The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1912-02-20
SUFFRACISTS
40 YEARS AGO.
When WOm:n St0rm3d a Sen
ate Committee Room.
CONVENTION IN WASHINGTON

u Terminated In a Demonstration
Which Brought the Police to the Can
itol-lncidents Like Those Now oe-
curing In London.
rampant Women Sutfragists" in the
''scare head on the leading story of
the Kansas City Times OF forty YEAR.
ago. The incidents of the story are NOT
unlike those of the stories which af.-
pear almost every day in the London
Times of the present.
The story ia dispatch from Wash
ington dated Jan. II, 1872 Many OF
the women who were leaders in the
movement are widely known today.
Miss Susan r. Anthony, Mrs. Stanton.
Josephine Hooper and Nie@eria Wood
hull are mentioned as being lin the
ranks that filed up the passage leading
up to the committee room with grim
faces and loud excited voices" Tn
der the first bank of the headline IL
the line, Three Hundred and Odd
Strong Missed Creatures. on Duty
Bent The last bank of the head
states that They Refuse TO Listen to
Entreates and Are Treated to Police
COurtesieS.
A woman suffrage convention had
been in session in Washington for four
days, and the story refers TO the feel.
ing Of unrest and dissension which
has pervaded the very air of the city
during that time" Just four years
previously the fourteenth amendment
was added to the constitution of the
United States to give the right Of the
ballot to the recently freed slaves
All persons born or naturaIiZed i'm
the United States and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the
United States and of the state wherein
they reside" says the amendment.
While this was intended solely for the
benefit of the former slaves. the suffra-
gettes saw in it the opportunity for us
to throw off the shackleS which have
CALLED and chafed our oppressed sex
through all time" as one of the elO-
Quent speakers had said i'm the conven-
ton.
Slaves. slaves Tell me of the ell
shaved race which has knelt to the
tyranny of mans oppression SO long
and suffered so much as We Then If
this amendment is to set the negro
slaves of men upon the pedestal Of
equality it shall also give TO women
the right which has been her fOndest
hope and dream through all these cen
turtles"
The convention moved in a body 70
the committee room OF the senate.
where the question was to be debated.
The women gathered in the corridor
outside the room to wait for the ar
rival of the committee And so an
| mer0us were the 'gentler sex that the
members of the committee could not
get to their room until the sergeant-at-
arms called upon the women TO clear
| the way" relates the Times. He ex-
| postulated with the female suffragists
and besOught them to consider, but
all to no effect Not one would move
! to either side for fear of losing her
chance to get into the room.
| "Finally large force Of police were
summoned. and they went forward
and pushed the f1uttering mass Of erin
oline back far enough to allow Trum-
| bull and the other senator's to march
| into the committee room. Speeches
were made by Mrs. Stanton and others
| i'm which it was argued that the four
! teenth amendment gave to women the
right to vote. Such a scene has never
been witnessed in the capitol before,
| and in the case Of their being men
there would have been numerous ar
! rests, as there would in this case IL
these women had obtained their
rights