The History of Woman Suffrage Volume V Part 7

An interesting symposium took place one afternoon on The Need of Women in Munic.i.p.al Politics, with the following speakers: Mrs. Marie Louise Graham (La.), City Politics is but a Broader Housekeeping; Mrs. Carrie E. Kent (D. C.), The Home--the Ballot the Only Weapon for its Defence; the Rev. Kate Hughes (Ill.), Justice Dictates, Expediency Confirms; Dr. Sarah M. Siewers (O.), Men's and Women's Votes the Only True Basis of Reform; Miss Laura E. Gregg (Kans.), The Stepping Stone to a Yet Untried System of Government; Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg (Penn.), Munic.i.p.al Corruption under the Present System a National Disgrace.

Each topic was treated in a keen, incisive manner. Miss Gregg described the practical benefit that the women's munic.i.p.al vote had been to Kansas. Dr. Siewers gave a dramatic ill.u.s.tration of the need of women's votes in her own city of Cincinnati, which applied with equal force to all cities. Mrs. Blankenburg emphasized all that had been said by an account of conditions in Philadelphia, saying:

Franchises worth millions of dollars are given away to the faithful. Contracts are let to those who will divide with high officials; they are granted to the highest "responsive" and not to the lowest "responsible" bidder. Merchants of vice are licensed and protected. The police are ordered to be blind when they should see keenest. Nearly every office has its price. Even school teachers are blackmailed and forced to pay for their appointment and civil service fades before political influence.

The a.s.sessors' lists are padded by tens of thousands of dollars and majorities are returned to keep the "machine" and the party it represents in power, regardless of the actual vote cast....

The cry of the reformer is, "We must waken the better element to save our cities. We must make honesty and morality the supreme question in our politics." Who represents these if not women?...

Let us for the moment think of a great city where the mothers have a voice in the laws which are designed to protect the children and the interests of the home. Imagine the burdens of city housekeeping being shared with the women who by training are expert housekeepers. Picture a council meeting composed of fathers and mothers discussing ordinances to promote honesty and virtue, prevent vice and extinguish corruption. When this time comes, we shall have less munic.i.p.al depravity and shall prove to the world that our experiment in democracy is not a failure.

Dr. Augusta Stowe-Gullen, a prominent physician of Toronto and an early suffragist, who had come as a fraternal delegate from the Canadian a.s.sociation, spoke of the excellent results of the School and Munic.i.p.al vote in the hands of women. "We have better officials," she said, "and therefore less dishonesty but the greatest gain has been in the educative and broadening effect on women and men. The polls, which used to be even in old stables, are now in the school houses and the general tone of elections has been improved." Later Dr. Stowe-Gullen gave a long and thoughtful address at an evening session on The Evolution of Government.

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

Marie Jenney and the singing of "The Lord is my shepherd," by Miss Gordon. Mrs. Catt, who presided, paid eloquent tribute to those who had died during the year, among them Mrs. Esther Morris, to whom the women of Wyoming were princ.i.p.ally indebted for the suffrage in 1869; to the Hon. Thomas B. Reed of Maine, one of the most distinguished Speakers of the lower House of Congress and always a staunch supporter of woman suffrage; to Madame Sophie Levovna Friedland, delegate from Russia to the International Woman Suffrage Conference the preceding year, who died soon after returning home; to Dr. Hannah Longsh.o.r.e, the first woman physician in Philadelphia, and told of the bitter opposition she had to overcome, adding: "She gave to the Pennsylvania a.s.sociation its splendid president, her daughter, Mrs. Blankenburg."

Mrs. Catt spoke also of Mrs. Cornelia Collins Hussey of New Jersey and her boundless generosity, saying: "Often and often she sent a hundred dollars to our treasury with a note: 'I have just sold a piece of real estate and I want to give a part of the proceeds to the suffrage cause.'" Miss Blackwell added to the tribute: "A quiet woman of Quaker blood, never seeking office or prominence, she came to the relief of our distressed officers on innumerable occasions. She once told me that there were many who could write and speak for equal suffrage but that the Lord seemed to have given her only one talent, that of making money, and she meant to use it for the cause.... She was a great believer in preaching the gospel of reform through the printed page and she and her daughter, Dr. Mary D. Hussey, who was like-minded with her, have sent out probably more equal suffrage literature than any other two women in the United States. She placed the _Woman's Journal_ in a great number of college reading-rooms and sent it far and wide.

