History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 5/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
THE NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1902.
The association held its Thirty-fourth annual convention, which especially distinguished by the presence of visitors from other lands, in the First Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C., Feb. 12-18, 1902.[1]
There was special significance in this meeting place, as the pastor of the church for many years was the Rev. Byron Sutherland,[2] who from its pulpit had more than once denounced woman suffrage and its advocates; but it was now under the liberal ministry of the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, their strong and valued advocate. The Washington Post said: "More than a thousand visitors were present yesterday afternoon at the first session of the National American Suffrage Convention and the first International Woman Suffrage Conference. Perhaps no other meeting of its kind ever has occasioned as much interest on the part of Washington women generally.[3] The large audience room was packed to the doors ... and it has been arranged to hold overflow meetings in the church parlors." The platform was banked with flowers over which waved the flags of thirty nations, lent by Miss Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross, to whom they had been presented by representatives of each individual nation. Above them all hung the "suffrage flag" with four golden stars on its blue ground for the four States where women were fully enfranchised—Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho. The president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, was in the chair.
This convention will be ever memorable because under its auspices the First International Woman Suffrage Confrence was held which resulted later in the founding of the International Alliance. The proceedings of this conference are described in the chapter devoted to the Alliance. Ten countries were represented and their delegates took part in the convention, which was welcomed on the opening afternoon by the Hon. Henry B. F. McFarland, president of the board of commissioners of the District of Columbia. He addressed the delegates as "stockholders in the national capital" and said: "Personally I welcome not only you but your cause. In common, I believe, with the majority of intelligent men I think you have won your case on the argument. Equal suffrage is equal justice and there is no reason why such women as you should be classed in the States with idiots and criminals." Mrs. May Wright Sewall, who was to greet the foreign guests in the name of the International Council of Women, of which she was president, was detained until later. Mrs. Catt with words of highest eulogy introduced Miss Barton, who said:
Ladies of Europe, if a hundred tongues were mine they could not speak the glad welcome in our hearts. It is an epoch in the history of the world that your coming marks. For the first time within the written history of mankind have the women of the nations left their homes and assembled in council to declare the position of women before the world, bringing to national and international view the injustice and the folly of the barriers which ignorance has created and tradition fostered and preserved through the unthinking ages until they came to be held not only as a part of the natural laws and rights of man but as the immutable decrees of Divinity itself. . . . If woman alone had suffered under these mistaken traditions, if she could have borne the evil by herself, it would have been less pitiful, but her brother man, in the laws he created and ignorantly worshipped, has suffered with her. He has lost her highest help; he has crippled the intelligence he needed; he has belittled the very source of his own being and dwarfed the image of his Maker.
Ladies, there is a propriety in your crossing the seas to hold the first council in America, for it was in this new untrammeled land of freedom, free birth, free thought and free speech that the first outspoken notes were given, the first concerted action taken toward the release of woman, the enlightenment of man as a lawmaker, and the attention of the world directed to the injustice, unwisdom and folly of the code under which it lived. It was here that the first hard blows were struck. It was here the paths were marked out that have been trodden with bleeding feet for half a century, until at length the blows no longer rebound and the hands of the grateful, loving womanhood of the world struggle for a place to scatter roses in the paths which erstwhile were flint and thorns; and an admiring world of women and men alike breathe in tones of respect, gratitude and love the names of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Miss Anthony, I am glad to stand beside you while I tell these women from the other side of the world who has brought them here. This, ladies of Europe, is your great prototype—this the woman who has trodden the trackless fields of the pioneer till the thorns are buried in roses; this, the woman who has lived to hear the hisses turn to dulcet strains of music; the woman who has dared to plead for every good cause under heaven, who opened her door to the fleeing slave and claimed the outcast for a brother; the woman beloved of her own country and honored in all countries.
Although a slow lesson to learn it has always proved that the grandeur of a nation was shown by the respect paid to woman. The brightest garlands of Spain, linked with immortelles, twine about the name of Isabella. The highest glory of England today is not that she placed her crown on the brow of her trusted and beloved new monarch, a man whom the nations of the earth welcome to their galaxy of rulers, but that she lays her mantle of fifty years' rule through war and peace and progress such as never was known before, upon the grave of a woman—that mantle on which no stain has ever rested and on which the sunlight of happiness is shadowed and dimmed only by the tears of a sorrowing nation, as it is reverently borne to its honored rest. England, thank God you had no Salic law! America has none, and, Miss Anthony, the path which you have trodden through these oft painful years leads to that goal; and, though your eyes will have opened upon the blessed light of the heaven beyond, verily there may be some standing here who shall not taste death until these things come.
Ladies and Delegates: In the name of the noble leader who has called you, we welcome you. In the name of our country, its great institutions of learning and equal privileges to all, we welcome you. In the name of the brotherhood of man, we welcome you. In the name of our never-forgotten pioneers, a Mott, a Stone, a Gage, a Griffing, a Garrison, a May, a Foster, a Douglass, a Phillips, we reverently welcome you. In the name of God and humanity, in the name of the angels of earth and the angels of heaven, we welcome you to our shores, to our halls, to our homes and to our hearts.Miss Susan B. Anthony, honorary president of the association, who was next presented and enthusiastically received, closed her brief welcome by saying that Mrs. Stanton and herself conceived the idea of holding an International Suffrage Conference in 1883 when they were in Europe but the time was too early for it, and now, twenty years later, European women had come as delegates to one in the United States and henceforth the women of the two countries would go forward together in this cause. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, vice-president-at-large, referred to the fact that she was born in England and transplanted to America, and said: "While you are divided from us by geographical lines, which are imaginary, and by a language which is not the same, you have not come to an alien people or land. In the realm of the heart, in the domain of mind, there are no geographical lines dividing the nations. You come to us as members of one family. You come that we may all stand on one plane of freedom. I wish we could take you to our four 'star States' where women vote. We mean to give you of our best but we expect to get from you much more than we give. You will show us that those who speak English are not the only ones whose hearts are alive to the great flame of liberty."
