FOOTNOTES:

All this great mass of ignorance goes into the electoral hopper and the marvel is that no worse quality of grist is turned out. It is true that the chief political schemers are by no means illiterate but it is upon illiteracy in the mass that they must depend to carry out their plans. An ignorant voter may be an honest one but unless he is intelligent enough to study public questions for himself he is an easy prey for the political sharper. It is beyond the power of the pen to portray what a magnificent government would be possible with an educated electorate. The idea can be approximated only when we consider how much we have been able to accomplish even with all the inefficiency, vice and ignorance which are permitted to express their will at the polls.It is because we have a noble ideal for the future of our government that we make our demand for woman suffrage. We point to the official statistics for proof that there are more white women in the United States than colored men and women together; that there are more American-born women than foreign-born men and women combined; that women form only one-eleventh of the criminals in the jails and penitentiaries; that they compose more than two-thirds of the church membership, and that the percentage of illiteracy is very much less among women than among men. Therefore we urge that this large proportion of patriotism, temperance, morality, religion and intelligence may be allowed to impress itself upon the government through the medium of the ballot-box.

It is because we have a noble ideal for the future of our government that we make our demand for woman suffrage. We point to the official statistics for proof that there are more white women in the United States than colored men and women together; that there are more American-born women than foreign-born men and women combined; that women form only one-eleventh of the criminals in the jails and penitentiaries; that they compose more than two-thirds of the church membership, and that the percentage of illiteracy is very much less among women than among men. Therefore we urge that this large proportion of patriotism, temperance, morality, religion and intelligence may be allowed to impress itself upon the government through the medium of the ballot-box.

Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer substituted for her own address on Universal Suffrage a Pretence a paper sent by Rudolph Blankenburg, one of Philadelphia's most distinguished citizens, entitled: Not Sex but Intelligence, in which he said:

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

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

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

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

But I am not here to speak for the wage-earning woman, she can speak for herself. My plea is not for justice for her but for the domestic woman—the woman who is the mainstay of the world, who is back of every great enterprise and who makes possible the achievements of men—the woman behind the broom, who is the hardest-worked and worst-paid laborer on the face of the earth....Of the housekeeper we demand a universal genius. We don't expect that our doctor shall be a good lawyer or our lawyer understand medicine; we don't expect a preacher to know about stocks or a stockbroker to have a soul; but we think the woman who is at the head of a family is a rank failure unless she is a pretty good doctor and trained nurse and dressmaker and financier. She must be able to settle disputes among the children with the inflexible impartiality of a Supreme Justice; she must be a Spurgeon in expounding the Bible to simple souls and leading them to heaven; she must be a greater surgeon than Dr. Lorenz, for she must know how to kiss a hurt and make it well; she must be a Russell Sage in petticoats, who can make $1 do the work of $2, and when she gets through combining all of these nerve-wrecking professions we don't think that she has done a thing but enjoy herself. It is only when something happens to the housekeeper we realize that she is the kingpin who holds the universe together.

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

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

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

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

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

Miss Mary N. Chase, president of the New Hampshire Suffrage Association, made an earnest plea for the enfranchisement of women, "the natural guardians and protectors of the home. It will strengthen their minds and broaden their intellects and render them more fit for its government," she said, "and until women join with men in exercising the sacred right of the franchise we cannot hope for the dawn of the kingdom of God on the earth." A letter was read from Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch urging that for a year the organization should be used nationally and locally to pursue and punish political corruption. "The women in our association," she said, "are trained to political action; we have had long experience in self-control; defeat has taught us its lessons of poise; devotion to a great principle has given us a faith almost religious in its optimism." The men were taking no concerted action to protect the republic against this menace, she thought, and the task seemed to be left to the women.

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

The address of Miss Belle Kearney, Mississippi's famous orator, was a leading feature of the last evening's program—The South and Woman Suffrage. It began with a comprehensive review of the part the South had had in the development of the nation from its earliest days. "During the seventy-one years reaching from Washington's administration to that of Lincoln," she said, "the United States was practically under the domination of southern thought and leadership." She showed the record southern leaders had made in the wars; she traced the progress of slavery, which began alike in the North and South but proved unnecessary in the former, and told of the enormous struggle for white supremacy which had been placed on the South by the enfranchisement of the negro. "The present suffrage laws in the southern States are only temporary measures for protection," she said. "The enfranchisement of women will have to be effected and an educational and property qualification for the ballot be made to apply without discrimination to both sexes and both races." The address closed as follows:

