The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 33

Of the n.o.ble band that started in 1848, few now remain, but a host of young women are already on the stage of action, even better equipped than were our pioneers to plead their own cases in the courts, the halls of legislation, the pulpit and the press.

Two large receptions were given to the delegates and visitors, one at the Hotel Aragon, and one by Mrs. W. A. Hemphill, chairman of the Committee on the Professional Work of Women at the approaching Cotton States Exposition soon to be held in Atlanta. She was a.s.sisted by Mrs.

W. Y. Atkinson, wife of the newly-elected Governor of Georgia.

During several weeks before the convention Miss Anthony and Mrs.

Chapman Catt had made a tour of the Southern States, speaking in the princ.i.p.al cities to arouse suffrage sentiment, as this section was practically an unvisited field. Immediately after the convention closed a ma.s.s meeting was held in the court-house of Atlanta.

Afterwards Mrs. Blake was requested to address the Legislature of North Carolina, Miss Anthony lectured in a number of cities on the way northward, and others were invited to hold meetings in the neighboring States. Most of the speakers and delegates met in Was.h.i.+ngton on February 15 to celebrate Miss Anthony's seventy-fifth birthday and partic.i.p.ate in the triennial convention of the National Council of Women.

FOOTNOTES:

[101] The three sisters, Claudia Howard Maxwell, Miriam Howard Du Bose and H. Augusta Howard, who as delegates at Was.h.i.+ngton the previous winter had invited the a.s.sociation to Atlanta, bore the princ.i.p.al part of these expenses and were largely responsible for the success of the convention.

[102] The facts and figures presented in the report from Kansas by the president, Mrs. Laura M. Johns, will be found in the chapter on that State.

[103] For an account of this beautiful celebration in the Metropolitan Opera House with an audience of 3,000, see Life and Work of Susan B.

Anthony, p. 848; also Reminiscences of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

[104] For account of Mrs. Bradwell's case see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 601; of Mrs. Minor's, same, p. 715.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE NATIONAL-AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1896.

The suffrage a.s.sociation held its Twenty-eighth annual convention in the Church of Our Father, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., Jan. 23-28, 1896. In her opening remarks the president, Miss Susan B. Anthony, said:

The thought that brought us here twenty-eight years ago was that, if the Federal Const.i.tution could be invoked to protect black men in the right to vote, the same great authority could be invoked to protect women. The question has been urged upon every Congress since 1869. We asked at first for a Sixteenth Amendment enfranchising women; then for suffrage under the Fourteenth Amendment; then, when the Supreme Court had decided that against us, we returned to the Sixteenth Amendment and have pressed it ever since. The same thing has been done in this Fifty-fourth Congress which has been done in every Congress for a decade, namely, the introducing of a bill providing for the new amendment....

You will notice that the seats of the delegation from Utah are marked by a large United States flag bearing three stars, a big one and two smaller ones. The big star is for Wyoming, because it stood alone for a quarter of a century as the only place where _women had full suffrage_. Colorado comes next, because it is the first State where a majority of the men voted to grant women equal rights. Then comes Utah, because its men in convention a.s.sembled--in spite of the bad example of Congress, which took the right away from its women nine years ago--those men, having seen the good effects of woman suffrage for years, voted by an overwhelming majority to leave out the little word "male" from the suffrage clause of their new State Const.i.tution, and their action was ratified by the electors. Next year, if I am here, I hope to rejoice with you over woman suffrage in California and Idaho.

Some one whispered to Miss Anthony that the convention had not been opened with prayer, and she answered without the slightest confusion: "Now, friends, you all know I am a Quaker. We give thanks in silence.

I do not think the heart of any one here has been fuller of silent thankfulness than mine, but I should not have remembered to have the meeting formally opened with prayer if somebody had not reminded me.

The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw will offer prayer."

Miss Shaw's report as vice-president-at-large was full of the little touches of humor for which she was noted:

The report of my specific work would not take long; but the work that really did count for our a.s.sociation began last May, when your president and I were invited to California. On the way we stopped first at St. Louis, where Miss Anthony spoke before the Women's Federation, the Woman's Council, and the State W. S. A.

From there we went to Denver, where we had a remarkable meeting, and a warm greeting was given to Miss Anthony by the newly enfranchised women of Colorado. It was pleasant to find them so grateful to the pioneers. The large opera house was packed, and a reception, in which the newspapers estimated that 1,500 persons took part, was afterwards given at the Palace Hotel.

From Denver we went to Cheyenne, where we addressed the citizens, men and women. For once there were present at our meeting quite as many men as women, and not only ordinary but extraordinary men. After introducing us to the audience, Mrs. Theresa A.