The national corresponding secretary, Miss Kate Gordon, read a telegram from Dr. Augusta Stowe Gullen, leader of the suffrage movement in Canada: "Greetings and best wishes from your sisters across the line"; a cablegram from Christiana: "Success to your work, from the National Woman Suffrage Association of Norway." A letter was read by the delegate from Norway, Mrs. Gudrun Drewsen, from the president of the association, Miss Gina Krog, which said in part: "The woman suffrage movement! I know of no movement, no cause that is at the same time so national and so international. The victory now gained in Norway, municipal suffrage and eligibility to municipal office for a great many women, will no doubt in time influence every home in our country; but we could not have won this victory without receiving impulses from other civilized nations. We are indeed indebted to men and women in several European countries for the privileges which we now possess, but from no other country in the world have we received the inspiration in our work which we have had from the United States; to no women in the world are we so indebted as to the women of this country. Those great and noble pioneers and their fervent struggle—how they have inspired us and awakened our enthusiasm! That assiduous work, year after year—how it has strengthened our hands! That glorious example, those results attained in your country—how we have brought them before our legislators to awaken their sense of justice! I sincerely wish that the news of the victory achieved in our country may prove an impetus to you in your work. To be assured of this would give us the great satisfaction of feeling that at all events a small fraction of our great debt to you was paid."
Miss Gordon read a letter from the Federation of Progressive Women's Societies in Germany which declared that its first and foremost object was to secure for German women full political tights and continued: "We watch with especial interest and sympathy the effort of those who persistently and courageously work for the full citizenship of women. The women of the United States have, in this struggle, set a noble example to the women of Europe. In Germany we recall with tender veneration such names as Lucy Stone, Frances Willard, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw and Susan B. Anthony. The women of Germany are without political rights. It is far easier to fight for equality and freedom in a young country, like the United States, than in an old civilization, cumbered with traditions—a country that looks back on a history of many centuries, that only a few decades ago fought its way through severe conflicts and painful changes to political unity and is now slowly growing into responsibilities which social and political problems impose on a modern State."
"The Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Tasmania sends hearty greetings and trusts that the International Suffrage Conference may be successful and that it will bring nearer that day when man and woman shall sit 'side by side, full summed in all their powers,' " was the message signed by Jessie S. Rooke, its president, which was given by Miss Anna Gordon, president of the W. C. T. U. of the United States. The response to the addresses of welcome was made by Madame Sofja Levovna Friedland of Russia, who said in beautiful English:
Madame Friedland told of the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis to this country and of the poem read by Oliver Wendell Holmes at a banquet given in his honor, and closed: ‘Thus an American poet has expressed the feelings of his countrymen and women. God bless the United States! Long life to President Roosevelt and prosperity to you all! In the days to come and the years to follow may our two great nations stand side by side in harmony and peace. May the Star-Spangled Banner and the Russian Double Eagle soar aloft, not on battlefields, not against any nation, but for a brotherhood of men in the federation of the world.” The opening session ended with the president’s address by Mrs. Catt, in the course of which she said:
Mrs. Catt closed her address with these words: "Yet before the attainment of equal rights for men and women there will be years of struggle and disappointment. We of a younger generation have taken up the work where our noble and consecrated pioneers left it. We in turn are enlisted for life and generations yet unborn will take up the work where we lay it down. So through centuries if need be the education will continue, until a regenerated race of men and women who are equal before God and man shall control the destinies of the earth. It will be the proud duty of the new International Alliance, if one shall be formed, to extend its helping hand to the women of every nation and every people and its completed duty will not have been performed until the last vestige of the old obedience of one human being to another shall have been destroyed."
The presence of the foreign visitors and the greetings from abroad made an original and pleasing variation of the usual program at national conventions. The Evening with the Pioneers opened with the singing by the audience of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, written by one of them, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, led by another, John Hutchinson, a member of the famous family of singers, who the day before had celebrated his 9oth birthday. Miss Anthony presided and the Washington Times said that she "was greeted with a storm of applause, the convention rising as one woman and with waving handkerchiefs cheering her to the echo for several minutes." The Loyal Legion of Women through its president gave her an armful of red roses and in accepting them she observed smilingly: "I can only say what I have often said in late years—it is much pleasanter to be pelted with roses than stones! The National Suffrage Association stands like a Mother Church with her arms wide open to those who want to come in and we are especially glad to receive loyal women."[4]
Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller, a member of the London School Board for nine years, brought greetings from Mrs. Priscilla Bright McLaren, 87 years old, of whom Miss Anthony said: "She is an elder sister of John and Jacob Bright. John was the great champion of manhood suffrage but Jacob was still greater, for he was a champion of suffrage for women also. Mrs. McLaren sent a loving and appreciative message to "the dear American women who have so steadfastly held up the banner of woman suffrage and especially to the octogenarians, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony," and closed it with a Christmas poem. Miss Anthony recalled her last visit to Mrs. McLaren in Edinburgh three years before and said: "I wish you could see how beautiful she looked as she lay on the bed in her pretty white cap and blue dressing sack. She is an inspiration to the women of Great Britain and she has been to me."
Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby (D. C.), gave a greeting from Mrs. Stanton, in her 87th year, and read her paper on Educated Suffrage.[5]. In this able and scholarly document Mrs. Stanton said:
Mrs. Stanton had made her last address in person to a national convention in 1892, when she resigned the presidency of the association—that incomparable essay on The Solitude of Self—but she never had failed to send her annual battle cry. The one to this convention, which began the fulfilment of her dream of a world-wide movement for woman suffrage, was written with all her old-time logic and forceful argument and it proved to be her last, as her long and valuable life was ended the next November.
Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton (O.) read the paper of Mrs. Caroline Hallowell Miller (Md.), detained at the last moment, on Why We Come Again, in which she explained why the suffragists would continue to come to Washington and haunt Congress until their object, a Federal Amendment, had been attained. The humor for which Mrs. Miller, a staid "Quaker," was noted sparkled in its sentences although she protested that she was entirely serious. Miss Anthony introduced Henry B. Blackwell (Mass.) with the quaint remark: 'He was the husband of Lucy Stone; I don't think he can quite represent her but he will do the best he can!' Mr. Blackwell briefly reviewed the agitation for women suffrage during the first half of the 19th century. He told of meeting Lucy Stone in 1850 and being so charmed he advised his elder brother to make her acquaintance; of hearing her address a Massachusetts constitutional convention in 1852 with William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips; of making his own first suffrage speech in Cleveland, O., in 1853 and of his marriage in 1855. In presenting the next speaker Miss Anthony said: "Mr. Blackwell alluded to his brother, who did not marry Lucy but Antoinette—the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first ordained woman minister—who will now address you." Her paper on Chivalry was a clear analysis of the changed ideas of this word, touching with sarcasm on that of the days when the effort for the rights of women began, a chivalry which gave the person and property of the wife, the guardianship of the children, all her legal privileges, to the husband. She traced the evolution from the early privations of the pioneer suffragists to the honors that are now showered upon them and drew a striking contrast between "the dying old chivalry, which made itself the sole umpire of the benefits to be granted, and the increasing new chivalry, which consults the beneficiaries themselves as to their needs and desires."
Miss Anthony then introduced the first woman ordained by the Universalist Church, the Rev. Olympia Brown, who struck the keynote of her address in saying: 'When we are vexed by the seeming irrationality of some of our Congressmen, may we not explain it as due to the fact that they are thinking of the kind of men who elected them? The United States debars intelligent American women from voting and says to the riffraff of Europe, 'Come over and help govern us.' It is an experiment which no other country in the world ever did make and no other ever will make and I predict that it will be a failure. It will be necessary to call in the aid of the intelligent American women and soon or late this will be done."
Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller, daughter of the noted Abolitionist, Gerrit Smith, was asked to rise and Miss Anthony paid glowing tribute to him and to many men and women who had stood by the cause of woman suffrage in its early days. The audience were pleased to enjoy once more her informal and unique method of presiding, as glancing over the audience she singled out veteran suffragists who had come to hear and not to speak, calling them by name with some reminiscent comment. Her eye fell upon William H. Bright, who sponsored the bill in the Legislature of Wyoming which gave the first equal suffrage ever granted anywhere to women. In answering the demand of the audience for a speech he told how Mrs, Esther Morris had come from New York State to Wyoming in 1867 and how she and his wife had persuaded him to prepare the bill, which was passed by a Democratic Legislature and signed by a Republican Governor. In response to a general request Miss Anthony told the story, of which audiences never seemed to tire, of that historic occasion when she broke all precedents by addressing a Teachers' Convention in 1853. This interesting session closed with the singing of Auld Lang Syne led by the venerable John Hutchinson.
During a morning session Miss Gordon made her report as corresponding secretary, saying that although it covered only the seven months since the last convention it showed that 6,500 letters had been sent out from the headquarters during this period. In 1895, when Mrs. Catt became chairman of the Organization Committee, she had established headquarters for her work in one little room in the New York World building, that was really an annex of her husband's offices, and begun the publication of a Bulletin, which was the organ of the committee. In 1897 it became the organ of the National Association and had now expanded into a quarterly paper called Progress, which was edited by Alice Stone Blackwell, Ellis Meredith and Laura Gregg. A preliminary edition of 100,000 had been sent out from the headquarters, the expense borne by Boston women, and later 16,000 copies of the October and 20,000 of the January editions had gone to the 14,000 newspapers of the country, to members of Congress and others. A monthly series of Political Equality Leaflets was also commenced and a Course of Study for Clubs and individuals was established for which a dozen or more books were published. These two valuable features were carried on without any expense to the association, as they paid for themselves.
Miss Gordon described the National Conference held in Charleston, S. C., February 3-4, at the invitation of the board of the Inter-State and West Indian Exposition; told of the conference in Baltimore[6] and said of the one in Buffalo: "The far-reaching effect and impetus given to the woman's movement by the Congress of Women held in connection with the Chicago Exposition, determined the Business Committee's acceptance of an invitation to hold a National Conference during the Pan-American Exposition. Too late did we learn that the invitation extended included no responsibility whatever upon the Exposition to further the success of the conference. Buffalo did not represent an organized center and after several fruitless attempts to form a local committee, the headquarters realized that every little detail essential to success must be attended to by the board. From all sides reports of the most discouraging nature were received as to the absolute failure attending all conferences there but nevertheless we started a vigorous correspondence and for five preceding weeks every Sunday paper in Buffalo was supplied with matter from headquarters. To make a long story short, September 9-10 witnessed our conference well attended, with the night sessions crowded and success acknowledged on all sides, even though we labored under the disadvantage of its being held during the season of sorrow and distress in that city while President McKinley's life hovered in the valley of the shadow of death."