During the thirty-three years that the paper has been published--and published always at a financial loss--she has been one of its most steadfast and generous friends."[27]

"The palm of victory has come this year to Elizabeth Cady Stanton,"

said Mrs. Catt, "but though she has gone it is still our privilege to have her friend and co-worker, Susan B. Anthony, and I echo the prayer of every heart that she may be here till all women are enfranchised." Miss Anthony was most affectionately greeted and said: "I feel indeed as if a part of my life had gone. Mrs. Stanton always said that when the parting came she wanted me to go first, so that she might write my eulogy. I am not a 'word-artist,' as she was, and I can not give hers in fitting terms." She read from the last volume of the History of Woman Suffrage extracts from her great speeches and related a number of instances showing her characteristics. Dr. Shaw then began a eulogy, which can only be marred in quoting from memory, by saying: "Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony and Lucy Stone held up the standard of truth and when they were urged to lower it in order to suit the ideas of the world they answered: 'We will not lower our standard to the level of your world; bring the world up to the standard.' ... I shall always be thankful that I lived in the present age and knew these women who never quailed in the face of danger. The side of Mrs.

Stanton that I like best to think of is her home life, her family affections and her friends.h.i.+ps. I was once a guest for several days in the same house with her and other leaders and she was so vivacious, so fresh, so full of joy of life that it was delightful to be with her.

She was so witty that no one wanted to leave the room a minute for fear of losing something she might say. I used to love to see her after she took a nap; though so advanced in years she would always awaken with a look of wonder and pleasure like a child just gazing out upon life."[28]

Tributes also were paid to Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer of Ma.s.sachusetts; Mrs. Thomas M. Patterson of Colorado; the Hon. Albert H. Horton of Kansas; Mrs. Addie M. Johnson of Missouri; Miss Anna C. Mott of Ohio; the Hon. Lester H. Humphrey and Mrs. Hannah L. Howland of New York; Dr. Marie Zakrzewska of Ma.s.sachusetts and other workers in the cause.

Mrs. Gilman closed the services by reading her beautiful memorial poem, In Honor, written for the occasion.

A unique feature of the convention which lightened its serious tone was Dr. Shaw's "question box," into which any one might drop a question and at intervals she would take them out and answer them on the spur of the moment to the delight of her audience. "If women voted," was one of them, "would they not have to sit on juries?" "Many women would be glad of a chance to sit on anything," she answered with a smile. "There are women who stand up and wash six days in the week at 75 cents a day who would like to take a vacation and sit on a jury at $1.50. Some women would like to sit on a jury at the trial of the sharks that live by corrupting boys and girls. It would be easier for a woman to sit on a jury and send to the penitentiary the men who are trying to ruin her boy than to be always watching the boy." Another question was: "Have not men a better right to the suffrage because they have to support the family?" She answered: "It is fallacy to say that the men support the women. The men by their industry provide the raw material and the women by their industry turn it into clothing and nourishment. When my father sent home a barrel of flour my mother did not lead us eight youngsters up to that barrel of raw flour at mealtime and say, 'Children, here is your dinner.' When he bought a bolt of cloth she did not take that bolt of cloth and wind it around us and say, 'Children, here are the clothes your father has sent you.'

The woman has always done her full share of supporting the family. In the South under the old regime she bore more than an equal part of the care, for the planter could hire an overseer for the plantation work but the wife could not hire one for the work of the house."

Notwithstanding the utmost care and tact on the part of those who had the convention in charge the "color question" kept cropping out.

Finally Dr. Shaw said: "Here is a query that has been dropped in the box again and again and now I am asked if I am afraid to answer it: 'Will not woman suffrage make the black woman the political equal of the white woman and does not political equality mean social equality?'