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:[23]Part of Call: The association goes to New Orleans in response to an invitation from the Progressive Union, the Era Club of women and many prominent individuals. It is especially appropriate that the advocates of this important reform should assemble in Louisiana in honor of the action taken by this State in 1898, when its constitutional convention incorporated a clause giving to tax-paying women a vote on all questions of taxation submitted to the electors; and in commemoration of the splendid use they made of this privilege at the election held to secure to New Orleans the completion of its drainage and the establishment of a sewerage system and free water supply....Never in the fifty years of this movement have its advocates had such a victory to record as was achieved in Australia in June, 1902, when almost the first act of Parliament of the new Federation of States was to confer the full national suffrage with the right to a seat in the Parliament on all qualified women of the entire commonwealth. This one act enfranchised about 800,000. These added to those of New Zealand and of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho, it will be found that 1,125,000 English-speaking women are at the present time in possession of the complete suffrage and all except those of Wyoming have been enfranchised within the past ten years. By adding to these the women of Great Britain and Ireland, who have all except the Parliamentary vote, those of Kansas with Municipal, of Louisiana, Montana, and New York with the Tax-payers' and of over one-half of the States with the school ballot, the 1,125,000 will be multiplied several times....It is, therefore, with courage and hope inspired by the glorious promise of the new century for greater material and moral progress in all directions than the world has ever known, that the advocates of this measure, which ultimately will affect the destinies of the whole American people, are called in convention to review the labor of the past year, to plan that of the future, to strengthen the old comradeship and greet new workers and friends.Susan B. Anthony, Honorary President.Carrie Chapman Catt, President.Anna Howard Shaw, Vice-president-at-Large.Kate M. Gordon, Corresponding Secretary.Alice Stone Blackwell, Recording Secretary.Harriet Taylor Upton, Treasurer.Laura Clay,}Auditors.Mary J. Coggeshall,[24]The colored women had some excellent organizations in New Orleans, the most notable being the Phyllis Wheatley Club, which in addition to its literary and social features maintained a training school for nurses, a kindergarten and a night school. It invited Miss Anthony, Miss Blackwell and Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller to address it and they were accompanied by "Dorothy Dix," the well-known writer, a New Orleans woman. In the large assemblage were some of the teachers from the four colleges for colored students—Methodist, Congregational, Baptist and the State. "Dorothy Dix" said in her brief address that no woman in the city was more respected or had more influence than Mrs. Sylvanie Williams, the club's president, and gave several instances to illustrate it. After the addresses Mrs. Williams presented Miss Anthony with a large bouquet tied with yellow satin ribbon and said: "Flowers in their beauty and sweetness may represent the womanhood of the world. Some flowers are fragile and delicate, some strong and hardy, some are carefully guarded and cherished, others are roughly treated and trodden under foot. These last are the colored women. They have a crown of thorns continually pressed upon their brow, yet they are advancing and sometimes you find them further on than you would have expected. When women like you, Miss Anthony, come to see us and speak to us it helps us to believe in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, and at least for the time being in the sympathy of woman."[25]The important decision was made at this convention to remove the headquarters on May 1 from New York to Warren, O., the home of the national treasurer, Mrs. Upton. The burden of having charge of them had borne heavily upon Mrs. Catt for the past three years and it grew more difficult as each year she had to spend more time in field work. Miss Gordon, the corresponding secretary, wished to remain in New Orleans because of her mother's failing health and it was necessary to have a national officer in charge. Mrs. Upton consented reluctantly to assume the responsibility and only on the assurance of Miss Elizabeth Hauser, a capable executive, that she would manage the details of the office. The arrangement was to be temporary but it continued for six years.[26]Quotations are given from each of the opening prayers because each of them endorsed woman suffrage.[27]Mrs. Hussey left a bequest of $10,000 to the National American Woman Suffrage Association.[28]For appreciations of Mrs. Stanton see Appendix.

[23]Part of Call: The association goes to New Orleans in response to an invitation from the Progressive Union, the Era Club of women and many prominent individuals. It is especially appropriate that the advocates of this important reform should assemble in Louisiana in honor of the action taken by this State in 1898, when its constitutional convention incorporated a clause giving to tax-paying women a vote on all questions of taxation submitted to the electors; and in commemoration of the splendid use they made of this privilege at the election held to secure to New Orleans the completion of its drainage and the establishment of a sewerage system and free water supply....Never in the fifty years of this movement have its advocates had such a victory to record as was achieved in Australia in June, 1902, when almost the first act of Parliament of the new Federation of States was to confer the full national suffrage with the right to a seat in the Parliament on all qualified women of the entire commonwealth. This one act enfranchised about 800,000. These added to those of New Zealand and of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho, it will be found that 1,125,000 English-speaking women are at the present time in possession of the complete suffrage and all except those of Wyoming have been enfranchised within the past ten years. By adding to these the women of Great Britain and Ireland, who have all except the Parliamentary vote, those of Kansas with Municipal, of Louisiana, Montana, and New York with the Tax-payers' and of over one-half of the States with the school ballot, the 1,125,000 will be multiplied several times....It is, therefore, with courage and hope inspired by the glorious promise of the new century for greater material and moral progress in all directions than the world has ever known, that the advocates of this measure, which ultimately will affect the destinies of the whole American people, are called in convention to review the labor of the past year, to plan that of the future, to strengthen the old comradeship and greet new workers and friends.Susan B. Anthony, Honorary President.Carrie Chapman Catt, President.Anna Howard Shaw, Vice-president-at-Large.Kate M. Gordon, Corresponding Secretary.Alice Stone Blackwell, Recording Secretary.Harriet Taylor Upton, Treasurer.Laura Clay,}Auditors.Mary J. Coggeshall,