Miss Gordon said that during the year Mrs. Catt had made a tour of nine States and taken part in forty meetings. Referring to the efforts made to have a woman suffrage clause put into new constitutions that were being framed in several States she said: "The clause which lived twenty-four hours in the Alabama Constitution, granting to taxpaying women owning $500 worth of property the suffrage on questions of bonded indebtedness, was killed by a disease peculiar to the genus homo known as chivalry. In the case in point, the diagnosis revealed that the fairest, purest and brightest jewels that ever shone under the brilliant rays of God's shining sun would be immeasurably lowered by voting upon questions relating to the taxation of their own property. Yet, under the vagaries of this disease, this same convention conferred on husbands the right to vote on their wives' property. This is the same character of chivalry which gives the wages of the brightest, fairest jewels to the husband, which makes impossible equal pay for equal work and which classes the jewels with the idiots, insane and criminals in that and other States."
The program was so crowded with attractions that it left no time for the usual conferences on work and campaigns, so they were placed at 9:30 a.m. As they had been so largely attended by visitors the preceding year as to call forth a rule from the Board of Officers that thereafter delegates only should be permitted to attend them, this was not disastrous. Early morning conferences therefore were held on Organization and Press and two others took the form of State presidents' councils. The Plan of Work recommended again by the Executive Committee and adopted by the convention urged work in Congressional districts for the 16th Amendment; an attempt to secure tax-paying suffrage; more resolutions by national and State conventions; a campaign to secure suffrage speakers at Chautauqua assemblies and State and county fairs; prizes for essays on woman suffrage in schools and colleges; circulating suffrage libraries and the general use of a suffrage stamp on letters.
Two novel evening programs were devoted to The New Woman and The New Man, the first with the following speakers: Mrs. Helen Adelaide Shaw of Boston; Mrs. Elizabeth M. Gilmer of New Orleans, known far and wide as "Dorothy Dix," said to receive the highest salary of any woman journalist; Dr. Cora Smith Eaton, a prominent physician and surgeon of Minneapolis; Miss Gail Laughlin (N. Y.) who had taken the highest honors in the Law Class of Cornell University; the Rev. Ida C. Hultin, a successful Unitarian minister of Boston. Miss Margaret Haley of Chicago, who led the great fight of the Teachers' Federation of that city to compel the big corporations to pay their taxes in order that the public schools should not be crippled for lack of funds, could not be present because of a crisis in the legal proceedings. Each of the women representing the four professions of law, medicine, theology and journalism, in addresses scintillating with humor, reviewed the early prejudices which had been overcome, told of the large number of women who had entered the field when the opportunity came but showed that they could never have an even chance until there was complete obliteration of sex prejudice. Little idea of their interest could be obtained from fragmentary paragraphs.
The house was crowded to hear about The New Man,[7] represented first on the program by Oswald Garrison Villard, grandson of William Lloyd Garrison and owner and editor of the New York Evening Post, who gave a spirited and effective account of Women in the New York Municipal Campaign. This was the first in which women ever had taken a prominent part and it had attracted wide attention, a revolt against Tammany corruption under Richard Croker. Mr. Villard told of the remarkable work done by the Women's Municipal League under direction of the Citizen's Union for the election of Seth Low as Mayor and a reform ticket. He paid a sarcastic tribute to the assistance of the women anti-suffragists. "To have been really consistent," he said, "they should have urged upon their more emancipated sisters that woman's sphere is the home and any steps that lead beyond it tend in the long run to the destruction both of the home and of the eternal feminine." He closed by declaring that "the Titanic struggle between right and wrong in the great cities can not be won without the cooperation of that half of the nation's citizens in whose hearts are ever found the truest ideals of family and society, of city life and State life and of national existence." At its conclusion Mrs. Catt said: "And yet after Mr. Low was elected Mayor of Greater New York a large number of the women who had helped him win the victory urged him to appoint some women on the school board and he refused. So we must suppose that he is willing to have women pull the chestnuts out of the fire for men but is not willing to give them a share of the chestnuts."
A feature of the evening was the scholarly address of the Hon. William Dudley Foulke (Ind.), president of the U. S. Civil Service Commission. He objected to being classed as a "new man," since long ago he was for several years president of the American Suffrage Association. 'Men would not be satisfied with indirect influence," he declared and continued: "It is often said that woman suffrage is just but that there is no need of it, because women have no interests separate from those of men. That argument was used to me only lately by an eminent political economist. I said: 'Suppose a railroad runs through a town and a woman owns a large property in that town and yet cannot vote on the question of raising a subsidy; are her interests necessarily the same as those of every man in the town?' My friends, that case is universal. Suppose a widow is trying to bring up her son in the principles of morality and a saloon is opened on the corner opposite her home. I do not speak as an advocate of prohibition but I do say that the interest of the mother is different from that of the man who sells liquor, Or suppose she is bringing up a daughter; she has a sacred right to protect that daughter from a libertine. Her interest is certainly different from that of the tempter. .... We do not realize what an immense waste there is in denying woman entrance to political life. She ought to have free access to anything she is qualified to do and where she is not qualified she will drop out."