If it does then the men by keeping both white and black women disfranchised have already established social equality!" The question was not asked again.

One of the able addresses during the convention was that of Mrs. Hala Hammond b.u.t.t, president of the Mississippi Suffrage a.s.sociation, ent.i.tled, Restricted Suffrage from a Southern Point of View. After referring to the man's all-mastering desire for liberty from the early history of the race the speaker said: "Did women not share with men this craving for freedom, then would they justly be reckoned as unnatural and unworthy members of the human family, but the same red blood pulses in our veins as in yours, fathers, sons, brothers; we are alive to the same impulses, our souls are kindled by the same aspirations as are yours. Why should this, our ambition, be held in leash by the same bond that holds the ignorant, the illiterate, the vicious, the irresponsible in the human economy? What does the idea of government imply? The crystallized sentiments of an intelligent people? Then do we meet it with but half a truth."

The speaker denounced with much severity the 14th and 15th Amendments and said that by the restrictive educational qualifications now so generally adopted in the southern States the spirit of the amendments had been practically set at naught. "It was born of the instinct of self-preservation," she said, but she deplored the political crimes it made possible and continued: "There is an undercurrent of thought that recognizes in its true proportions the value of an educated suffrage to the South, a restriction based not upon color, race or previous condition of servitude, not upon s.e.x, not upon the question of taxable property, but its sole requirement is the ability to perform worthily the functions of citizens.h.i.+p. This is the only honorable solution of those questions that are vexing not only the body political but the body social of this Southern country."

Mrs. b.u.t.t's speech was one of a symposium on the question: Would an educational qualification for all voters tend to the growth of civilization and facilitate good government? Mrs. Hackstaff discussed The Relation which Government Bears to Civilization, saying: "The government which will increase social and individual development most is the best. Progress depends on whether the government will give the opportunity for such development. The one that serves the people best is the one that strengthens them by letting them take part in it."

Mrs. Eleanor C. Stockman (Iowa) spoke strongly on Suffrage a Human Right, not a Privilege; Mrs. Clara B. Arthur (Mich.) on A Disfranchised Cla.s.s a Menace to Self Government; Mrs. Mary Wood Swift (Calif.) on Abolishment of Illiteracy, Its Ultimate Influence. After calling attention to "the ma.s.s of ignorant immigrants who almost go from the steerage to the polls"; to the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the half-civilized Indian; to that of paupers, delinquents and defectives, she said:

All this great ma.s.s of ignorance goes into the electoral hopper and the marvel is that no worse quality of grist is turned out.

It is true that the chief political schemers are by no means illiterate but it is upon illiteracy in the ma.s.s that they must depend to carry out their plans. An ignorant voter may be an honest one but unless he is intelligent enough to study public questions for himself he is an easy prey for the political sharper. It is beyond the power of the pen to portray what a magnificent government would be possible with an educated electorate. The idea can be approximated only when we consider how much we have been able to accomplish even with all the inefficiency, vice and ignorance which are permitted to express their will at the polls.

It is because we have a n.o.ble ideal for the future of our government that we make our demand for woman suffrage. We point to the official statistics for proof that there are more white women in the United States than colored men and women together; that there are more American-born women than foreign-born men and women combined; that women form only one-eleventh of the criminals in the jails and penitentiaries; that they compose more than two-thirds of the church members.h.i.+p, and that the percentage of illiteracy is very much less among women than among men.

Therefore we urge that this large proportion of patriotism, temperance, morality, religion and intelligence may be allowed to impress itself upon the government through the medium of the ballot-box.

Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer subst.i.tuted for her own address on Universal Suffrage a Pretence a paper sent by Rudolph Blankenburg, one of Philadelphia's most distinguished citizens, ent.i.tled: Not s.e.x but Intelligence, in which he said:

That universal suffrage--an arrant misnomer--has fallen short of its well-meant original purpose is beyond dispute. We see its baneful effect in munic.i.p.al, State and national government. The unparalleled political corruption in most of our large cities, the narrowness of public men in State and nation, whose horizon is bounded by the limits of their home districts or their own sordid purposes, regardless of public interests, find their culmination in the highest legislative body of our land. They crowd seats of mental giants and honored statesmen of former days with golden pigmies or political highwaymen of recent growth and can be directly traced to our defective franchise system. It permits the vote of the intelligent, law-abiding, industrious and public-spirited to be overcome by that of the ignorant, vicious, purchasable, lazy and indifferent. The ranks of the latter are largely reinforced by the "stay-at-homes," who are a permanent menace to good government.... Thinking people agree that some qualification should be exacted from all voters. The absurdity of the intelligent, tax paying but disfranchised woman being governed by the vote of the illiterate, s.h.i.+ftless loafer or pauper would be laughable were it not so serious. An educational qualification should be a paramount requisite....

Mr. Blankenburg gave statistics of the illiterates in the United States and said: "An educational qualification, wisely considered, would within a few years entirely obliterate the whole ma.s.s of this species of undesirable voters. The right of suffrage can not and should not be taken from those who at present legally enjoy it. All women of legal age with the proposed educational requirements should be enfranchised without delay but laws should be enacted demanding that all citizens, men and women alike, presenting themselves to cast their ballot after 1910 must be able to read and write. If the women suffragists will base their claim to vote upon the broad ground of good government and not demand suffrage for the ignorant woman because it is exercised by the ignorant man, they will make ten friends where they now have one."

The audience had the northern and the southern point of view on Educated Suffrage. Mrs. Gilman, who spoke on whether it would serve the best interests of the laboring cla.s.ses, was alone in objecting to it. "Will exclusion from the suffrage educate and improve the illiterate ma.s.ses more quickly than the use of it?" she asked. "We shall educate them sooner if we dread their votes and this is our work in common." A great deal of sentiment was developed in favor of an educational requirement for the suffrage and an informal rising vote showed only five opposed, but most of the officers were absent. This vote was due largely to the southern delegates and to the arguments which had been made for its necessity in this section of the country.

The policy of the a.s.sociation had always been and continued to be to ask and work only for the removal of the s.e.x qualification.

One of the most popular speakers was Mrs. Elizabeth M. Gilmer, known far and wide as "Dorothy Dix," whose home was in New Orleans. Her address, quaintly ent.i.tled The Woman with the Broom, filled more than four columns of the _Woman's Journal_ and an adequate idea of its wise philosophy illuminated with the sparkling wit for which she was renowned cannot be conveyed by quotations. "A few years ago," she said, "a famous poet roused the compa.s.sion of the world by portraying the tragedy of hopeless toil by the Man with the Hoe. He might have found nearer home a better ill.u.s.tration of the work that is never done, that has no inspiration to lighten it and looks for no appreciation to glorify it, in the Woman with a Broom." "She is understudy to a perpetual motion machine," was one of her epigrams.

She referred to the many successful business and professional women at the convention and said:

But I am not here to speak for the wage-earning woman, she can speak for herself. My plea is not for justice for her but for the domestic woman--the woman who is the mainstay of the world, who is back of every great enterprise and who makes possible the achievements of men--the woman behind the broom, who is the hardest-worked and worst-paid laborer on the face of the earth....

Of the housekeeper we demand a universal genius. We don't expect that our doctor shall be a good lawyer or our lawyer understand medicine; we don't expect a preacher to know about stocks or a stockbroker to have a soul; but we think the woman who is at the head of a family is a rank failure unless she is a pretty good doctor and trained nurse and dressmaker and financier. She must be able to settle disputes among the children with the inflexible impartiality of a Supreme Justice; she must be a Spurgeon in expounding the Bible to simple souls and leading them to heaven; she must be a greater surgeon than Dr. Lorenz, for she must know how to kiss a hurt and make it well; she must be a Russell Sage in petticoats, who can make $1 do the work of $2, and when she gets through combining all of these nerve-wrecking professions we don't think that she has done a thing but enjoy herself. It is only when something happens to the housekeeper we realize that she is the kingpin who holds the universe together.

