# History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 4/Chapter 20

Contents
CHAPTER XX.
THE NATIONAL-AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1900.
The Thirty-second annual convention of the suffrage association, held in Washington, D. C., Feb. 8-14, 1900, possessed two features of unusual interest — it closed the century and it marked the end of Miss Susan B. Anthony's presidency of the organization. The latter event attracted wide attention. Sketches of her career and of the movement whose* history was almost synonymous with her own, appeared in most of the leading newspapers and magazines of the country; special reporters were sent to Washington, and the celebration of her eightieth birthday at the close of the convention was in the nature of a national event. On the opening morning the Post said in a leading editorial:
The world is beginning to take a new view of this suffrage question. The advent of women into the professions and even the trades, their appearance as wage-earners in virtually every branch of modern activity, and their success in these various enterprises which they have entered, have worked a reform even more significant than the absolute and universal grant of the suffrage would have been. It can not be denied by men to-day that the women have become economic factors of marked importance, and this appreciation has had a great influence in softening the sentiments of the male population toward the suffragists.
One of the foremost arguments formerly urged against the extension of the suffrage to women was that it would be harmful to woman's moral nature to thrust her into contact with the rough conditions of campaigning. The women answered that their entrance would perhaps redeem the immoral character of the politics of many communities. In the minds of impartial observers the ​argument was a stand-off. But this economic, professional tendency of the women has done much to destroy the force of the men's plea to preserve the women from contaminating contact with harsh conditions. The security of the average woman worker in the various lines of honest activity which the sex has fearlessly entered has worked a revelation. The close of the century is witnessing a great change in public sentiment in this regard. The demand of the suffragists can not but be strengthened by the demonstrated fact that women can become workers in competition with men without becoming demoralized.
The advocates of woman's enfranchisement never were brighter, happier or more hopeful and courageous. All of the States but four were represented by the 173 delegates in attendance. Some of them were white-haired and wrinkled and had been coming to Washington for the whole thirty-two years. Others were in the prime and vigor of life and had entered the movement after the heaviest blows had been struck and the hardest battles had been won, but now they had enlisted until the end of the war. And now there were a large number of beautiful and highly-educated young women, graduates of the best colleges, filled with the zeal of new converts, bringing to the work well-trained and thoroughly-equipped minds and giving to the old members the comforting assurance that the vital cause would still be carried forward when their own labors were ended.
The Women's Journal in recounting the gains for suffrage concluded: "In this year, 1900, the woman suffragists, after a half-century of unbroken national organization, can go before Congress and claim the support of members from four States who were elected in part by the votes of women. They can enforce their pleas before presidential nominating conventions with the concrete fact that thirteen members of the electoral college have a constituency of women voters."
Miss Anthony presided at three public sessions daily and at ​all the executive and business meetings, went to Baltimore and held a one-day's conference and made a big speech, addressed a parlor meeting, attended several dinners and receptions, participated in her own great birthday festivities, afternoon and evening, and remained for nearly a week of Executive Committee meetings after the convention had closed.
As she rose to open the convention, clad as usual in soft black satin, with duchesse lace in the neck and sleeves and the lovely red crepe shawl falling gracefully from her shoulders, there were many a moist eye and tightened throat at the thought that this was the last time. Her fine voice with its rich alto vibrations was as strong and resonant as fifty years ago, and her practical, matter-of-fact speech, followed by the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw's lively stories, soon dispelled the sadness and put the audience in a cheerful mood. Miss Anthony commenced by saying:
In beginning her vice-president's address, which as usual defied reporting, Miss Shaw said:
The chief event of last summer was the quinquennial meeting of the International Council of Women in London. The Woman's National Council of the United States is made up of about twenty societies with an aggregate membership of over a million women. It was only allowed two delegates besides its president, and it is not a suffrage association, yet it honored two women who have been known for some years as suffragists, Miss Anthony and myself, by making us its delegates to London. They said they did this because they wanted women who did not represent anything too radical!
That Congress was the greatest assemblage of women from all parts of the world that ever had taken place, and therefore the biggest suffrage convention ever held. Suffrage seemed to take possession of the whole meeting, as it does at every great gathering of women. From this point of view it was a decided and emphatic success. The largest meeting of all was the one held by the Suffrage Association and every suffrage heart would have swollen so large it could hardly have been kept within the bounds of the body if it had heard the applause with which Miss Anthony was greeted. She could not speak for ten minutes. ....
In England I entered upon a role I had never filled before, or had any ambition for—I "entered society," and for ten days I was in it from before breakfast till after midnight; and I prayed the prayer of the Pharisee—I thanked the Lord that I was not as other women are who have to go into society all the time. I had thought that traveling up and down the country with gripsack in hand was hard enough; but it is child's play to hand-shaking and hob-nobbing with duchesses and countesses. However, the experience was good for us, and it was especially good for those American women who had thought that they knew more than other women till they met them and found that they didn't.
Later in the session Miss Anthony made her report as delegate ​from the National Council of Women of the United States to this International Congress in London, in which she said:
This time when we reached London we were the recipients of testimonials not only from the real, radical suffrage people, but also from the conservatives. At that magnificent Queen's Hall meeting of the Suffrage Association, with Mrs. Fawcett presiding, three or four thousand people packed the hall. It was a representative gathering. Australia and New Zealand were there to speak for themselves, and they had me to speak for the United States. I tried to have them call on Miss Shaw instead, but they would not do it. ....
Every young woman who is to-day enjoying the advantages of free schools and opportunities to earn a living and the other enlarged rights for women, is a child of the woman suffrage movement. This larger freedom has broadened and strengthened women wonderfully. At the end of the Council, Lady Aberdeen, who had been its president for six years, in a published interview summing up the work of the women who had been present, said there was no denying that the English-speaking women stood head and shoulders above all the others in their knowledge of Parliamentary law, and that at the very top were those of the United States and Canada—the two freest parts of the world. I said: "If the women of the United States, with their free schools and all their enlarged liberties, are not superior to women brought up under monarchical forms of government, then there is no good in liberty." It is because of this freedom that Europeans are always struck with the greater self-poise, self-control and independence of American women. These characteristics will be still more marked when we have mingled more with men in their various meetings. It is only by the friction of intellect with intellect that these desirable qualities can be gained.
The public sessions of the Council were all that heart could wish. I was present at only a few of them because the business meetings came at the same hour, and were held miles away. But every day people would say to me, "Miss Anthony, you yourself could not have made a stronger suffrage speech than So-and-So made to-day in such-and-such a section"—industrial, professional, etc. In the educational section, one of the best speeches was made by Miss Brownell, dean of Sage College, Cornell University, on co-education.
Miss Anthony then described the reception of the Congress by the Queen at Windsor Castle, the serving of tea in the great Hall of St. George, and all the incidents of that interesting occasion, and concluded: "What I want most to impress upon you is this: If we had represented nothing but ourselves we should have been nowhere. Wendell Phillips said: "When I speak as an individual, I represent only myself, but when I speak for the American Anti-Slavery Society, I represent every one in the country who believes in liberty." It was because Miss Shaw and I represented you and all which makes for liberty that we were so well received; and I want you to feel that all the honors paid to us were paid to you."