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

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

Susan B. Anthony, Honorary President.Carrie Chapman Catt, President.Anna Howard Shaw, Vice-president-at-Large.Kate M. Gordon, Corresponding Secretary.Alice Stone Blackwell, Recording Secretary.Harriet Taylor Upton, Treasurer.Laura Clay,}Auditors.Mary J. Coggeshall,

[24]The colored women had some excellent organizations in New Orleans, the most notable being the Phyllis Wheatley Club, which in addition to its literary and social features maintained a training school for nurses, a kindergarten and a night school. It invited Miss Anthony, Miss Blackwell and Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller to address it and they were accompanied by "Dorothy Dix," the well-known writer, a New Orleans woman. In the large assemblage were some of the teachers from the four colleges for colored students—Methodist, Congregational, Baptist and the State. "Dorothy Dix" said in her brief address that no woman in the city was more respected or had more influence than Mrs. Sylvanie Williams, the club's president, and gave several instances to illustrate it. After the addresses Mrs. Williams presented Miss Anthony with a large bouquet tied with yellow satin ribbon and said: "Flowers in their beauty and sweetness may represent the womanhood of the world. Some flowers are fragile and delicate, some strong and hardy, some are carefully guarded and cherished, others are roughly treated and trodden under foot. These last are the colored women. They have a crown of thorns continually pressed upon their brow, yet they are advancing and sometimes you find them further on than you would have expected. When women like you, Miss Anthony, come to see us and speak to us it helps us to believe in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, and at least for the time being in the sympathy of woman."

[25]The important decision was made at this convention to remove the headquarters on May 1 from New York to Warren, O., the home of the national treasurer, Mrs. Upton. The burden of having charge of them had borne heavily upon Mrs. Catt for the past three years and it grew more difficult as each year she had to spend more time in field work. Miss Gordon, the corresponding secretary, wished to remain in New Orleans because of her mother's failing health and it was necessary to have a national officer in charge. Mrs. Upton consented reluctantly to assume the responsibility and only on the assurance of Miss Elizabeth Hauser, a capable executive, that she would manage the details of the office. The arrangement was to be temporary but it continued for six years.

[26]Quotations are given from each of the opening prayers because each of them endorsed woman suffrage.

[27]Mrs. Hussey left a bequest of $10,000 to the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

[28]For appreciations of Mrs. Stanton see Appendix.

The Thirty-sixth annual convention opened the afternoon of Feb. 11, 1904, in National Rifles' Armory Hall, Washington, D. C., and closed the evening of the 17th.[29]There was a good attendance of delegates from thirty States and the audiences were large and appreciative. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the president, was in the chair at the opening session. The delegates were welcomed by Mrs. Carrie E. Kent in behalf of the District Equal Suffrage Association and the response was made by Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, vice-president-at-large, who began by saying: "If the women here welcome us after we have been coming for thirty years it must be because we deserve it; the men welcome us because in the District they are in the same disfranchised condition as we are." A cordial letter of greeting was read from Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, whose headquarters were in Washington.

Greetings were received from Mrs. Florence Fenwick Millerof London, whose letter commenced: "Beloved Friends: As president of the British National Committee of the International Woman Suffrage Committee, I write to send you greetings from English, Scotch, Irish and Welsh fellow-workers in the woman's cause. It seems but a short time since the convention of 1902, which I attended as the delegate appointed by the British United Women's Suffrage Societies and also of the Scottish National Society. The admiration and affection that the ability, the earnestness and sincerity, the sisterliness and the sweetness of temper and manners of the American suffragists then aroused in me, are unabated at this moment." She told of the progress that had been made by the various societies toward uniting in an International Woman Suffrage Alliance, gave a glowing forecast of the ultimate triumph of their common cause and ended: "With admiring and abiding love for America's grand women, the suffrage leaders." The convention sent an official answer. Mrs. Mary Bentley Thomas (Md.) read an interesting paper, Our Four Friends, compiled from the answers by the Governors of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho to a letter from Miss Anthony asking for a summary of the results of woman suffrage after a trial of from eight to thirty-five years. A Declaration of Principles, which had been prepared by Mrs. Catt, Dr. Shaw, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell and Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, was read by Mrs. Harper and adopted by the convention as expressing the sentiment of the association. [See Appendix, chapter IV.] Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery (Penn.) and Dr. Shaw were appointed delegates to the International Suffrage Conference at Berlin in June in addition to the International Suffrage Committee from the United States, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg (Penn.), with three others yet to be selected.