"Every injustice is the prolific mother of wrongs," said Mrs. Gilmer, "and the fact that the woman with the broom is neither sufficiently appreciated nor decently paid brings its own train of evils. It is at the bottom of the distaste girls have for domestic pursuits and the frantic mania of women for seeking some kind of a 'career.'" She thus concluded:

Always, always it is the frantic cry for financial independence, the demand of the worker for her wage; the futile, bitter protest of the woman with the broom against the injustice of taking her work without pay. Men will say that in supporting their wives, in furnis.h.i.+ng them with houses and food and clothes, they are giving the women as much money as they could ever hope to earn by any other profession. I grant it; but between the independent wage-earner and the one who is given his keep for his services is the difference between the free-born and the chattel.... The present state of affairs brings about a disastrous condition in the woman's world of labor, so that the woman wage-earner must not only compete with the man worker but with the domestic woman who has her home and clothes supplied her and who does things on the side in order to get a little money that she may spend as she pleases.... When men grow just enough to abandon the idea that keeping house and doing the family sewing and rearing children is a "snap" and not a profession; when they grow broad enough to realize that the woman with the broom is a laborer just as much worthy of her hire as a typewriter, we shall have fewer women yearning to go out into the world and earn a few dollars of spending money.

Edwin Merrick, the son of a Chief Justice of Louisiana and Mrs.

Caroline E. Merrick, its pioneer suffragist, began his address on A Political Anomaly by referring to the distinguished women he had been privileged to meet in his home. He spoke of the const.i.tution drawn up on the Mayflower to give equal liberty to all without the slightest conception of what true liberty really meant, and of the larger conception of it which was imbedded in the Declaration of Independence and the Const.i.tution of the United States. "But," he said, "while the words were there, slavery still existed and the people of the Union were slowly led to see the handwriting on the wall and slavery had to go. Had the great leader of his day, Abraham Lincoln, been preserved to help shape the destinies of this country, what followed would not have happened." He then spoke of the crime of enfranchising "a horde of ignorant negro men when at that time there were nearly 4,000,000 intelligent white women keenly alive to the interests of their country to whom the ballot was denied." He sketched the steady degeneration of national and State politics and exposed the conditions in Louisiana.

He showed how the reforms that had been accomplished had been largely aided by women and concluded:

If we concede that women have any moral strength, and it has been conceded from the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, I now ask the question: Is there any one place in the universe where moral strength and moral character are more needed than in modern politics under a republican form of government? In some of our western States we have already seen what the women can do and the day will come when they will vote with us just as they read with us, talk with us, ride with us and consult with us. The most important object of our Government is education. The most important part of education is the education of the young. The most important factor in education of the young is woman's influence, and when it comes to saying who shall decide upon the proper laws for the education of children, the women of Louisiana or the intelligent wiseacres who have in this State emasculated civil service, ma.s.sacred the Australian ballot and a.s.saulted with intent to kill each and every measure which looks to the improvement of the State, we give our answer in no uncertain terms.

Miss Mary N. Chase, president of the New Hamps.h.i.+re Suffrage a.s.sociation, made an earnest plea for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women, "the natural guardians and protectors of the home. It will strengthen their minds and broaden their intellects and render them more fit for its government," she said, "and until women join with men in exercising the sacred right of the franchise we cannot hope for the dawn of the kingdom of G.o.d on the earth." A letter was read from Mrs.

Harriot Stanton Blatch urging that for a year the organization should be used nationally and locally to pursue and punish political corruption. "The women in our a.s.sociation," she said, "are trained to political action; we have had long experience in self-control; defeat has taught us its lessons of poise; devotion to a great principle has given us a faith almost religious in its optimism." The men were taking no concerted action to protect the republic against this menace, she thought, and the task seemed to be left to the women.