A paper to be remembered was that of Mrs. Isabel C. Barrows (Mass.) on Woman's Work in Philanthropy. After tracing the various lines of philanthropic effort in which women had been distinguished, she said in conclusion that no woman who ever had lived had done more in the line of philanthropy than Susan B. Anthony.
Miss Harriet May Mills (N. Y.) gave a fine address on The Winning of Educational Freedom, saying in part:
The majority of women were content, they asked no change; they took no part in the movement for higher education except to ridicule it. This, like every other battle for freedom which the world has seen, was led by the few brave, strong souls who saw the truth and ​dared proclaim it. In 1820 the world looked aghast upon "bluestockings." Because a young woman was publicly examined in geometry at one of Mrs. Emma Willard's school exhibitions, a storm of ridicule broke forth at so scandalous a proceeding. It was ten years after Holyoke was founded before Mary Lyon dared to have Latin appear in the regular course, because the views of the community would not allow it. Boston had a high school for girls in 1825, which was maintained but eighteen months, Mayor Quincy declaring that "no funds of any city could stand the expense." The difficulty was that "too many girls attended." ....
In 1877 President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard protested against the opening of the Boston Latin School to girls, saying: "I resist the proposition for the sake of the boys, the girls, the schools and the general interest of education." Nearly twenty years later, he said to the Radcliffe graduates: "It is a quarter of a century since the college doors were open to women. From that time, where boys and girls have been educated together, it has become a historical fact that women have taken a greater number of honors, in proportion to their numbers, than men." It is to be hoped that the next twenty years may work further conversion in the mind of this learned president, and lead him to see that equality in citizenship is as desirable as equality in education.
One learned man prophesied that all educated women would become somnambulists. Another declared that the perilous track to higher education would be strewn with wrecks, There are now over thirty thousand of these college-educated wrecks, the majority of them engaged in the active-work of the world. It was found in 1874, when Dr. E. H. Clarke's evil prophecies as to higher education were attracting attention, that at Antioch, opened to women in 1853, thirteen and one-half per cent. of the men graduates had died, nine and three-fourths per cent. of the women. This did not include war mortality or accidental death. Three of the men then living were confirmed invalids; not one of the women was in such a condition. The Association of Collegiate Alumnae has compiled later and fuller statistics. The results show an increase during the college course of from three to six per cent. in good health, and the health after graduation to be twenty-two per cent. higher among a than among women who have not been in college. ....
Elizabeth Blackwell applied to twelve colleges before she gained admittance to the Geneva (N. Y.) Medical School in 1846, and secured the first M. D. ever given to a woman in this country. To-day 1,583 women are studying medicine. Not so full a measure of freedom has been won in law or theology. In 1897, 131 women were in the law schools, 193 in the theological schools, but women are still handicapped in these professions.
Unfortunately, educational freedom has not 'been followed by industrial freedom. Of the leading colleges for women but four have women presidents; but one offers a free field to women on its professional staff. In the majority of co-educational colleges which ​give women any place as teachers, they appear in small numbers as assistant professors and, more often, as instructors. ....
With educational freedom partially won has come general interest among collegiate and non-collegiate women in furthering the movement. Large gifts have been bestowed for scholarships and for colleges, both co-educational and separate. Within the last year thirty-four women have given $4,446,400 to the cause of education. Mrs. Stanford's munificent benefactions, and other lesser ones, swell the amount to more than fifty millions from women alone. As a result of the struggle for educational freedom, we have 35,782 women in the colleges of the country.
Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, a leader among Colorado women, spoke eloquently on The Social Transformation, following the stages in evolution expressed in the words, "I dare, I will, I am." Describing the effects of woman suffrage, she said:
Introducing Henry B. Blackwell (Mass.) to report on Presidential Suffrage, Miss Anthony said: "Here is a man who has the virtue of having stood by the woman's cause for nearly fifty years. I can remember him when his hair was not white, and when he was following up our conventions assiduously because a bright, little, red-cheeked woman attracted him. She attracted him so strongly that he still works for woman suffrage, and will do so as long as he lives, not only because of her who was always so true and faithful to the cause—Lucy Stone—but also because he has a daughter, a worthy representative of the twain who were made one."
On Friday evening Mrs. Ida Husted Harper gave a portion of her paper, The Training of the Woman Journalist, which she had presented at the International Congress in London. Miss Anna Barrows (Mass.), literary editor of The American Kitchen Magazine, spoke on New Professions for Women Centering in the Home:
​A very general comment on woman's desire for a share in municipal and national government is that the servant question is yet unsolved; that, since she has not succeeded in governing her own domain, she has no rights outside of it. By going outside of her home as an employe herself she is learning to deal with this problem. It has been necessary for women to have thorough business training in other directions before they could discover how unbusinesslike were the methods pursued in the average household. The more women have gone out of their homes into new occupations, the more they have realized that the home is dependent upon the same principles as the business world. The business woman understands human nature, and therefore can deal successfully with the butcher, the baker and other tradespeople. She has a power of adapting herself to new conditions which is impossible to her sister accustomed only to the narrow treadmill of housework.
The statesmanlike paper of Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker (Conn.) on the Duty of Woman Citizens of the United States in the Present Political Crisis, was read by Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell (N. Y.), who enforced its sentiments by earnest and stirring remarks of her own. Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, A. M. of Oberlin College, president of the National Association of Colored Women and a member of the Washington School Board, considered the Justice of Woman Suffrage:
​When one observes how all the most honorable and lucrative positions in Church and State have been reserved for men, according to laws which they themselves have made so as to debar women; how, until recently, a married woman's property was under the exclusive control of her husband; how, in all transactions where husband and wife are considered one, the law makes the husband that one—man's boasted chivalry to the disfranchised sex is punctured beyond repair.
These unjust discriminations will ever remain, until the source from which they spring—the political disfranchisement of woman —shall be removed. The injustice involved in denying woman the suffrage is not confined to the disfranchised sex alone, but extends to the nation as well, in that it is deprived of the excellent service which woman might render.
The argument that it is unnatural for woman to vote is as old as the rock-ribbed and ancient hills. Whatever is unusual is called unnatural, the world over. Whenever humanity takes a step forward in progress, some old custom falls dead at our feet. Nothing could be more unnatural than that a good woman should shirk her duty to the State.
In treating of Women in the Ministry, the Rev. Ida C. Hultin (Mass.) considered what is known as "the woman movement" from a broad and philosophical standpoint, which carried conviction and disarmed opposition.