John S. Crosby, a prominent Democratic leader of New York, made a thorough analysis of the functions of the State and the Government, showed the utter fallacy of constituting men the governing and women the governed class and closed as follows: "Attempt to prove that woman's claim to the right of suffrage is as valid as any that man can make would be like trying to demonstrate the truth of a self-evident proposition. .... We ask the ballot for woman not merely because she has a right to it but quite as much because it is her duty to exercise that right. The irresistible power of that all-embracing organization, the State, holds you and me and all that are dear to us as its helpless and often hopeless subjects. The combined wisdom of all of us would be none too great for its intelligent administration and we demand for our own sake and for the sake of those that shall come after us that the wisdom of woman shall be included; not only that her delicate, intuitional sense of justice shall leaven the lump of public opinion but that her deft hand shall help to knead it into the bread of righteous law. We ask as one of the rights that government is bound to secure that in the administration of its power it shall make use of the fullest wisdom of the whole people; that the entire popular brain and social conscience shall take cognizance of and be responsible for all acts of government. Not until then shall we see true democracy; not until then shall we indeed have a government of the people, by the people and for the people."
The next day was one always commemorated by suffragists— the birthday of Susan B. Anthony—this time the 82nd. The "Woman's Journal" began its account: "As Miss Anthony sat at breakfast on February 15, with one of the jars of delicious cream before her that were sent her daily by the president of the Maryland Woman Suffrage Association, she was unexpectedly surrounded by the foreign delegates in a body. A birthday greeting drawn up and signed by them was read aloud by Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller of England, while the rest, grouped behind her, bent forward listening with attentive faces—a pretty picture. Among the gifts which she received during the afternoon session were a canoe full of flowers from 'one of the girls' with a poem; a handsome feather boa from Mrs. Swift and Mrs. Sperry of California; a cup made from the wood of the floor under the table on which the Declaration of Independence was signed, presented in the name of Mrs. General Geddes; a bouquet of red roses from Prof. Theodosia Ammons of Colorado Agricultural College; potted plants from the Swedish and Norwegian delegates; over $500 from Mrs. Fanny Garrison Villard, Miss Emily Howland, Mrs. Kenyon, Mrs. W. W. Trimble, Miss Nettie Lovisa White, Mrs. William M. Ivins and other friends; also quantities of fruit and flowers. The address was as follows:
[Later the foreign delegates gave Mrs. Catt a handsomely engraved silver card case. ]
The Washington Times said of the occasion:
Miss Mary Garrett Hay, the champion money raiser, then made the appeal to the audience, who quickly responded with over $5,000 and she received an appreciative vote of thanks from the convention. Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, the treasurer, reported the receipts of the preceding year as $13,581, with a carefully itemized and audited statement.
Among the most interesting and valuable features of all national conventions are the reports of the work in the various States and yet because of the large number it is impossible to give specific mention or quotations. They were varied on this occasion by the reports from foreign countries—Venezuela, Chili, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Porto Rico, Canada, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and France. These had been obtained at the request of Mrs. Catt from ambassadors, consuls or persons appointed by them and represented months of labor. Several evenings were largely devoted to addresses by delegates from other countries; one by Public School Inspector James L. Hughes, Toronto; the English Woman in Politics, Florence Fenwick Miller; the Australian Woman in Politics, Vida Goldstein; Women in South American Republics, Carolina Huidobro; Women in Porto Rico, Resident Commissioner Federico Degetau; Women in the Philippines, Harriet Potter Nourse; Deborah, Emmy Evald, Sweden; Women in Egypt and Jerusalem, Lydia von Finkelstein Mountford; Women in Turkey, Florence Fensham, Dean of American College for Girls in Constantinople; Women in Germany, Antoine Stolle.
When the report for Porto Rico was made Miss Shaw supplemented it with a graphic account of a trip to the West Indies with Mrs. Lydia Avery Coonley Ward of Chicago, which she had just finished, telling of the position of women, the marriage laws, etc. The work of the National Council of Women was presented by the Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer (R. I.); the report of the affiliated Friends' Equal Rights Association by Mrs. Mariana W. Chapman (N. Y.), its president.
The Sunday afternoon services in the church were conducted by the Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer, assisted by the Rev. Olympia Brown and the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw.[8] Mrs. Spencer first defined the ideal of womanly character held by the older poets and philosophers, quoting Milton's line describing Adam and Eve: "He for God only; she for God in him," and the expression used by the hard, old father of Tennyson's "Princess": "Man to command and woman to obey." She then expressed the modern ideal as that of devotion to the same essentials but different in expression. "Woman is not called to a new kingdom but to a larger occupancy of that which has been hers from the beginning. The woman with the child in her arms was the beginning of the family; the hearth fire and the altar fire grew from this; the elder child teaching the younger was the beginning of the school. We are making over all these inherited traditions and inherited tendencies and socializing them. .... The ideal woman is no longer a far-away Madonna with her feet on the clouds; she is as divine but she is human. What means the humanizing of religion and the passing of harsh, old creeds but that a greater, more human, more womanly influence is felt in all the relations of life." Mr. Blackwell, chairman of the committee on Presidential suffrage, said in his report: "This is the open door for woman suffrage in every State in the Union. Any Legislature at any session by a majority vote of both Houses, either separately or in joint session, without any change of State constitution, can empower women to help select the presidential electors on the same terms as male citizens. The power is absolute and unqualified. Let women in every State petition their Legislature to enable women to take part in this most important form of suffrage known to the American people. It is objected to our demand for woman suffrage that women do not want it and will not exercise it if granted. This is now the only method of testing women's wish to take part in their government. If by a general exercise of the right they show their public spirit, the Legislature by submitting an amendment to the State constitution can afterwards extend suffrage to its citizens in State and local elections. This step will be the most conservative way of procedure. The control will remain, as now, in the hands of a Legislature elected by men alone. If it prove unsatisfactory to the men of the State any subsequent Legislature can repeal the law."