In her report as corresponding secretary Miss Kate M. Gordon (La.) told of the interest which the convention of the preceding year in New Orleans had awakened in the South and of the generous donation of a month of Dr. Shaw's valuable time which she had given to a Southern tour. This included the State Agricultural, State Normal and State Industrial Colleges of Louisiana and various places in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. "While it might be said of her addresses, 'She came,she spoke, she conquered,'" declared Miss Gordon, "it was clearly shown that the South was not ready for organization." Miss Gordon said of attending the National Conference of Charities and Corrections as a State delegate appointed by the Governor of Louisiana: "I found that resolutions of endorsement were contrary to the policy of the conference, yet, except in our own organization, I have never met such a unanimity of opinion upon the justice of woman suffrage as well as upon the expediency of the woman's vote to secure intelligent and preventive legislation as a remedy for the many evils they were seeking to combat."

The program for the first evening included short addresses by the general officers and in opening the meeting Mrs. Catt said: "You will all be disappointed not to have the promised addresses from Miss Anthony and Mrs. Upton. It has been suggested that I might say that Miss Anthony has been unavoidably detained but I can't see why I should not tell the truth. Miss Anthony is out in society tonight. She was invited by President and Mrs. Roosevelt to the Army and Navy reception at the White House and Mrs. Upton is with her.[30]Our vice-president-at-large will speak to you on What Cheer?"

Dr. Shaw said that once when she was travelling about the prairies of Iowa she met a woman who was always referring to her home town "What Cheer," and when she was asked to give a title to her address she could think of nothing better. She continued: "There are no problems so difficult to understand as those of our own time, because of the lack of perspective. The arrogant and insistent and noisy things press to the front and the silent and eternal fall into the rear. But as time passes it is as when we climb a mountain—we gradually rise to where we can see over the foothills and everything appears in its proper place and proportion. Out of the present, its arrogant militarism, its sordid commercialism and worship of gold, is there anything to give us cheer and hope for tomorrow? There never was greaterreason for hope for humanity. Underlying all the tumult and disorder of our time is one grand, golden thought, that of the human brotherhood of the world. There never was a democracy comparable to ours, faulty as it is and hopeless as it appears to some. Though the ideal does not seem to impress itself upon the world, yet in the silence it is there.... Today is the best this world has ever seen. Tomorrow will be still better."

Miss Gordon spoke on A Sustaining Faith, showing that from labor, from all forms of social service and from countless sources was converging the demand for the reform which the suffrage association was seeking. Miss Blackwell (Mass.) talked briefly as always but clearly and convincingly on The New Woman. Miss Laura Clay (Ky.) began her address on Dimes: "As an auditor I have been going over our treasurer's books. Usually such books are mere debits and credits but in ours those stiff rows of figures tell many beautiful things—the sacrifices of the poor and the generosity of the rich—but best of all are the 'dimes' because they are the dues paid to the association. They bear the figure of Liberty and they stand for it.... These dimes are inspiring, for they represent our membership when we gather here from the four corners of the nation. Therefore I rejoice over these thousands and thousands, each with a human heart behind it."

"No woman has a record of greater faithfulness in this cause," Mrs. Catt said in introducing Mrs. Mary J. Coggeshall, who began her remarks on Precedents by saying: "I come from Iowa where things are very different from those in this beautiful capital. We do not see Senators and Representatives on every hand but we have lent to Washington, Secretary of Agriculture Wilson, Secretary of the Treasury Shaw, Speaker of the House Henderson and also Mrs. Catt to lead the suffrage clans."

The evening closed with Mrs. Catt's presidential address, the full report of which filled eleven columns of theWoman's Journal. The subject was the vital necessity of an educational qualification for the use of the ballot in a country which opens its gates to immigration from the whole world. Little idea of its logic and virility can be conveyed by detached quotations. Referring to the necessity for enfranchising women she said: "Despite thefact that education even yet is not so generally advocated for girls as for boys among our foreign and ignorant classes of society, the census of 1900 reveals that between the ages of ten and twenty-one, representing school years, there are 117,362 more illiterate males than females. If men and women had been entitled to the franchise upon equal terms in 1900, the political parties, which always make their appeals to the young man just turned twenty-one to cast his first vote for 'the party of right and progress,' would of necessity have made the same appeal to young women, but they would have appealed to 20,000 fewer illiterates among the women than the men of from twenty-one to twenty-four. If the same conditions continue for the next twenty years—that is, if there is no restriction in the suffrage for men and women still remain disfranchised, and if the proportionate increase of women over men in the output of our public schools continues, we shall witness the curious spectacle of the illiterate sex governing the literate sex."

Mrs. Catt did not, however, attribute all the evils of universal suffrage to the ignorant vote but said: "It may be that an investigation would reveal the fact that a very important source of difficulty is to be found in the failure of intelligent men to exercise their citizenship. If this proves true it may be found necessary to turn a leaf backward in our history and adopt the plan in vogue in some of the New England colonies which made voting compulsory, and it may be found feasible to demand of every voter who absents himself on election day an excuse for his absence, and when he has absented himself without good excuse for a definite number of elections, he may be made to suffer the punishment of disfranchisement...." She called attention to the record that at the last presidential election more than 7,000,000 men over twenty-one years of age did not vote and asked: "What is to be done about it? Are qualified women citizens to wait in patience until influences now unseen shall sweep away the difficulties and restore the lost enthusiasm for democracy? Or shall they attempt to determine causes, apply remedies and clear the way for their own enfranchisement? That is our problem. For myself, I will say I prefer not to wait. I prefer to do my part, small as it must be, in the great task of the removal of theobstructions which clog the wheels of the onward movement of popular government."