At the opening of the Saturday evening meeting a telegram was read from the Executive Committee of the National Anti-Trust Conference, in session at Chicago: "Hearty congratulations to the distinguished president of the Woman Suffrage Association, and hopes that Miss Anthony may enjoy many years of added happiness and honor. This cordial salutation includes Elizabeth Cady Stanton and all of the noble souls who have wrought so great a work in the liberation and advancement of the women of this country." A letter was read also from Frank Morrison, secretary of the American Federation of Labor, with the following resolution, which was passed by the convention held in Detroit, Mich., the previous December:
Whereas, Disfranchised labor, like that of the enslaved, degrades all free and enfranchised labor; therefore,
Miss Anthony expressed her satisfaction that equal suffrage was endorsed by "the hard-working, wage-earning men of the country, each of them with a good solid ballot in his hand."
Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby (D. C.) gave a historical sketch of Our Great Leaders, replete with beauty and pathos. Miss Kate M. Gordon spoke entertainingly on the possibilities of A Scrap of Suffrage. In presenting her Miss Anthony said: "The right of taxpaying women in Louisiana to vote upon questions of taxation is practically the first shred of suffrage which those of any Southern State have secured, and they have used it well. They deserve another scrap, and I think they will get it before some of us do who have been asking for half a century."
Miss Gail Laughlin, a graduate of Wellesley and of the Law Department of Cornell University, discussed Conditions of the Wage-Earning Women of Our Country, saying in part:
How are these evils to be remedied? By organization, suffrage, co-operation among women, and above all, the inculcation of the principle that a woman is an individual, with a right to choose her work, and with other rights equal with man. Our law-makers control the sanitary conditions and pay of teachers. Here is work for the women who have "all the rights they want." When one of these comfortably situated women was told of the need of the ballot for working women, she held up her finger, showing the wedding ring on it, and said, "I have all the rights I want." The next time that I read the parable of the man who fell among thieves and was succored by the good Samaritan, methought I could see that woman with the wedding ring on her finger, passing by on the other side.
​It is said that every woman who earns her living crowds a man out. That argument is as old as the trade guilds of the thirteenth century, which tried to exclude women. The Rev. Samuel G. Smith of St. Paul, who has recently declared against women in wage-earning occupations, stands to-day just where they did seven hundred Mearsago....
Mrs. Helen Adelaide Shaw (Mass.), in A Review of the Remonstrants, was enthusiastically received. Young, handsome and a fine elocutionist, her imitation of the "remonstrants" and their objections to woman suffrage convulsed the audience and was quite as effective as the most impassioned argument.
The speakers of the convention were invited to fill a number of pulpits in Washington Sunday morning and evening.. In the Unitarian Church, where the Rev. Ida C. Hultin preached, there was not standing room. The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw gave the sermon at the Universalist Church, of which the Post said:
Perhaps eight-tenths of the congregation were women. Miss Shaw's pulpit manner is easy, but her words are emphasized by gestures which impress her hearers with a sense. of the speaker's earnestness. Her voice, while sweet and musical, is strong, and carries a tone of conviction. Her subject last night was "Strength of Character." The text was chosen from Joshua, I:9: "Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."
In the opening remarks the speaker said it was now time that women asserted their rights. "Men have no right to define for us our limitations. Who shall interpret to a woman the divine element in her being? It is for me to say that I shall be free. No human soul shall determine my life for me unless that soul will stand ​before the bar of God and take my sentence. Men who denounce us do so because they are ignorant of what they do. Woman has broken the silence of the century. Her question to God is, Who shall interpret Thee to me? The churches of this day have not begun to conceive of what Christianity means.
"It is not true that all women should be married and the managers of homes. There is not more than one woman in five capable of motherhood in its highest possible state, and I may say that not one man in ten is fitted for fatherhood. We strongly advocate that no woman and man should marry until they are instructed in the science of home duties. Instead of woman suffrage breaking up families, it has just the opposite effect. In the State of Wyoming where it has existed thirty years, there is a larger per cent. of marriages and a less of divorces than in any other State in the Union. Because a woman is a suffragist is no reason that she may not be a good housekeeper. The two most perfect housekeepers I ever knew in my life were members of my congregation in New England—one was a suffragist and the other had no thought of the rights of women."....
After the services almost every woman in the congregation crowded forward to shake the hand of the speaker.
On Monday evening the national character of the convention was conspicuously demonstrated, as the speakers represented the East, the South, the Middle West and the Pacific Slope. Mrs. Florence Howe Hall (N. J.), the highly educated daughter of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, read a charming farce entitled The Judgment of Minerva, the suffragists and the antis, as goddesses, bringing their cause before Jupiter, with a decision, of course, in favor of the former. Miss Diana Hirschler, a young lawyer of Boston, presented Woman's Position in the Law in a paper which was in itself an illustration of the benefit of a legal training. Mrs. Virginia D. Young (S. C.) told the Story of Woman Suffrage in the South, and sketched the history of the progressive Southern woman, beginning as follows:
The woman suffragists of the South have suffered in the pillory of public derision. It has been as deadly a setting up in the stocks as ever New England practiced on her martyrs to freedom. The women who have led in this revolt against old ideals have had to be as heroic as the men who stormed San Juan heights in the contest for Santiago de Cuba.....
It is out of date to be carried in a sedan chair when one can fly around on a bicycle, and though in our conservative South, we have still some preachers with Florida moss on their chins, who storm at the woman on her wheel as riding straight to hell, we ​believe, with Julian Ralph, that the women bicyclists "out-pace their staider sisters in their progress to woman's emancipation."
Clark Howell, the brilliant Georgian, in his recent address before the Independent Club, set people to talking about him, from Niagara Falls in the East to the Garden of the Gods in the West, by his elucidations of "The Man with his Hat in his Hand;" but I propose to show you to-night a greater—the Woman With Her Bonnet Off, who speaks from the platform in a Southern city. You know how the women of the stagnant Orient stick to their veils, coverings for head and face, outward signs of real slavery. The bonnet is the civilized substitute for the Oriental veil, and to take it off is the first manifestation of a woman's resolve to have equal rights, even if all the world laugh and oppose.
Mrs. Annie L. Diggs, State librarian, depicted Municipal Suffrage in Kansas, with the knowledge of one who had been a keen observer and an active participant. Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway described the work which had been and would be done in the interest of the approaching suffrage amendment campaign in Oregon.
On Tuesday evening Mrs. Mabel Loomis Todd (Mass.), under the head of The Village Beautiful, told what might be accomplished toward the beautifying of towns and cities if the authority and the means were allowed to women. This was followed by a strong, clear business talk from Mrs. A. Emmagene Paul, superintendent of the Street-Cleaning Department of the First Ward, Chicago, who told how "crooked contractors and wily politicians" at first began to cultivate her. They found, however, that they could not shake her determination to make them live up to their contracts; they had agreed to clean the streets, they were receiving pay for that purpose, and she, as an inspector, was there to see that the contracts were lived up to. ​Mrs. Paul was appointed when the municipal government adopted a civil service system, and holds her position by virtue of-its examination. She has checkmated the contractor and politician, and has accomplished a long-needed reform in the street-cleaning department of Chicago.