The formal address of Dr. Shaw on The Modern Democratic Ideal made a profound impression but no record of it exists except in newspaper clippings. She began by saying: "It is impossible to discuss the woman question without discussing also the man question. What is fundamental to one is fundamental to the other. It is argued by some that on account of the difference in characteristics between men and women it is the man who ought to govern. They are mistaken. It is now recognized that the best and n.o.blest men and women are those in whom the different characteristics of each s.e.x are most harmoniously blended. The modern democratic ideal ill.u.s.trates this fact. It is greatly different from the ancient democratic ideal, as neither Plato nor Aristotle nor Dante had a place in their ideals for the common people, but when the French Revolution startled the world with the idea of human rights, of natural rights common to all, there sprang into life the conception of the same ideal among the men of our own country." Dr. Shaw traced the progress of democratic ideals in this country from the early days of the republic when property and not manhood const.i.tuted the prerequisite for representation. She spoke in glowing terms of the pure democracy of Thomas Jefferson, who extended its privileges to the great ma.s.ses of the people. "This ideal has been growing," she said, "it will never stop growing, developing, widening and changing and it must ultimately extend to women citizens the same rights in the government that men have. This is the 20th century idea of democracy."

The address of Miss Belle Kearney, Mississippi's famous orator, was a leading feature of the last evening's program--The South and Woman Suffrage. It began with a comprehensive review of the part the South had had in the development of the nation from its earliest days.

"During the seventy-one years reaching from Was.h.i.+ngton's administration to that of Lincoln," she said, "the United States was practically under the domination of southern thought and leaders.h.i.+p."

She showed the record southern leaders had made in the wars; she traced the progress of slavery, which began alike in the North and South but proved unnecessary in the former, and told of the enormous struggle for white supremacy which had been placed on the South by the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro. "The present suffrage laws in the southern States are only temporary measures for protection," she said.

"The enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women will have to be effected and an educational and property qualification for the ballot be made to apply without discrimination to both s.e.xes and both races." The address closed as follows:

The enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women would insure immediate and durable white supremacy, honestly attained, for upon unquestioned authority it is stated that in every southern State but one there are more educated women than all the illiterate voters, white and black, native and foreign, combined. As you probably know, of all the women in the South who can read and write, ten out of every eleven are white. When it comes to the proportion of property between the races, that of the white outweighs that of the black immeasurably. The South is slow to grasp the great fact that the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women would settle the race question in politics. The civilization of the North is threatened by the influx of foreigners with their imported customs; by the greed of monopolistic wealth and the unrest among the working cla.s.ses; by the strength of the liquor traffic and encroachments upon religious belief. Some day the North will be compelled to look to the South for redemption from those evils on account of the purity of its Anglo-Saxon blood, the simplicity of its social and economic structure, the great advance in prohibitory law and the maintenance of the sanct.i.ty of its faith, which has been kept inviolate. Just as surely as the North will be forced to turn to the South for the nation's salvation, just so surely will the South be compelled to look to its Anglo-Saxon women as the medium through which to retain the supremacy of the white race over the African.

Miss Kearney's speech was enthusiastically received and at its end Mrs. Catt said she had been getting many letters from persons hesitating to join the a.s.sociation lest it should admit clubs of colored people. "We recognize States' rights," she said, "and Louisiana has the right to regulate the members.h.i.+p of its own a.s.sociation, but it has not the right to regulate that of Ma.s.sachusetts or vice versa," and she continued: "We are all of us apt to be arrogant on the score of our Anglo-Saxon blood but we must remember that ages ago the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons were regarded as so low and embruted that the Romans refused to have them for slaves. The Anglo-Saxon is the dominant race today but things may change. The race that will be dominant through the ages will be the one that proves itself the most worthy.... Miss Kearney is right in saying that the race problem is the problem of the whole country and not that of the South alone. The responsibility for it is partly ours but if the North s.h.i.+pped slaves to the South and sold them, remember that the North has sent some money since then into the South to help undo part of the wrong that it did to you and to them. Let us try to get nearer together and to understand each other's ideas on the race question and solve it together."

