. As

executive secretary of the National Consumers' League Mrs. Kelley was

well qualified to speak and she gave an account of the labor laws in

the southern States affecting girls between 16 and 21, who are neither

children nor women, which was heartbreaking. Pennsylvania was equally

guilty but most of the northern States had improved their laws,

Illinois leading; in none, however, were they wholly adequate. She

urged the appointment of more women factory inspectors, who were now

employed in only eight States, and scored "the default of the

prosperous women of the country," saying: "It may be said that women

are not morally responsible for this unfortunate state of affairs,

since they do not make the laws, but the facts do not altogether

justify this excuse. The child-labor legislation which has been

achieved through the efforts of women during the past ten years shows

that women can do very much even without the ballot in the way of

securing legislation on behalf of women and children, and it remains

true that women buy the product of the work of women and children far

more than do men.... It is my hope that this great and influential

national suffrage organization may so influence public opinion that a

series of beneficent results will soon become visible."

An Evening with the Philanthropists was one of the most enjoyable

during the week. The Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer, of whom Felix Adler,

head of the Ethical Culture Society of New York, was quoted as saying:

"She is the only woman with whom I would share my platform," was the

first speaker. In considering New Professions in Philanthropic Work

for Women, she said: "Charity is old but social science is new and it

is the uniting of the two that makes modern philanthropy and that is

what opens these new professions. Charity is supposed to come by

nature but the knowledge of how to deal with its problems does not.

Society is divided into three groups. First, the reformers--a group

never too large, often seemingly too small--who make the way for those

that come after. They are often like the artist whose daughter, being

asked if her father had been successful, answered that he was

'successful after he was dead.' Then comes the great group, the

'middle-of-the-road' people, who walk along, slowly developing,

supporting the churches and schools, holding today's standards and

ideals--the people who live in today and who make up the fabric of the

world. They are sometimes irritating but they hold what has been

gained and they gradually grow. Then there is a group behind, what the

French call the 'unfinished' infants--the defectives, the moral and

physical imbeciles, the backward and incompetent. We must study how to

reduce this social burden in an intelligent way. This has started a

new class of vocations as sacred as the ministry was of old."