An interesting description of The Russian Woman was given by Madame Sofja Levovna Friedland, who said that there is little suffrage for either men or women in Russia, but such as there is both alike possess. Mrs. Amy K. Cornwall, president of the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association, related the work accomplished by the women of her State since they had been enfranchised; "only six years," she said, "and yet we are expected to have cleaned up all Colorado, including Denver." Grace Greenwood (Mrs. Sara J. Lippincott) was introduced by Miss Anthony as a suffragist of thirty years' standing. The audience was greatly amused by her recital of the answers which she had made to the "remonstrants" more than a quarter of a century ago, showing that they were using then exactly the same objections which are doing service to-day. Several of the speakers having failed to appear, a very unusual occurrence, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, president of the International Council of Women, was pressed into service by Miss Anthony. She introduced her address gracefully by saying: "We women think we believe in freedom, but we are often told that we love best the tyrant who can make us obey, and I can testify to the truth of it, motioning toward Miss Anthony. She then made an eloquent and convincing plea for the enfranchisement of women.
The mornings were devoted to committee reports and to ten-minute reports from each of the States, often the most interesting features of the convention. The afternoons were given to Work Conferences, when all the various details of the work were discussed under the leadership of those who had proved most competent—methods of organization, of holding conventions, etc. The treasurer, Mrs. Upton, stated that the receipts for the past year were $10,345; that the association had an indebtedness ​of about $1,400, and Miss Anthony, desiring to leave it-entirely free from debt, had raised almost all of this amount herself; that the books now showed every bill to be paid. Before the close of the convention almost $10,000 were subscribed toward the work of the coming year. It was decided to hold a National Suffrage Bazar in New York City before the holidays in order to add to this fund.
Mrs. Chapman Catt, chairman of the Organization Committee, reported that with the secretary of the committee, Miss Mary G. Hay, she had visited twenty States, lecturing and attending State conventions, giving fifty-one lectures and traveling 13!000 miles. Ten thousand letters had been sent out from the office.
The comprehensive report of Mrs. Elnora M. Babcock (N. Y.), chairman of the Press Committee, showing the remarkable success achieved in securing the publication of articles on suffrage, seemed to offer the best possible proof of an increasing favorable public sentiment. Articles had been furnished regularly to 1,360 newspapers; 3,675 had been prepared on the present convention and birthday celebration; altogether 31,800 weekly articles had been sent out and, so far as could be ascertained, all had been published. The number of papers which would use plate matter on suffrage was limited only by the money which could be commanded to supply it.
Miss Anthony, in reporting for the Congressional Committee, made a good point when she said:
Mary F. Gist, Anna S. Hamilton and Emma Southwick Brinton were introduced as fraternal delegates from the Woman's National Press Association; Mrs. William Scott, from the Universal Peace Union; Dr. Agnes Kemp, from the Peace Society of Philadelphia; Elizabeth B. Passmore from the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends. Letters of greeting were received from Mrs. Priscilla Bright McLaren of Scotland, Mrs. Mary Foote Henderson, of Washington, D. C., and many others.
Among the memorial resolutions were the following:
In reviewing the gains and losses of the past year, we recall with profound regret the loss of those tried and true workers for woman's enfranchisement, George W. and Mrs. Henrietta M. Banker of New York, who died within a few days of each other. "Lovely in life, in death they were not divided." Although we shall sorely miss their genial and inspiring presence, they will continue by the munificent provisions of their wills to aid the cause.
We are also saddened by the news just received of the decease of Dr. Elizabeth C. Sargent of San Francisco, our valued co-worker in the recent California Suffrage Campaign, and daughter of our lifelong friends, U. S. Senator Aaron A. and Mrs. Ellen Clark Sargent. All advocates of equal suffrage unite in offering to the bereaved mother their heartfelt sympathy in her loss.
A vote of thanks was passed to Bishop Spaulding of Peoria, Ills., Bishop McQuaid of Rochester, N. Y. (Catholics), and the Rev. Frank M. Bristol of the M. E. Metropolitan Church, Washington (the one attended by President McKinley), for their recent sermons referring favorably to woman suffrage. These were the more noticeable as during this convention Cardinal ​Gibbons of Baltimore devoted his Sunday discourse to a terrific arraignment of society women and those asking for the suffrage, denouncing them alike as destroyers of the home, etc.
The National Association requested the appointment by President McKinley of Mrs. Bertha Honore Palmer as National Commissioner from the United States to the Paris Exposition, and of Mrs. May Wright Sewall as delegate to represent the organized work of women in the United States. Both of these appointments were afterwards made.
The corresponding secretary read invitations for the next annual convention from the Citizens' Business League of Milwaukee; the Business Men's League and the Mayor of Cincinnati; the Chamber of Commerce of Detroit; the Business Men's League of San Antonio; the Cleveland Business Men's Convention League; the Suffrage Society of Buffalo and the following: "The Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association takes great pride in being able to invite you most cordially to hold your annual meeting for 1901 in the city of Minneapolis. We guarantee $600 towards expenses and more if necessary. Enclosed are invitations from the Board of Trade, the Mayor and our three daily newspapers, all assuring us of financial backing." This was signed by Mrs. Martha J. Thompson, president, and Dr. Ethel E. Hurd, corresponding secretary. The invitation was accepted. .The usual hearings were held Tuesday morning, February 13, in the Marble Room of the Senate and the committee room of the House Judiciary, both of which were crowded to the doors, the seats being filled with women while members of Congress stood about the sides of the room. That before the Senate Committee John W. Daniel (Va.), chairman; James H. Berry (Tenn.); George P. Wetmore (R. I.); Addison G. Foster (Wash.) was confined to a historical resume of the movement for woman suffrage, the speakers being presented by Miss Anthony. The Work with Congress was carefully delineated by Mrs. Colby, who concluded: "Everything that a disfranchised class could do has been done by women, and never in the long ages in which the love of freedom has been evolving in the human heart has there been such an effort by any other class of people. Surely it ought to win the respect and support of every man in ​this republic who has a brain to understand the blessings of liberty and a heart to beat in sympathy with a struggle to obtain it."
Municipal Suffrage in Kansas was described by Mrs. Laura M. Johns. Woman Suffrage in Colorado was presented by Mrs. Bradford. Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch told of Woman Suffrage in England, closing as follows:
Gentlemen of the committee, I would like to draw your attention to one thing, which is true in America as well as in England—that nothing has been given to women gratuitously. They have had at each step to prove their ability before you gave them anything else. In 1870 England passed the Education Act, which gave women the right to sit on the school boards and to vote for them. It was the first time they had had elective school boards in England; before that all the education had been controlled by church organizations, who had appointed boards of managers. Women had been appointed to those boards and so admirable had been their work that when the law was passed in 1870 many women stood for election and were elected, and in three cases they came in at the head of the polls. Five years after that a verdict was passed upon the work of those women as school officials, for in 1875, women were allowed to go on the poor-law boards. In 1894 the law was further modified so that it contemplated the possibility of a larger circle of poor-law guardians. Before that there had been a high qualification—occupation of a house of a certain rental, etc., but now that was all pushed aside. What was the result? Nearly 1,000 women are now sitting on the poor-law boards of England; 94 on the great board of London itself.