The convention was especially fortunate in having among its speakers a charming and gifted young woman, Mrs. A. Watson Lister of Melbourne, Australia, a country whose first national Parliament had two years before conferred on women full suffrage and eligibility to all offices. She showed a remarkable knowledge of laws and conditions affecting women and was thoroughly informed on every phase of the suffrage movement. The second evening she spoke on Woman's Vote in Australia to an audience that was not willing to have her stop, saying in part:

Australia does lead the world in democratic government, a government by the whole people, women as well as men, but we realize the great debt that we owe to your brave pioneer women. We are reaping the harvest which they planted. To us the names of Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are household words. It seems strange to me to be asked to come here to tell you anything about suffrage, for with us the American woman has been supposed to know and have everything.Australia is as large as the United States and women have national and municipal suffrage and in four of our six States they have State suffrage—South and West Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania. In Victoria and Queensland they do not yet possess it. When the six States became federated it was provided that federal suffrage throughout Australia should be on the same basis as State suffrage where it was the most liberal. South and West Australia had it in full, so the women obtained it throughout Australia in national elections. There was so little opposition or discussion, it was regarded so completely as an accepted fact and foregone conclusion, that most women did not even know the measure had passed. It was not an experiment, as our men had seen its working in South and West Australia for years and also in New Zealand, which is the most democratic and best governed country in the world.In Australia women are eligible to all offices, even that of Prime Minister. At the last elections five stood for Parliament. Miss Vida Goldstein was a candidate in Victoria. Although both our large newspapers ignored her meetings she got 51,000 votes, while the man highest got about 100,000. Not one of the five women came out at the bottom of the poll....After we had worked for years with members of Parliament for various reforms without avail because we had no votes, you can not imagine the difference the vote makes. When we held meetings to advocate public measures that women wanted, we used to have to go out into the highways and hedges and compel the members of Parliament to come in; now the difficulty is to keep them out. Ihave seen seven Senators at one small meeting. A prominent man who, by an oversight, was not invited to the one held to welcome Miss Goldstein on her return from the United States was decidedly offended. Chivalry has not been destroyed but increased. On the platform at one of our meetings the secretary happened to drop her pencil and I saw the Premier and several members of Parliament scrambling to pick it up. A woman is never allowed to stand in a street car in Australia....

Australia is as large as the United States and women have national and municipal suffrage and in four of our six States they have State suffrage—South and West Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania. In Victoria and Queensland they do not yet possess it. When the six States became federated it was provided that federal suffrage throughout Australia should be on the same basis as State suffrage where it was the most liberal. South and West Australia had it in full, so the women obtained it throughout Australia in national elections. There was so little opposition or discussion, it was regarded so completely as an accepted fact and foregone conclusion, that most women did not even know the measure had passed. It was not an experiment, as our men had seen its working in South and West Australia for years and also in New Zealand, which is the most democratic and best governed country in the world.

In Australia women are eligible to all offices, even that of Prime Minister. At the last elections five stood for Parliament. Miss Vida Goldstein was a candidate in Victoria. Although both our large newspapers ignored her meetings she got 51,000 votes, while the man highest got about 100,000. Not one of the five women came out at the bottom of the poll....

After we had worked for years with members of Parliament for various reforms without avail because we had no votes, you can not imagine the difference the vote makes. When we held meetings to advocate public measures that women wanted, we used to have to go out into the highways and hedges and compel the members of Parliament to come in; now the difficulty is to keep them out. Ihave seen seven Senators at one small meeting. A prominent man who, by an oversight, was not invited to the one held to welcome Miss Goldstein on her return from the United States was decidedly offended. Chivalry has not been destroyed but increased. On the platform at one of our meetings the secretary happened to drop her pencil and I saw the Premier and several members of Parliament scrambling to pick it up. A woman is never allowed to stand in a street car in Australia....

A good deal of light was shed on the inside history of the organized anti-suffrage movement, which if turned on in other countries would disclose a similar situation. "Our Anti-Suffrage Association," she said, "died three months after it was born. It was formed by two of our leading manufacturers, who hid behind their daughters. They had plenty of money, took a large office on a main street, employed several paid secretaries and spent more in three months than we had done in all our years of work. They paid little boys and girls to circulate their petition and got many signatures under false pretences.... Much was made of their petition though it was not half as large as ours. The daughters of these manufacturers drove up in their carriages to their fathers' factories at the lunch hour and made the working girls sign their petition."