Jenkins introduced the audience to us. It included the Governor, Senators, Representatives, Judges of the Supreme Court, city officials, and never so many majors and colonels, and it showed that where women have a vote, men think their meetings are worth going to. We were the guests of the Governor during our stay in Colorado, and guests of a U. S. Senator in Wyoming. At Salt Lake all the city turned out, and I spoke in the Tabernacle to the largest audience I ever had. It was sympathetic too, for Utah people are accustomed to go to church and listen. At Ogden they had to take two buildings for the meeting. At Reno, Nevada, there was a large audience.

The Woman's Congress at San Francisco was the most marvelous gathering I ever saw. The newspapers said the men were all hypnotized, or they would not stand on the sidewalk two hours to get into a church. Every subject considered during the whole week, whether it was the care of children or the decoration of the home, turned on the ballot for women, and Susan B. Anthony was the belle of the ball. The superintendent of San Francisco closed the schools that Miss Anthony might address the 900 teachers. The Ministers' a.s.sociation pa.s.sed resolutions favoring the amendment. We went the whole length of the State and the meetings were just as enthusiastic.

The Citizens' Committee asked women to take part in the Fourth of July celebration. The women accepted more than the men meant they should, for they insisted that a woman should be on the program.

The Program Committee refused, and the Executive Committee said if they did not put a woman on they should be discharged. Instead of this they proposed that Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper should provide sandwiches for over 5,000 kindergarten children. That was the kind of work they invited such women to do.

The Program Committee discussed the matter, and their discussion could be heard four blocks away, but they finally yielded and invited me to speak. So Miss Anthony and I rode for three miles in a highly-decorated carriage, just behind the mayor and followed by a bra.s.s band and the fire brigade, and I wore a big badge that almost covered me, just like the badge worn by the masculine orator. The dispute between the Executive and the Program Committees had excited so much interest that there were more cheers for your president and vice-president as we pa.s.sed along than there were for the mayor....

They wanted us both to come back in the fall. I went and spoke thirty-four times in thirty-seven evenings.

As the vice-president finished, Miss Anthony observed in her characteristic manner: "Miss Shaw said she only went to California to hold Miss Anthony's bonnet, but, when we left, everybody thought that I had come to hold her bonnet. It is my delight to see these girls develop and outdo their elders. There is another little woman that I want to come up here to the platform, Mrs. Chapman Catt. While she is blus.h.i.+ng and getting ready, there is a delegation here from the Woman's National Press a.s.sociation." Mesdames Lockwood, Gates, Cromwell and Emerson were introduced, and Miss Anthony remarked: "Our movement depends greatly on the press. The worst mistake any woman can make is to get crosswise with the newspapers."[105]

By this time Mrs. Chapman Catt had reached the platform, and Miss Anthony continued: "Mrs. Catt went down South with me last year to hold my bonnet; and wherever we were, at Memphis or New Orleans or elsewhere, when she had spoken, Miss Anthony was nowhere. It is she who has done the splendid organization work which has brought into the a.s.sociation nearly every State in the Union, and every Territory except the Indian and Alaska and we shall have them next year."

An able address was given by Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby (D. C.) on The Philosophy of Woman Suffrage, in which she said:

Woman suffrage is in harmony with the evolution of the race. The progress of civilization has developed the finer forces of mankind and made ready for the entrance of woman into government.

As long as man was merely a slayer of men and animals he did not feel the need of the co-partners.h.i.+p of woman, but as his fatherhood was developed he felt his inadequacy and the necessity of the maternal element by his side. Woman suffrage is in harmony with the growth of the idea of the worth of the individual, which has its best expression in our republic. Our nation is heir of all the struggles for freedom which have been made....

The Magna Charta belongs to us as much as does the Declaration of Independence. In all these achievements for liberty women have borne their share. Not only have they inspired men but the record of the past is illumined with the story of their own brave deeds.

Women love liberty as well as men do. The love of liberty is the corollary of the right of consent to government. All the progress of our nation has been along the line of extending the application of this basic idea....

Woman suffrage is in harmony with the evolution in the status of women. They always have done their share in the development of the race. There always has been a "new woman," some one stepping out in advance of the rest and gaining a place for others to stand upon.... We have no cause to blush for our ancestors. We may save our blushes for the women of to-day who do not live up to their privileges.

Now that woman has made such advance in personal and property rights, educational and industrial opportunities, to deny her the ballot is to force her to occupy a much more degrading position than did the women of the past. We think the savage woman degraded because she walks behind her husband bearing the burden to leave his hands free for the weapon which is his sign of sovereignty; what shall we say of the woman of to-day who may not follow her husband and brother as he goes forth to wield the weapon of civilization, the ballot? If the evolution in the status of woman does not point to the franchise it is meaningless.

Mrs. Colby was followed by Miss Julie R. Jenney, a member of the bar in Syracuse, N. Y., with a thoughtful address on Law and the Ballot.