These local boards deal with the great asylums, with the great pauper schools, with the immense poorhouses and, more than that, they deal with one of the largest funds in England, the outdoor and indoor relief. What has been the verdict upon the work of those: women on the poor-law board? In 1896 there was the question, when this law was extended to Ireland, whether women should be put on those boards. The vote in Parliament was 272 in favor of the women and only 8 against. Eight men only, so unwise, so foolish, left in the great English Parliament, who said it was not for women to deal with those immense bodies of pauper children, not for women to deal with this outdoor relief fund, not for women to deal with the unfortunate mothers of illegitimate children.....
Women in England, qualified women, have every local vote, every ​thing which would correspond with your State and municipal vote here, they have all except the Parliamentary vote.
In England we have opponents, just as you have here. I do not know whether they are more illogical or less so, but they certainly do one extraordinary thing—they are in favor of everything that has been won and take advantage of it. A large number of the 2,000 women who are sitting on the various local bodies in England are opposed to the Parliamentary vote for their sex, and yet they are really in political life. Now, gentlemen, if you want to have the women stop coming here, give us the vote and then we won't come; give the "antis" the vote, and then they will have the political life that they are really longing for.
The paper on Woman Suffrage in the British Isles and Colonies was prepared by Miss Helen Blackburn, editor of the Englishwoman's Review; and Woman Suffrage in Foreign Countries was described by Mrs. Jessie Cassidy Saunders. The last address was given by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt (N. Y.), Why We Ask for the Submission of an Amendment:
On the whole, men and women of the present rejoice at every right gained and every privilege conceded. Not one jot or tittle would they abate the advantage won; yet when the plea is made that the free, self-respecting, self-reliant, independent, thinking women of this generation be given the suffrage, the answer almost invariably comes back, "When women as a whole demand it, men will consider it." This answer carries with it the apparent supposition that all the changes have come because the majority of women wanted them, and that further enlargement of liberty must cease because the ​majority do not want it. Alas, it is a sad comment upon the conservatism of the average human being that not one change of consequence has been desired by women as a whole, or even by a considerable part. It would be nearer the truth to say women as a whole have opposed every advance.
The progress has come because women of a larger mold, loftier ambitions and nobler self-respect than the average have been willing to face the opposition of the world for the sake of liberty. More than one such as these deserve the rank of martyr. The sacrifice of suffering, of doubt, of obloquy, which has been endured by the pioneers in the woman movement will never be fully known or understood.....
With the bold demand for perfect equality of rights in every walk of life the public have compromised. Not willing to grant all, they have conceded something; and by repeated compromises and concessions to the main demand the progress of woman's rights has been accomplished.
There are two kinds of restrictions upon human liberty—the restraint of law and that of custom. No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion, At the beginning of our century both law and custom restricted the liberty of women.
It was the edict of custom which prohibited women from receiving an education, engaging in occupations, speaking in public, organizing societies, or in other ways conducting themselves like free, rational human beings. It was law which forbade married women to control their own property or to collect their own wages, and which forbade all women to vote. The changes have not come because women wished for them or men welcomed them. A liberal board of trustees, a faculty willing to grant a trial, an employer willing to experiment, a broad-minded church willing to hear a woman preach, a few liberal souls in a community willing to hear a woman speak—these have been the influences which have brought the changes.
There is no more elaborate argument or determined opposition to woman suffrage than there has been to each step of progress. .... Had a vote been taken, co-education itself would have been overwhelmingly defeated. In 1840, before women had studied or practiced medicine, had it been necessary to obtain permission to do so by a vote of men or women, 8,000 graduated women physicians would not now be engaged in the healing art in our country. In 1850, when vindictive epithets were hurled from press, pulpit and public in united condemnation of the few women who were attempting to be heard on the platform as speakers, had it been necessary to secure the right of free public speech through Legislatures or popular approval, the voices of women would still be silent..... The rights of women have come in direct opposition to the popular consensus of opinion. Yet when they have once become established, they have been wanted by women and welcomed by men.
​There are a few fanatics who, if.they could, would force the women of this generation back into the spheres of their. grandmothers. There are some pessimists who imagine they see all natural order coming to a speedy end because of the enlarged liberties and opportunities of women. There are sentimentalists who believe that the American home, that most sacred unit of society, is seriously imperiled by the tendencies of women to adopt new duties and interests. But this is not the thought of the average American. There are few intelligent men who would be willing to provide their daughters no more education than was deemed proper for their grandmothers, or who would care to restrict them to the old-time limited sphere of action. Thinking men and women realize that the American home was never more firmly established than at the present time, and that it has grown nobler and happier as women have grown more self-reliant. The average man and woman recognize that the changes which have come have been in the interest of better womanhood and better manhood, bringing greater happiness to women and greater blessings to men. They recognize that each step gained has rendered women fitter companions for men, wiser mothers and far abler units of society.
The public acknowledges the wisdom, the common sense, the practical judgment of the woman movement until it asks for the suffrage. In other words, it approves every right gained because it is here, and condemns the one right not yet gained because it is not here.
Had it been either custom or statutory law which forbade women to vote, the suffrage would have been won by the same processes which have gained every other privilege. A few women would have voted, a few men and women would have upheld them, and, little by little, year after year, the number of women electors would have increased until it became as general for women to vote as it is for men. Had this been possible the women would be voting to-day in every State in the Union; and undoubtedly their appearance at the polls would now be as generally accepted as a matter of fact as the college education. But, alas, when this step of advancement was proposed, women found themselves face to face with the stone wall of Constitutional Law, and they could not vote until a majority of men should first give their consent. Indeed the experiment was made to gain this sacred privilege by easier means. The history of the voting of Susan B. Anthony and others is familiar to all, but the Supreme Court decided that the National Constitution must first be amended. It therefore becomes a necessity to convert to this reform a majority of the men of the whole United States.
When we recall the vast amount of illiteracy, ignorance, selfishness and degradation which exists among certain classes of our people the task imposed upon us is appalling. There are whole precincts of voters in this country whose united intelligence does not equal that of one representative American woman. Yet to such Classes as these we are asked to take our cause as the court of final resort. We are compelled to petition men who have never heard of ​the Declaration of Independence, and who have never read the Constitution, for the sacred right of self-government; we are forced to appeal for justice to men who do not know the meaning of the word; we are driven to argue our claim with men who never had two thoughts in logical sequence. We ask men to consider the rights of a citizen in a republic and we get the answer in reply, given in all seriousness, "Women have more rights now than they ought to have;" and that, too, without the faintest notion of the inanity of the remark or the emptiness of the brain behind it.
When we present our cause to men of higher standing and more liberal opinion, we find that the interest of party and the personal ambition for place are obstacles which prevent them from approving a question concerning whose popularity there is the slightest doubt.