A scholarly review of Morley's Life of Gladstone was given by Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch (Eng.). Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman turned A New Light on the Woman Question, saying:

My subject is a scientific theory as to the origin and relation of the eternal duo. It was started by our greatest living sociologist, Lester Ward—the explanation of the order in which the sexes were developed. What is it that this suffrage movement has had to meet, as it has plowed along up hill for fifty years, with its tremendous battery of arguments which it discharges into thin air? What it has to overcome is not an argument but a feeling, which rests at bottom on the idea expressed in the "rib story." As a parable this fairly represents the old belief that man was created first, that he was the race, was "it," and that woman was created, as modern jokers put it, for "Adams Express Company." The poet expressed the same idea when he called woman "God's last, best gift to man." ... Ward gives the biological facts. In the evolution of species the earliest periods were the longest. During ages of the world's history, while animal life was slowly evolving, the female was the larger, stronger and more representative creature; the male was small, often a parasite, told off for the sole purpose of reproduction. By natural selection, the female choosing always the best male, the male wasgradually developed until he became bigger and stronger than the female. For a time natural selection continued to work, the males competing for the favor of the female. Then the male reduced the female to subjection. It occurred to him that it was easier to fight one little female once and subjugate her than to fight a lot of big males over and over.The feminine ideal with many is the bee-hive—lots of honey, lots of young ones and nothing else. It was necessary that the male should become dominant for a time if the race was to progress. Now women are ceasing to be subjugated and we are approaching a state of equal rights. It was through a free motherhood and the female's constant selection of the best mate that she brought into the world power and brain enough to enable man to do what he has done. That free motherhood, reinstated, choosing always the best and refusing anything less, will bring us a higher humanity than we have yet known.

The feminine ideal with many is the bee-hive—lots of honey, lots of young ones and nothing else. It was necessary that the male should become dominant for a time if the race was to progress. Now women are ceasing to be subjugated and we are approaching a state of equal rights. It was through a free motherhood and the female's constant selection of the best mate that she brought into the world power and brain enough to enable man to do what he has done. That free motherhood, reinstated, choosing always the best and refusing anything less, will bring us a higher humanity than we have yet known.

The usual Work Conferences were held and the Executive Committee presented the Plan of Work which was adopted. In addition to the usual recommendations it urged that a Memorial Organization Fund be established to perpetuate the memory of pioneers and that a legal adviser for the association be appointed from its women lawyer members. The morning meetings as always were given up to business and reports of officers, chairmen of committees and field workers and the afternoons to State reports. The latter, made for the most part by the presidents, showed faithful work going on in every State and progress in many. Miss Helen Kimber reported that the Legislature of Kansas had added to the School franchise, which the women had possessed ever since the State came into the Union, the right to vote on all public expenditure of money for issuing of bonds, waterworks, sewerage, libraries, etc. Miss Elizabeth J. Hauser, office secretary, told of the removal of the national headquarters from New York, where they had first been established, to Warren, O., where they occupied two large rooms on the lower floor of an old vine-covered family residence in the heart of town. From here 35,000 pieces of literature had been sent out and here had been printed 2,000 each of Lucy Stone and Mrs. Stanton birthday souvenirs, a booklet to be used on Miss Anthony's birthday; 10,000 suffrage stamps, Christmas blotters, etc., and 10,000 letters written. The subscription list ofProgresshad been increased from 950 to 4,000 and a weekly headquarters'letter had been sent to theWoman's Journal. Resolutions for woman suffrage had been obtained in international, national and a large number of State conventions.

Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, the treasurer, reported the receipts, $21,117, the largest in the history of the association. It contributed $3,255 to the New Hampshire campaign. Neither Mrs. Upton nor any of the national officers received a salary (except the secretary, who had a nominal one), and in referring to the immense amount of unpaid work done by them and by women in the different States, she said: "People outside of the association often ask why it is that women can be found who are willing to give their time to a work without recompense. We can not answer such inquiries and yet we ourselves know that, through this devotion to a just and holy cause, we rise to a higher plane, we see with larger eyes, we feel the presence of the real self of our fellow-worker. We can no more explain why this is so than we can analyze 'mother love,' or the love of a daughter for a father but we know it. It is for this reason your treasurer rejoices over the day she was so placed, either by design or chance, and so blessed with perfect health that she was able to serve in the cause of woman's political freedom." Mrs. Upton referred to Mrs. Cornelia C. Hussey's bequest of $10,000 and that of Mrs. Henrietta M. Banker, from which the association realized $3,000.

Detailed and valuable reports were made by the chairman of committees on Presidential Suffrage, Federal Suffrage, Congressional Work, Civil Rights, Church Work, Enrollment and others. Mrs. Catt reported for the Committee on Literature. Mrs. Catt with Mrs. Blankenburg (Penn.), Mrs. Lucy Hobart Day (Me.) and Mrs. Minola Graham Sexton (N. J.), presidents of their State associations, presided over Work Conferences. Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer, in her report on Libraries and Bibliography, brought to light the lax manner in which many State libraries are conducted. In that of New Jersey no catalogue had been printed for fifty years. In Montana the collection of books was thirty-five years old and had never been catalogued or classified. Various librarians reported no works on woman suffrage and women from those States rose in the audience and said that they had themselves presented the History of Woman Suffrage—fourlarge volumes. Mrs. Elnora M. Babcock (N. Y.), chairman of the Press Committee, reported 93,600 general articles sent out; 3,665 special articles, much plate matter, many personal sketches, photographs, etc., and a number of new papers added to her list.