A report of the International Suffrage Conference, which had been in progress during the convention, and the forming of a committee to further permanent organization, was made by its secretary, Miss Goldstein, and the convention voted that the National American Woman Suffrage Association should cooperate with this committee. The nominations for office were made as usual by secret ballot and as usual were so nearly unanimous that the secretary was instructed to cast the vote. The only change in the present board was the election of Mrs. Mary J. Coggeshall, for many years prominent in the work in Iowa, as second auditor in place of Dr. Eaton, whose professional duties required all her time. Invitations for the next convention were received from Niagara Falls, Detroit, St. Louis, Denver, Baltimore and New Orleans. The Board of Trade, the Era Club and the Progressive Union united in the one from New Orleans, which was accepted and cordial thanks returned for the others.
The resolutions presented by Mr. Blackwell, chairman of the committee, rejoiced in the suffrage already gained and the securing in the past year of laws in various States giving equal guardianship of their children to mothers and increased property rights to wives. They called the attention of the Civil Service Commission to discriminations made against women and emphasized the protest of the preceding year against government regulation of vice in the Philippines. Later at an executive meeting of the board a vigorous set of resolutions was prepared, stating that the reports of Governor William H. Taft and General McArthur admitted and defended "certified examinations of women" in the new possessions of the United States. It showed at length the results of government regulation in other countries which had caused it to be abandoned and declared that "such things ought not to be permitted under the American flag."[9]
Mrs. Colby's report on Industrial Problems Relating to Women cited as one example of discrimination: 'An effort is now being made in Congress to do away with the annual sick leave of employees, because, it is claimed, women take so much advantage of it. Investigation shows, however, that the per cent. of sick leave is highest in the Inter-State Commerce Commission, where not a woman is employed—twelve per cent.—and only seven per cent. in the Agricultural Department, where a very large number are employed." She gave numerous instances of unfairness against women on the civil service lists, said that women wage earners must find a forum on the suffrage platform where they can plead their cause and carefully analyze the industrial problems especially affecting women. Mrs. Elnora M. Babcock, chairman of the Press Committee, gave a comprehensive report stating that while 50,000 news stories and articles had been sent to the papers in 1900 the number had increased to 175,000 during the last year and there was reason to believe that three-fourths of them had been used. The largest city papers freely accepted the articles. Former U. S. Senator Henry W. Blair of New Hampshire came in for one session and was called to the platform for a speech. He was much loved by the suffragists, as he had been one of the strongest champions of woman suffrage during his many years in the Senate and had brought the Federal Amendment to a vote on Jan. 25, 1887. (History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV, chapter VI.) Letters of affectionate greeting were sent to the pioneers and veteran workers, Mrs. Stanton, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Mary S. Anthony, Jane H. Spofford, Sallie Clay Bennett, Caroline Hallowell Miller and Abigail S. Duniway. The deaths among the older and more prominent members during the year had been many and fifty were mentioned in the memorial resolutions.
The notable social features of the week were the afternoon receptions given by Mrs. Julia Langdon Barber at her beautiful home, Belmont, and by Mrs. John B. Henderson at Boundary Castle, the latter followed the next day by a dinner for the officers of the association and the delegates from abroad. Both of these well-known Washington hostesses were early suffragists and had often extended the hospitality of their spacious homes to the individual leaders and to the conventions.
A very interesting address was given on the last evening by Madame Friedland on Russian Women of Past Centuries. U. S. Senator Thomas M. Patterson of Colorado presented a vigorous and convincing endorsement of the practical working of woman suffrage in that State for the past nineteen years and its benefits to women and to civic life. U.S. Senator John F. Shafroth of Colorado, always a strong and loyal supporter of suffrage for women, was on the platform. Dr. Shaw, introduced by Mrs. Catt as "the Demosthenes of the movement," delivered for the first time her impressive speech, The Power of an Incentive, in Which she showed how laws, customs and lack of opportunity took away the incentive for great work from the life of women. Until they can have the same that inspires men, she said, they never can rise to their highest capabilities. No adequate reports of any of these addresses exist.
The audience waited to hear from Miss Anthony, who was thus described by a writer present: "The picture that Miss Anthony made during the evening was one which the delegates will carry away with them to keep. She wore a black satin gown with a handsome point lace fichu and draped over her shoulders a soft, white shawl, while close by was a large jar of lavender hyacinths. Her expressive face reflected every mood of the evening and it now spoke pride, satisfaction and sorrow. She told of the joy and gratification she felt in the wonderful galaxy of women at the convention and the progress of her loved cause, and when she voiced the wish that she might be with them at the next convention her words were almost lost in a whirlwind of applause."
Mrs. Catt in closing with a brief address one of the most noteworthy conventions on record, called attention to what had been the key-note of her speech before the House Judiciary Committee and said: "We have asked of Congress the most reasonable thing a great cause ever demanded—an investigation of conditions in the equal suffrage States—and on its results we rest our case."
Under the heading Impressions of a Non-combatant a writer in the Washington Times gave the following opinion:
For a quarter of a century during the first session of each Congress committees of Senate and House had given a hearing to representatives of the National Suffrage Association to present arguments for the submission of an amendment to the Federal Constitution which would enfranchise women, and at an earlier date to advocate other suffrage measures. Because of the distinguished speakers from abroad the hearings at this time were of unusual interest. The convention adjourned for them on the morning of February 18 and the Senate and House Committee rooms were crowded.