The way before us is difficult at best, not because our demand is not based upon unquestioned justice, not because it is not destined to win in the end, but because of the nature of the processes through which it must be won. In fact the position of this question might well be used to demonstrate that observation of Aristotle that "a democracy has many striking points of resemblance with tyranny. .... "
It is for these reasons, gentlemen, that we appeal to your committee to aid in the submission of a Sixteenth Amendment. Such an amendment would go before the Legislatures of our country where the grade of intelligence is at least higher than we should find in the popular vote.
Though you yourselves may doubt the expediency of woman suffrage, though you may question the soundness of our claim, yet, in the name of democracy, which permits the people to make and amend their constitutions, and in the name of American womanhood, prepared by a century of unmeasured advance for political duties, we beg your aid in the speedy submission of this qyestion. We ask this boon in the direct interest of the thousands ot women who do want to vote, who suffer pangs of humiliation and degradation because of their political servitude. We ask it equally in the indirect interest of the thousands of women who do not want to vote, as we believe their indifference or opposition is the same natural conservatism which led other women to oppose the college education, the control of property, the freedom of public speech and the right of organization.
Miss Anthony closed the hearing in a speech whose vigor, logic ​and eloquence were accentuated in the minds of the hearers by the thought that for more than thirty years she had made these pleas before congressional committees, only to be received with stolid indifference or open hostility. She began by saying: "In closing I would like to give a little object lesson of the two methods of gaining the suffrage. By one it is insisted that we shall carry our: question to what is termed a popular vote of each State—that is, that its Legislature shall submit to the electors the proposition to strike the little adjective "male" from the suffrage clause. We have already made that experiment in fifteen different elections in ten different States. Five States have voted on it twice." She then summarized briefly the causes, of the defeats in the various States, and continued:
There is an enemy of the homes of this nation and that enemy is drunkenness. Every one connected with the gambling house, the brothel and the saloon works and votes solidly against the enfranchisement of women, and, I say, if you believe in chastity, if you believe in honesty and integrity, then do what the enemy wants you not to do, which is to take the necessary steps to put the ballot in the hands of women.....
The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw (Penn.) presided over the hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. The Constitu​tional Argument was made by Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.), who said in the course of a long and logical address:
Article XIV, Section 2, provides that "Representation shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians, not taxed." What sort of justice is there in excluding from the basis of representation Indians who are not taxed and including in this basis women who are taxed? The framers of this amendment were evidently impressed with the tenet that taxation and representation should be associated, and that as the Indian paid no taxes, and was not, therefore, forced to carry the burdens of citizenship, he might, with justice, be denied the privileges of citizenship. But by what specious reasoning can any one maintain that it is honest to tax the great body of women citizens, to count them in the basis of representation, and yet deny to them the right of personal representation at the ballot box? What excuse can be made for this monstrous perversion of liberty? Each one of you, gentlemen, sits here as the representative of thousands of women who, by their money, have helped to build this Capitol in which you assemble and to pay for the seats in which you sit; nay, more, they pay a part of the salary of every man here, and yet what real representation have they? How often do you think, of the women of your States and of their interests in the laws you pass? How much do you reflect on the injustice which is daily and hourly
​done them by denying to them all voice in this body, wherein you claim to "represent the people" of your respective States.
Some years ago, when the bill regulating affairs in Utah was under discussion Senator Edmunds said, "Disfranchisement is a cruel and degrading penalty, that ought not to be inflicted except for crime." Yet this cruel and degrading penalty is inflicted upon practically all the women of the United States. Of what crime have we been guilty? Or is our mere sex a fault for which we must be punished? Would not any body of men look upon disfranchisement as "a cruel and degrading penalty?" Suppose the news were to be flashed across our country to-morrow that the farmers of the nation were to be disfranchised, what indignation there would be! How they would leave their homes to assemble and protest against this wrong! They would declare that disfranchisement was a burden too heavy to be borne; that if they were unrepresented laws would be passed inimical to their best interests; that only personal representation at the ballot, box could give them proper protection; and they would hasten here, even as we are doing, to entreat you to remove from them the burden of "the cruel and degrading penalty of disfranchisement."
And now, I desire to call your attention to a series of declarations in the Constitution which prove beyond all possibility of contravention that the Government has solemnly pledged itself to secure to the women of the nation the right of suffrage.
Article XIV, Section 1, declares that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The women of this country are, then, citizens thereof and entitled to all the rights of citizens.
Article XV speaks of "the right of a citizen to vote," as if that were one of the most precious privileges of citizenship, so precious that its protection is embodied in a separate amendment.
If we now turn to Article IV, Section 2, we find it declares that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."
What do these assertions mean? Is there one of you who can explain away these noble guarantees of the right of individual representation at the ballot box as mere one-sided phrases, having no significance for one-half the people? No. These grand pledges are abiding guarantees of human freedom, honest promises of protection to all the people of the republic. You, gentlemen, have sworn to carry out all the provisions of the Constitution. Does not this oath lay upon you the duty of seeing that this great pledge is kept and that the Fifty-sixth Congress sets its mark in history by fulfilling these guarantees and securing the ballot to the millions of women citizens, possessing every qualification for the intelligent use of this mighty weapon of liberty?
Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (N. Y.), as had been her custom during all the years since she had ceased to appear in person before these committees, sent a strong appeal for justice, beginning as follows:
To every fair mind, such an amendment would appear pre-eminently just, since to count disfranchised classes in the basis of representation compels citizens to aid in swelling the number of Congressmen who may legislate against their most sacred interests. If the Southern States that deny suffrage to negro men should find that it limited their power in Congress by counting in the basis of representation only those citizens who vote, they would see that the interests of the races lay in the same direction. A constitutional amendment to this effect would also rouse the Northern States to their danger, for the same rule applied there in excluding all women from the basis of representation would reduce the number of their members of Congress one-half. And if the South should continue her suicidal policy toward women as well as colored men, her States would be at a still greater disadvantage. ....
By every principle of our republic, logically considered, woman's emancipation is a foregone conclusion. The great "declarations," by the fathers, regarding individual rights and the true foundations of government, should not be glittering generalities for demagogues to quote and ridicule, but eternal laws of justice, as fixed in the world of morals as are the laws of attraction and gravitation in the material universe.
In regard to the injustice of taxing unrepresented classes, Lord Coke says: "The supreme power can not take from any man his property without his consent in person or by representation. The very act of taxing those who are not represented appears to me to deprive them of one of their most sacred rights as free men, and if continued, seems to be in effect an entire disfranchisement of every civil right; for what one civil right is worth a rush when a man's property is subject to be taken from him without his consent?
Miss Elizabeth Sheldon Tillinghast (Conn.) considered The Economic Basis of Woman Suffrage:
Trade is a fight—an antagonism of interests which are compromised in contracts in which the economically stronger always wins the advantage. There are many things that contribute to economic strength besides ability, and among them the most potent is coming more and more to be the power which arises from organization expressing itself in political action. Without political expression woman's economic value is at the bottom of the scale. She is the last to be considered, and the consideration is usually about exhausted before she is reached.