Mrs. Maud Nathan read the report of Mrs. Florence Kelley, chairman of the Committee on Industrial Problems Affecting Women and Children. As executive secretary of the National Consumers' League Mrs. Kelley was well qualified to speak and she gave an account of the labor laws in the southern States affecting girls between 16 and 21, who are neither children nor women, which was heartbreaking. Pennsylvania was equally guilty but most of the northern States had improved their laws, Illinois leading; in none, however, were they wholly adequate. She urged the appointment of more women factory inspectors, who were now employed in only eight States, and scored "the default of the prosperous women of the country," saying: "It may be said that women are not morally responsible for this unfortunate state of affairs, since they do not make the laws, but the facts do not altogether justify this excuse. The child-labor legislation which has been achieved through the efforts of women during the past ten years shows that women can do very much even without the ballot in the way of securing legislation on behalf of women and children, and it remains true that women buy the product of the work of women and children far more than do men.... It is my hope that this great and influential national suffrage organization may so influence public opinion that a series of beneficent results will soon become visible."

An Evening with the Philanthropists was one of the most enjoyable during the week. The Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer, of whom Felix Adler, head of the Ethical Culture Society of New York, was quoted as saying: "She is the only woman with whom I would share my platform," was the first speaker. In considering New Professions in Philanthropic Work for Women, she said: "Charity is old but social science is new and it is the uniting of the two that makes modern philanthropy and that is what opens these new professions. Charity is supposed to come by nature but the knowledge of how to deal with its problems does not.Society is divided into three groups. First, the reformers—a group never too large, often seemingly too small—who make the way for those that come after. They are often like the artist whose daughter, being asked if her father had been successful, answered that he was 'successful after he was dead.' Then comes the great group, the 'middle-of-the-road' people, who walk along, slowly developing, supporting the churches and schools, holding today's standards and ideals—the people who live in today and who make up the fabric of the world. They are sometimes irritating but they hold what has been gained and they gradually grow. Then there is a group behind, what the French call the 'unfinished' infants—the defectives, the moral and physical imbeciles, the backward and incompetent. We must study how to reduce this social burden in an intelligent way. This has started a new class of vocations as sacred as the ministry was of old."

A very convincing address was given by Dr. Samuel J. Barrows (Mass.), secretary of the National Prison Reform Association, on Women and Prison Reform. In referring to the progress of prison reform he said: "In this array of apostles and prophets and expositors of the new penology we find men and women standing side by side." He described the work in this reform by eminent women in Europe and the United States and concluded: "In the field of penology woman needs the ballot as she needs it in other fields, not as an end but as a means, as an instrument through which she can express her conviction, her conscience, intelligence, sympathy and love. Questions in philanthropy are more and more forcing themselves to the front in legislation. Women are obliged to journey to the Legislature at every session to instruct members and committees at legislative hearings. Some of these days the public will think it absurd that women who are capable of instructing men how to vote should not be allowed to vote themselves. If police and prison records mean anything they mean that, considered as law-abiding citizens, women are ten times as good as men. Why debar the better and enfranchise the worse? In the field of commercial and political competition, woman may demand the ballot as a right but in the field of philanthropy and reform she needs it for the fulfillment of her duties."

Mrs. Nathan, president of the New York Consumers' League,considered the Wage Earner and the Ballot, her handsome presence, fine humor and long experience rendering her an unusually attractive speaker. "The opponents of our cause," she said, "whether they be of the fair sex or the unfair sex, seem to think that we regard the extension of the suffrage to women as a panacea for all evils in this world and the next. No honest suffragist has ever taken that ground. I can not endorse any such general or sweeping statement but I feel that my experience in investigating the condition of women wage-earners warrants the assertion that some of the evils from which they suffer would not exist if the women had the right to place their votes in the ballot-box." She compared the industrial and educational situation where women voted with that of States where they did not and showed how women were excluded from official positions because disfranchised, giving conclusive instances of the discrimination in her own State. "I feel that not only on account of the women wage-earners should women be accorded the ballot," she said, "but also because they are very largely the spenders of all family incomes and as such they have the right to the assurance that what they buy is free from adulteration and has been produced under clean, wholesome and humane conditions. For this right the Consumers' League persistently contends but it can be only partially successful, in my opinion, so long as it depends entirely upon moral suasion, while manufacturers and merchants have the voting power to hold in terror over its administration."

Mrs. Lucia Ames Mead, president of the Massachusetts State Suffrage Association and a leader in the movement for peace and arbitration, was on the program to talk of Woman's Work for Peace. "I am not going to speak of any philanthropy," she began, "but of something much more far-reaching and radical, which will make three-fourths of our philanthropy needless." She then made an impassioned plea for a world organization of the forces that would conduce to peace. Representative government was the first step, she said, and the establishment of a World Court was the next. The achievement of an International Advisory Congress might be the third. "A simultaneous effort must be made," she declared, "to arrange arbitration treaties with every nation on earth, referring all questions that cannot be settled by diplomacyto the Hague Court. Questions of 'honor' must not be excluded. Carnegie well said in his plea for this plan, 'No word has been so dishonored as the word honor.' Such treaties and the use of the economic boycott upon European enemies would be vastly more efficient than battleships to keep the peace.... We need to convert the church. There are many of our Christian ministers who believe they are living under the dispensation of Joshua and not of Jesus."