She showed that woman's present legal rights are in the nature of a license, and therefore revocable at the will of the bodies granting them, and that until women elect the lawmakers they can not be entirely sure of any rights whatever. Between Daybreak and Sunrise was the t.i.tle of the address of Mrs. May Stocking Knaggs (Mich.), who pleaded for the opportunity of complete co-operation between men and women, declaring that "each human being is a whole, single and responsible; each human unit is concerned in the social compact which is formed to protect individual and mutual rights."

This was the first appearance of Mrs. Stetson on this national platform. She came as representative of the Pacific Coast Woman's Congress and California Suffrage a.s.sociation. The _Woman's Journal_ said: "Those of us who have for years admired Mrs. Stetson's remarkably bright poems were delighted to meet her, and to find her even more interesting than her writings. She is still a young woman, tall, lithe and graceful, with fine dark eyes, and spirit and originality flas.h.i.+ng from her at every turn like light from a diamond.

She read several poems to the convention, made an address one evening and preached twice on Sunday; and the delegates followed her around, as iron filings follow a magnet."

Mrs. Catharine E. Hirst, president of the Ladies of the G. A. R.; Mrs.

Lillian M. Hollister, representing the Supreme Hive Ladies of the Maccabees; Miss Harriette A. Keyser, from the Political Study Club of New York; Mrs. Rose E. Lumpkin, president Virginia King's Daughters, were presented as fraternal delegates. Grace Greenwood and Mrs.

Caroline B. Buell were introduced to the convention.

Mrs. Chapman Catt spoke for the Course of Study in Political Science, which had been in operation only five months, had sold five hundred full sets of books and reported over one hundred clubs formed. The committee on credentials reported 138 delegates present, and all the States and Territories represented except thirteen. A very satisfactory report of the first year's work of the organization committee was presented by its chairman, Mrs. Chapman Catt, which closed as follows:

Our committee are more than ever convinced that it is possible to build a great organization based upon the one platform of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women. With harmony, co-operation and determination we shall yet build this organization, of such numbers and political strength that through the power of const.i.tuency it can dictate at least one plank in the platform of every political party, and secure an amendment from any Legislature it pet.i.tions. We believe it will yet have its auxiliaries in every village and hamlet, towns.h.i.+p and school district, to influence majorities when the amendment is submitted. More--we believe ere many years its powers will be so subtle and widespread that it can besiege the conservatism of Congress itself, and come away with the laurel wreath of victory.

Nearly $3,300 were at once pledged for the committee, Miss Anthony herself agreeing to raise $600 of this amount.

Mrs. Chapman Catt presented also a detailed Plan of Work, which included Organization, Club Work, Letter Writing, Raising of Money and Political Work. Of the last she said: "The time has fully come when we should carry the rub-a-dub of our agitation into 'the political Africa,' that is into every town meeting of every towns.h.i.+p of every county, and every caucus or primary meeting of every ward of every city of every State.... For a whole half century we have held special suffrage meetings, with audiences largely of women; that is, women have talked to women. We must now carry our discussion of the question into all of the different political party gatherings, for it is only there that the rank and file of the voters ever go. They won't come to our meetings, so we must carry our gospel into theirs. It will be of no more avail in the future than it has been in the past to send appeals to State and national conventions, so long as they are not backed by pet.i.tions from a vast majority of the voting const.i.tuents of their members."

With the thousand dollars which had been put into Miss Anthony's hands by Mrs. Louisa Southworth of Cleveland the preceding year, national headquarters had been opened in Philadelphia with Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, corresponding secretary, in charge. Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, treasurer, reported total receipts for 1895 to be $9,835, with a balance of several hundred dollars in the treasury.

The princ.i.p.al feature of the Sat.u.r.day evening meeting was the address of Miss Elizabeth Burrill Curtis, daughter of George William Curtis, on Universal Suffrage. She said in part:

I find many people in my native State of New York who are leaning toward a limited suffrage, and therefore I am beginning to ask, "What does it mean? Is democratic government impossible after all?" For a government in order to be democratic must be founded on the suffrages of all the people, not a part. A republic may exist by virtue of a limited suffrage, but a democracy can not, and a democratic government has been our theoretical ideal from the first. Are we prepared, after a hundred and twenty years, to own ourselves defeated?... Universal suffrage, to me, means the right of every man and woman who is mentally able to do so, and who has not forfeited the right by an ill use of it, to say who shall rule them, and what action shall be taken by those rulers upon questions of moment....

This brings me to what I wish to say about those who desire a limited suffrage. Who are they, and to what cla.s.s do they belong?

For the most part, as I know them, they are men of property, who belong to the educated cla.s.ses, who are refined and cultivated, and who see the government about them falling into the hands of the unintelligent and often illiterate cla.s.ses who are voted at the polls like sheep. Therefore these gentlemen weep aloud and wail and say: "If we had a limited suffrage, if we and our friends had the management of affairs, how much better things would be!"