She must do better work than men for equal pay or equal work for less pay. In spite of this she may be supplanted at any time by a political adherent, or her place may be used as a bribe to an opposing faction. Women are weak in the business world because they are new in it; because they are only just beginning to learn their economic value; because their inherent tendencies are passive instead of aggressive, which makes them as a class less efficient fighters than men.
For these reasons women are and must be for years, if not for generations, economically weaker than men. Does it appeal to any one's sense of fairness to give the stronger party in a struggle additional advantages and deny them to the weaker one? Would that be considered honorable—would it be considered tolerable—even among prize-fighters? What would be thought of a contest between a heavy-weight and a feather-weight in which the heavy-weight was allowed to hit below the belt and the feather-weight was confined to the Marquis of Queensberry's rules? And yet these are practically the conditions under which women do business in forty-one of our States.
Mrs. Hala Hammond Butt (Miss.) discussed The Changed Intellectual Qualifications of the Women of this Century, with the intense eloquence of Southern women, and closed as follows:
There are mighty forces striving within our souls—a latent strength is astir that is lifting us out of our passive sleep. Defenseless, still are we subject to restrictions, bonds as illogical in theory as unjust in practice. Helpless, we may formulate as we will; but demonstrate we may not. The query persists in thrusting itself upon my mind, why should I be amenable to a law that does not accord me recognition? Why, indeed, should I owe loyalty and allegiance to a Government that stamps my brow with the badge of servility and inferiority?
Our human interests are identical—yours and mine; our paths not far apart; we have the same loves, the same hates, the same hopes, the same desires; a common origin, a common need, a common destiny. Our moral responsibilities are equal, our civil liabilities not less than yours, our social and industrial exactions equally as stringent as yours, and yet—O, crowning shame of the nineteenth century!—we are denied the garb of citizenship. Gentlemen, is this justice?
Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch, auditor of the National Suffrage Association and a member of the Chicago bar, demonstrated The Protective Power of the Ballot:
The spirit of struggle against oppression and dependence is in the air, and all have breathed it in—women as well as men. They, too, feel the desire for freedom, opportunity, progress; the wish for liberty, a share in the government, emancipation. The practical method by which these aspirations can be realized is through the ballot. It is the insignia of power. The Outlander wants it; so does the Filipino, the Slav, the Cuban; so do women. Women need the ballot not only for the honor of being esteemed. peers among freemen, but they want it for the practical value it will be in protecting them in the exercise of a citizen's prerogatives. ....
But, it is asked, "Have not women had some sort of protection without the ballot?" Yes, but it has been only such protection as ​the caprice or affection of the voting class has given, gratuities revocable at will, The man of wealth or power defends his wife. daughter or sweetheart because she is his, just as he would defend his property. His own opinions, not her views, decide him concerning the things from which she should be protected. Should she ever need protection against "her protector," there is no one to give ....
Entrance into remunerative employments in many instances has been denied women. In many of the States the professions of law, medicine, dentistry and all the elective offices are closed by statute. Appointive positions, also, which women might legally hold are practically withheld from them because of their lack of the ballot. The appointing power—president, governor, mayor, judge or commissioner—all owe their own positions to voters who expect some minor appointment in acknowledgment of service.
Even large private corporations not supposed to be influenced by politics have occasionally desired and received governmental help and protection. In return, the employes of these enterprises have been advised to vote for the party which has protected their employers' business. At a caucus, a street parade and on election day, the 500 or 10,000 or 100,000 persons employed in a certain industry make a considerable political showing if they are all voters. On such occasions women employes are of no value. Women refused employment in various enterprises not alone are injured in their feelings, but they are not protected in their right to earn food, shelter and clothes.
There are many different kinds of employment which do not debar women, but even in these they need protection in securing a fair return for their labor. In an investigation conducted by the U. S. Department of Labor concerning the wages received by men and women it appeared that in 75 per cent. of the 782 instances investigated, men received 50 per cent. higher wages than did women laboring with the same degree of efficiency on the same kind of work.
Women also need protection of their property. A man who knows the inside truth says, "Widows and minors are always assessed higher than men." If the assessor desires re-election, one of the easiest methods of securing it is to lower the assessments of the politicians who control most voters. ....
Women also want protection for the one 2 sphere which even the most conservative loudly proclaim should be theirs—the home. That the water supply is good and abundant, that the sewage is carried away properly and speedily, that contagious cases are isolated, that food is pure in quality and reasonable in price, that inspection of food is honest and scientific, that weights and measures are true, that gas and electricity are inexpensive, that buildings are strongly constructed—these are all matters under the control of certain officials elected by voters. ....
Women, too, want protection for the children, proper regulations in regard to the schools, the trains at crossings, seducers, tramps and child abductors. They want strict laws against obscene liter​ature and the unhealthy cigarette; and what is equally important, honest enforcement of such laws and ordinances. ....
The hearing was closed by Miss Shaw, who said in ending her remarks::
In many of the States where the statutes were based on the old English common law, the husband absorbed the wife's property as he absorbed her personal rights. Then came the demand for property rights for wives, but the cry went up they will desert their homes. Then it was found there were thousands of women who could have no home if they were not permitted to pursue avocations in the outside world. And then it was said that the moral life of women would be degraded by public contact. Yet the statistics show that in those occupations in which women are able to earn a livelihood in an honorable and respectable manner they have raised the standard of morality rather than lowered it.
The results have not been those which were predicted. The homes have not been broken up; for human hearts are and always will be the same, and so long as God has established in this world a greater force than all other forces combined—which we call the divine gravity of love—just so long human hearts will continue to be drawn together, homes will be founded, families will be reared; and never so good a home, never so good a family, as those founded in justice and educated upon right principles. Consequently the industrial emancipation of women has been of benefit to the home, to women and to men.
The claim is made that we are building a barrier between men and women; that we are antagonistic because men are men and we are women. This is not true. We believe there never was a time when men and women were such good friends as now, when they esteemed each other as they do now. We have coeducation in our schools; boys and girls work side by side and study and recite together. When coeducation was first tried men thought they would easily carry off the honors; but soon they learned their mistake. ​That experience gave to men a better opinion of woman's intellectual ability.
There is nothing in liberty which can harm either man or woman. There is nothing in justice which can work against the highest good of humanity; and when on the ground of expediency this measure is opposed, in the words of Wendell Phillips, "Whatever is just, God will see that it is expedient." There is no greater inexpediency than injustice. ....
We do not ask the ballot because we do not believe in men or because we think men unjust or unfair. We do not ask to speak for ourselves because we believe men unwilling to speak for us; but because men by their very nature never can speak for women. It would be as impossible for all men to understand the needs of women and care for their interests as it would be for all women to understand the needs and care for the interests of men. So long as laws affect both men and women, both should make the laws.
No one can read the arguments for the enfranchisement of women as presented before these two committees without a profound conviction of the justice of their cause and the imperative duty of those before whom they pleaded it to report in favor of submitting the desired amendment. This report would simply have placed the matter before the respective Houses of Congress. But neither committee took any action whatever and as far as practical results were concerned these eloquent pleas fell upon deaf ears and hardened hearts.