At the conclusion of Mrs. Mead's address Mrs. Catt said: "Sometimes the cause of peace and arbitration seems to me the greatest of all. To help working women was the motive that determined me to devote my life to obtaining woman suffrage. How hard it is that women must spend so many years just to get the means with which to effect reforms! But we who believe that behind them all is the ballot are chained to the work for that until it is gained."

Religious services were conducted Sunday afternoon by the Rev. Mary A. Safford of Des Moines, assisted by Dr. Shaw and the Rev. Marie Jenney Howe. The subject of the sermon was The Goal of Life and the text: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and, if children, than heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ." "In the preaching of the Gospel of all nations," she said, "it has been recognized that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile; while in breaking the fetters of millions of slaves it also has been recognized that in Him there is neither bond nor free. The world still awaits the time when it will be proclaimed that in Him there is neither male nor female."[31]

Monday, February 15, was Miss Anthony's 84th birthday and it was a coincidence that on the morning of that day the convention should be opened with prayer by the Rev. Edward EverettHale, chaplain of the Senate, a life-long opponent of woman suffrage. When he was invited to come he asked definite assurance that it would not be interpreted that he had changed his opinion.[32]The air of the hall was fragrant with the flowers that had been sent in honor of the birthday, and, as the usual tribute of the convention, it made its pledges of money for the expenses of the coming year. Mrs. Upton asked for $4,000 and nearly $5,000 were quickly subscribed.[33]

The preceding day Mrs. John B. Henderson had given a 12 o'clock birthday breakfast for Miss Anthony at her handsome home, Boundary Castle, attended by the national officers and a number of invited guests. In the evening a social reunion for the officers, delegates and speakers was held in the banquet room of the Shoreham Hotel, which was the convention headquarters. On the afternoon of the birthday President and Mrs. Roosevelt received the members of the convention with much cordiality. From the White House they went to a reception given by Miss Clara Barton in her interesting home at Glen Echo, near Washington. The nearly five hundred visitors received a warm welcome and enjoyed wandering through the unique house built of lumber left after the Johnstown flood, unplastered and the walls draped with the flags of many nations that had been presented to her by their rulers. At urgent request Miss Barton brought forth the laces, jewels, medals and decorations given to her by the dignitaries and crowned heads of Europe for her distinguished servicesin behalf of the Red Cross, such a collection, it was said, as no other woman possessed.

The convention was largely in the nature of a Colorado jubilee, as its women ten years before had cast their first vote, having been enfranchised in the autumn of 1893. The program for two evenings was given up to men and women from that State under the heading, Colorado Speaks for Itself, and it was most appropriate that Miss Anthony should preside. In presenting her Mrs. Catt said: "This is Miss Anthony's 84th birthday. We might have had a program filled with tributes to her and no doubt you would all have enjoyed them but instead we have what she will like better, a program to show, not that woman suffrage would be a good thing but that it has been a good thing. When Miss Anthony was born no woman in America could vote; no woman in modern times had been a lawyer. Tonight our ushers are seven women graduates of the Washington Law School, in the cap and gown which used to be forbidden to women. But there is something else going on tonight that is a more noteworthy celebration of her birthday. A measure to grant suffrage to women is pending in Denmark with the backing of the government and the women of that country have arranged a great demonstration in favor of the bill and have fixed the date for today because it is the birthday of Susan B. Anthony. Opponents of woman suffrage pay almost their whole attention to Colorado, so we have asked Colorado to come and talk for itself and it has responded magnificently. All the speakers pay their own expenses and have come this long way for the pleasure of saying a word for woman suffrage."

The WashingtonPostcommented, "Miss Anthony received an ovation and it was delightful to see the pride with which she introduced the speakers—a former Governor, a woman State Superintendent of Public Instruction, chairmen of women's political committees and clubs, a woman county superintendent." Mrs. Katharine Cook, president of the Jane Jefferson Club, a Democratic organization of over a thousand women, spoke on The Ideals We Cherish and strongly emphasized that politics did not impair true womanliness or lower high ideals. "A nation can be no more free or pure or beautiful than the homes of which it is composed," she said. "Our country is but a greater home and nomother whose love for her fireside is more than an instinct or a sentiment can fail to see that the welfare of her home and family is vitally connected with an unstained ballot and an honest government. We women who believe in the right of suffrage and exercise it with the utmost wisdom with which we are gifted, use it for the preservation and defense and love of our homes ... and it is this spirit which is needed at the polls."

An entirely different but equally effective note was struck by Mrs. Ellis Meredith, a prominent journalist of Denver, who said during her address on Colorado Women and Legislation:

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