Mrs. Maud Wood Park (Ma.s.s.), who was introduced to the audience as "a very unpopular woman with the anti-suffragists," did not prove to be so with her audience, as in her brief address she charmed every one with her beauty and womanliness and convinced by her delicate wit and keen logic. The last address was made by the Rev. Ida C. Hultin (Ma.s.s.), an eloquent summing up of the arguments for woman suffrage, given with a dignity of manner and sweetness of words which thoroughly eliminated any unpleasant feelings that might have been created and diffused a spirit of forgiveness and consecration.

At the conclusion of the program, Mrs. Upton came forward and in the name of the officers of the a.s.sociation presented to Miss Kate Gordon a handsome loving cup with the injunction to "handle it carefully as it is filled to the brim with love"; and to Miss Jean Gordon a large bouquet of roses, "in appreciation of the perfect arrangements that had been made for the convention." The _Picayune_ said: "The two sisters stood side by side on the stage, a picture of feminine loveliness and grace. They tried to speak but their hearts were too full and Miss Kate could only express in a few words their thanks for these tokens of affection and esteem."

All the expenses of the convention had been met by the citizens and the collections had more than paid the travelling expenses of the officers. Nothing had been left undone for the entertainment of the visitors. The New Orleans Street Railway Company gave a trip of several hours in special cars, taking them to Audubon Park and Horticultural Hall, through the handsome residence sections, to the Esplanade, City Park and famous cemeteries. They visited the Howard and Fisk libraries, the Southern Yacht Club, the Exposition and the antiquarian shops. An unusual experience was the boat trip on the Mississippi, tendered by the Progressive Union. On a fine suns.h.i.+ny morning the several hundred visitors a.s.sembled in the palm garden of the St. Charles Hotel, walked to the rooms of the Union and from there to the steamer Alice. They crossed to Algiers, pa.s.sed the French quarter with the Ursuline Convent, the Stuyvesant Docks, the historic houses and monuments, and saw the great Naval Docks, the large sugar plantations with their big live oaks and magnolias, the immense sugar and oil refineries and met a fleet of huge ocean steamers. Lunch was served on board and the occasion was most interesting, especially to the delegates from the North.

Although this was the longest suffrage convention ever held and the sessions were crowded, the people wanted more. The Progressive Union arranged for meetings Thursday night, to be addressed by Mrs. Catt on The Home and the Munic.i.p.ality, and Friday night by Dr. Shaw on The Fate of Republics. The Athenaeum Hall, seating 1,200, was overflowing and as many were gathered on the outside. It was a ten days never to be forgotten by the visitors or the residents, and the convention undoubtedly gave a decided impetus to favorable sentiment for woman suffrage in that section of the South.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Part of Call: The a.s.sociation goes to New Orleans in response to an invitation from the Progressive Union, the Era Club of women and many prominent individuals. It is especially appropriate that the advocates of this important reform should a.s.semble in Louisiana in honor of the action taken by this State in 1898, when its const.i.tutional convention incorporated a clause giving to tax-paying women a vote on all questions of taxation submitted to the electors; and in commemoration of the splendid use they made of this privilege at the election held to secure to New Orleans the completion of its drainage and the establishment of a sewerage system and free water supply....

Never in the fifty years of this movement have its advocates had such a victory to record as was achieved in Australia in June, 1902, when almost the first act of Parliament of the new Federation of States was to confer the full national suffrage with the right to a seat in the Parliament on all qualified women of the entire commonwealth. This one act enfranchised about 800,000. These added to those of New Zealand and of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho, it will be found that 1,125,000 English-speaking women are at the present time in possession of the complete suffrage and all except those of Wyoming have been enfranchised within the past ten years. By adding to these the women of Great Britain and Ireland, who have all except the Parliamentary vote, those of Kansas with Munic.i.p.al, of Louisiana, Montana, and New York with the Tax-payers' and of over one-half of the States with the school ballot, the 1,125,000 will be multiplied several times....

It is, therefore, with courage and hope inspired by the glorious promise of the new century for greater material and moral progress in all directions than the world has ever known, that the advocates of this measure, which ultimately will affect the destinies of the whole American people, are called in convention to review the labor of the past year, to plan that of the future, to strengthen the old comrades.h.i.+p and greet new workers and friends.