A unique feature was added to the hearings this year because, for the first time, the advocates of woman suffrage were opposed before the committees by a class of women calling themselves "remonstrants." The Woman's Journal said:
The party of "antis" who came to the Senate hearing in the Marble Room would not have been able to get in but for Miss Anthony. As this room accommodates only about sixty persons, admission was by tickets, and these had been issued to delegates only. The "antis," having no tickets, were turned away; but Miss Anthony, ​learning who they were, persuaded the doorkeeper to admit them, introduced them herself to the chairman of the committee, and placed them in good seats near the front, where they certainly heard more about the facts of equal suffrage than they ever did before.
The time for these hearings belonged exclusively to the suffrage delegates, the chairmen of the two congressional committees stating that they would appoint some oth@r day for the "remonstrants." The delegates, however, declaring that they had no objections, the "antis" were permitted to read their papers at the close of the suffrage hearing, thus having the benefit of the large audiences, but furnishing a vast amount of amusement to the suffragists.
The Woman's Journal said in its perfectly fair description:
​Mrs. Dodge, in her speech, begged the committee not to allow the "purely sentimental reasons of the petitioners" to have any weight, and said: "The mere fact that this amendment is asked as a compliment to the leading advocate of woman suffrage on the attainment of her eightieth birthday, is evidence of the emotional frame of mind which influences the advocates of the measure, and which is scarcely favorable to the calm consideration that should be given to fundamental political principles." Miss Anthony's birthday had not been mentioned by any speaker before either committee, and the suffragists under her leadership had been making their pleas and arguments for a Sixteenth Amendment for over thirty years.
As the suffrage, speakers were not permitted to answer the misstatements and prevarications of the "remonstrants" at the time of the hearings and these were widely circulated through the press, the convention passed the following resolutions on motion of Miss Alice Stone Blackwell:
Resolved, That we call attention to a published statement declaring that the results are wholesome and that none of the predicted evils have followed. This statement is signed by the Governor and three ex-Governors of Colorado, the Chief Justice, all the Judges of the State Supreme Court, the Denver District Court and the Court of Appeals; all the Colorado Senators and Representatives in Congress; President Slocum of Colorado College, the president of the State University, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Attorney-General, the mayor of Denver, prominent clergymen of different denominations, and the presidents of thirteen of the principal women's associations of Denver. The social science department of the Denver Woman's Club has just voted unanimously to the same effect, and the Colorado Legislature lately passed a similar resolution by a vote of 45 to 3 in the House and 30 to I in the Senate. On the other hand, during the six years that equal suffrage has prevailed in Colorado the opponents have not yet found six respectable men who assert over their own names and addresses that it has had any bad results.
Whereas, At the Congressional hearing it was asserted that equal suffrage had led to no improvements in the laws of Colorado; therefore,
This anecdote was related the next day: "Miss Anthony's love of the beautiful leads her always to clothe herself in good style and fine materials, and she has an eye for the fitness of things as well as for the funny side. 'Girls,' she said yesterday, after returning from the Capitol, 'those statesmen eyed us very closely, but I will wager that it was impossible after we got mixed together to tell an anti from a suffragist by her clothes. There "might have been a difference, though, in the expression of the faces and the shape of the heads,' she added drily."
On Tuesday afternoon about two hundred members of the convention were received by President McKinley in the East Room of the White House. Miss Anthony stood at his right hand and, after the President had greeted the last guest, he invited her to accompany him upstairs to meet Mrs. McKinley, who was not well enough to receive all of the ladies. Giving her his arm he led her up the old historic staircase, "as tenderly as if he had been my own son," she said afterward. When she was leaving, after a pleasant call, Mrs. McKinley expressed a wish to send some message to the convention and she and the President together filled Miss Anthony's arms with white lilies, which graced the platform during the remainder of the meetings.
* ↑ The statistics used in this paper were taken from the report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education for 1899.
* ↑ See chapter on Louisiana.
* ↑ The address of Miss Laughlin created a sensation. A member of the United States Labor Commission was in the audience, and was so much impressed with the power of this young woman that shortly afterwards she was made a member of this commission to investigate the condition of the working women of the United States. Her valuable report was published in pamphlet form.
* ↑ See chapter on Kansas.
* ↑ Immediately after the convention, the New York Times published an alleged interview with Mrs. Paul, in which she was made to say that she was not a believer in suffrage for women. She at once denied this emphatically over her own signature, saying that the interview was a fabrication and that she was an advocate of the enfranchisement of women especially because of the need of their ballot in city government.
* ↑ This was held the first week in December, 1901, and netted about $8,000 for the association.
* ↑ It will be noticed in this pamphlet that all but one of the favorable reports from congressional committees were made during the years when Miss Anthony had a winter home at the Riggs House, through the courtesy of its proprietors, Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Spofford, and was able to secure them through personal attention and influence. There were always some members of these committees who were favorable to woman suffrage, but with the great pressure on every side from other matters, this one was apt to be neglected unless somebody made a business of seeing that it did not go by default. This Miss Anthony did for many years, and during this time secured the excellent reports of 1879, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886 and 1890. The great speech of Senator T. W. Palmer, made February 6, 1885, was in response to her insistence that he should keep his promise to speak in favor of the question. In 1888-90 Mrs. Upton, who was residing in Washington with her father, Ezra B. Taylor, M. C., did not permit the Judiciary Committee to forget the report for that year, which was the first and only favorable House Report.
* ↑ For account of the work of the association before Congress see Chap. I.
* ↑ George W. Ray, N. Y., chairman: John J. Jenkins, Wis.; Richard Wayne Parker, N. J.; Jesse Overstreet, Ind.; De Alva S. Alexander, N. Y.; Vespasian Warner, III; Winfield S. Kerr, O.; Charles E. Littlefield, Me.; Romeo H. Freer, W. Va.; Julius Kahn, Calif.; William L. Terry, Ark.; David A. De Armond, Mo.; Samuel W. T. Lanham, Tex.; William Elliott, S. C.; Oscar W. Underwood, Ala.; David H. Smith, Ky.; William H. Fleming, Ga.
* ↑ That this was a mistaken courtesy was proved by subsequent events, as afterwards Mrs. Dodge came out with a card in the New York Sun denying that they were admitted through the intervention of Miss Anthony.
* ↑ In the official Senate report of the hearing the arguments of the suffragists filled forty pages; those of the "antis" five pages. They consisted of brief papers by Mrs. Dodge and Miss Bissell. The former took the ground that the Congress should leave this matter to be decided by the States; that women are not physically qualified to use the ballot; and that its use by them would render "domestic tranquillity" a byword among the people. Miss Bissell began by saying, "It is not the tyranny but the chivalry of men that we have to fear," and opposed the suffrage principally because the majority of women do not want it, saying, "I have never yet been so situated that I could see where a vote could help me. If I felt that it would, I might become a suffragist perhaps."