All the members of the Senate Committee were present— Augustus O. Bacon (Ga.) chairman; James H. Berry (Ark.); George P. Wetmore (R. I.) ; Thomas R. Bard (Calif.) ; John H. Mitchell (Ore.). Miss Susan B. Anthony, honorary president of the association, presided and said:
Miss Anthony then presented Miss Harriet May Mills (N. Y.), who spoke from the standpoint of tax paying women, who in the towns and villages alone of her State paid taxes on over $5,000,000 worth of property; Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg, president of the Pennsylvania Suffrage Association, who showed the connection between politics and conditions in Philadelphia; the Rev. Olympia Brown, president of the Wisconsin association, who pointed out the need of both the reason and the intuition in the country to govern it wisely. Mrs. Mariana W. Chapman, president of the New York association, called for a Federal Amendment to enfranchise women because of the principles on which this Government was founded. Miss Gail Laughlin, a graduate of Wellesley College and Cornell University Law School, made a strong argument on the effect enfranchisement would have on woman's economic independence and greater efficiency. Mrs. Jennie A. Brown, of Minneapolis, told of the unlimited opportunities allowed to the women of the great northwest which were largely counteracted by their political restrictions. Mrs. Mary Wood Swift of California, president of the National Council of Women, declared that the countless thousands of the educated, developed women of today were fully equal to the responsibilities of citizenship. Mrs. Lucy Hobart Day, president of the Maine association, demonstrated the inferior and unfortunate position of disfranchised women. Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal (Boston), indicated how every step of the progress of women had been opposed by the same objections now made to woman suffrage and submitted these objections and the answers to them in a convincing statement which filled ten pages of the printed report of the hearing.
Miss Anthony introduced Mrs. Gudrun Drewsen, one of the foreign delegates to the convention, who said in part: "Norwegian women look back to the 25th of May, 1901, as a day of great victory, for on that day a bill was passed in our Parliament which granted Municipal suffrage to all women paying taxes on a certain limited income, about $100 a year, or whose husbands paid on such income. This law has thoroughly changed the position of the married woman and from having always been a minor she has suddenly become of age. It may be of interest to you of the United States, who can show so many tax paying women without any right to vote, to know that we were not able to get our Parliament interested in tax paying woman suffrage until the bill included wives also. The immediate result of this law has been the election of several women to important municipal positions; for instance, members of the common council in the capital; members of the board of aldermen; at one place chief assessor. Women may serve on juries and grand juries and have been appointed members of special congressional commissions. Several women doctors have been appointed in public institutions, on boards of health as experts for the Government, etc. Matrons have been employed at prisons where women are and special prisons for women in charge of a matron have been established. On the whole we begin to see the glory of the rising sun which will give us in a little while the bright, clear day."
Miss Vida Goldstein, a delegate from Australia, began her address: "I am very proud that I have come here from a country where the woman suffrage movement has made such rapid strides. The note was first struck in America and yet women today are struggling here for what we have had in Australia for years, and we have proved all the statements and arguments against woman suffrage to be utterly without foundation. It seems incredible to us that the women here have not even the School and Municipal suffrage except in a very few States: We have had this for over forty years and we have never heard a word against it. It is simply taken as a matter of course that the women should vote. They say that as soon as women get this privilege they are going to lose the chivalrous attentions of men. Let me assure you that a woman has not the slightest conception of what chivalry means until she gets a vote. .... " Miss Goldstein told of woman suffrage in New Zealand and produced the highest testimony as to its good results in both countries.
In closing the hearing Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, national vice president, said in part:
At the hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Representative John J. Jenkins, in the chair, expressed regret that George W. Ray of New York, the chairman, was unavoidably absent and said: "He is very much in sympathy with what the ladies desire to say this morning—much more so than the present occupant of the chair." Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Suffrage Association, who had charge of the hearing, said: "Mr. Chairman, we have just been holding an International Woman Suffrage Conference in the city of Washington, eight nations having sent official delegates from woman suffrage organizations, and several others have cooperated through correspondence, and we have invited representatives of these nations to come to you this morning and present some facts concerning the practical operation of suffrage in countries other than our own. Our first speaker will be Miss Vida Goldstein of Australia." Miss Goldstein gave in substance the address which will be found in the report of the Senate hearing, after which Mrs. Catt said: "Although I have been a resident and taxpayer in four different States and able to qualify as a voter I have never been permitted any suffrage whatever. I now have the privilege of introducing a Russian woman who has been a voter in her country ever since she was 21." Madame Friedland said in part:
Mrs. Catt said of her next speaker: "It is eminently proper that a woman of Sweden should address you, where women have voted longer than anywhere else in the world."
Mrs. Catt then introduced to the committee Miss Isabel Campbell, daughter of former Governor Campbell of Wyoming, who in 1869 signed the bill which enfranchised the women of the Territory ; Prof. Theodosia Ammons of the Colorado University of Agriculture and Mrs. Ida M. Weaver, a resident of Idaho. Kach gave a comprehensive report of the practical working of woman suffrage in her State; the large proportion of women who voted; their appointment on boards and-election to offices; the result in improved polling places, better candidates and cleaner politics; higher pay for working women; the advantages to the community; the comradeship between men and women and the general satisfaction of the people with the experiment. Their reports as a whole offered unimpeachable testimony in favor of the enfranchisement of women.
Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller in her address said:
The local government of England is divided among a number of different bodies. We have the school boards, established in 1870, which have managed the elementary education of the country, now compulsory and free. They spend very large sums of the taxpayers’ money and for them every woman who pays taxes has a vote. Any woman whom the electors choose is entitled to take a seat on them. There are at present not only hundreds of thousands of women voting for the school boards but there are 276 women sitting as representatives upon those of England alone. I myself have for nine years been a member of the school board of London, sitting for one of the great divisions called Hackney, which has 60,000 voters. My election committee was composed of men and women. Men worked for me very hard indeed! ... The next great local governing bodies are the boards of guardians of the poor. These bodies spend annually about $127,000,000, which they raise from the taxpayers, men and women. 'These are huge organizations. Many of the workhouses contain over 1,000 persons; besides which, outside relief in money or food or medical aid is given. Every woman who is a taxpayer can vote for a member of these boards. Women are eligible to sit on them the same as men. There are nearly 1,000 women on the boards.
Women may vote for the municipalities, for the town councils. I can not offer you any illustration of how the women's vote has improved them for the simple reason that when those councils were instituted in 1869 the Parliament of a monarchy was sufficiently large-minded to perceive that women ought to vote for them; that they have to pay their taxes and where a woman stands at the head of a household she is not only equally entitled to representation in regard to the spending of her money but also she is as much concerned with the work that the councils have to do as any man. This was so obviously just that women were given the right to vote on them and have exercised that right ever since. .... The women vote as fully as the men do.
We have district, parish and county councils, which have to a considerable extent the moral and the intellectual government of the cities under them, licensing of places of amusement, public parks, technical education for young people over school age and so on. The building of homes for the poor, the oversight of lunatic asylums and matters of that kind, they have under their authority. These were established in 1884 and the women who had voted so well for many years for school boards and town councils of course were given the right to vote for the new county councils.Mrs. Miller went fully into the work of women on borough and county councils and closed her valuable address by saying: "Gentlemen, the work of women in English public life has not only been unattended with any mischief but has been a great force for service and benefit. Surely American men can trust their sisters as our men have for the past generation trusted us, to their own as well as our advantage."
In closing the hearing to which the committee gave the strictest attention, Mrs. Catt said in part: I have a favor to ask of this committee in an official capacity ; it is something we have never asked before. .... We have brought to you testimonials of the success of woman suffrage in operation throughout the world and I think that if any man among you were called to stand before a committee and give in five or ten minutes some proof of the favorable results of man suffrage, he would find it a very difficult thing to do. What I now ask in behalf of our association is that this committee will request the House of Representatives to appoint a commission to investigate the results of woman suffrage in operation. This has never been done. ....
We ask you in the interest of fairness to see that this commission is appointed to investigate woman suffrage in exactly the same spirit it would use if it were investigating man suffrage in Cuba. We ask you to chase down to its lair every single charge and objection that has been made and if when an honest commission has made an honest investigation you discover that woman suffrage has proved a good thing, if you find that it has proved as beneficial to women as man suffrage has proved to men, then we shall expect that another Judiciary Committee will give a favorable report and ask Congress to submit a 16th Amendment. And if you discover that it is not a good thing, then I promise you in behalf of our association that we will turn our guns into those States and see that it is made a good thing; for never so long as there are women who are educated, women who think for themselves, will they rest content until they have the only weapon that governments can give them for defending liberty and pursuit of happiness. We stand before you as citizens of the United States, qualified, intelligent, taxpaying women, who demand for ourselves the same right to make the Government under which we live that has been given to men.No commission was appointed, no report was made by Senate or House Committee and there were no definite results of such appeals as never had been made by men for the franchise in this or any other country.
- ↑ Part of Call: An International Woman Suffrage Conference will be held in connection with this annual convention, to which suffrage associations of fourteen countries have been invited to send delegates.
The principles which for a century have stood as the guarantee of political liberty to American men, "Taxation without representation is tyranny," and "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," can no longer be claimed as belonging to the United States alone for they have been adopted by all civilized nations. The steadily increasing acceptance of the belief that self-government is the highest form of government has revolutionized the popular thought of the world within the last fifty During that period all newly established governments have been fashioned after the model of a Republic; while in most European nations and their colonies the suffrage has been so largely extended that the mere skeleton of a monarchy remains.
Logical thinkers the world over have been led in consequence to ask: Are not women jr capable with men of self-government? What necessary qualification fits men for the exercise of this sacred right which is not likewise possessed by women? Are they less intelligent? The statistics of schools, colleges and educational bureaus answer "No." Are they less moral, peaceful and law-abiding than men? The statistics of churches, police courts and penitentiaries answer "No." Are they less public spirited and patriotic than men? The labors of millions of organized women in noble reforms, in helpful charities and wise philanthropies answer "No.". . .
An International Woman Suffrage Conference for the exchange of greetings, reports and methods forms a natural mile-stone on the march of progress. All persons believing that the fundamental principles of self-government contained in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States apply to women as well as to men, are invited to visit the convention and to unite in welcome to our foreign guests.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Hon Presidents. Susan B. Anthony, 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 Cora Smith Eaton, - ↑ History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I, page 543.
- ↑ February could be appropriately marked on the calendar as woman's month at the national capital. For many years one or more national bodies of women have met in Washington some time in February. This year an unusually large number are assembling. On February 17, the day before the National Suffrage Convention ends, the Continental Congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution will open to continue five days. The fourth triennial of the National Council of Women of the United States will begin on February 19 and extend over the 25th. The National Congress of Mothers will convene February 25 and be in session until the 28th."
- ↑ The following pioneer workers for woman suffrage were seated on the platform, their ages averaging more than 75 years: Mrs. Virginia Clay Clopton, Ala.; A. E. Gridley, the Hon. Simon Wolf, Mrs. S. E. Wall, Mrs. Olive Logan, Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, Dr. A. D. Mayo, Miss Eliza Titus Ward, D. C.; Mrs. Mary B. Trimble, Ky.; Mrs. Caroline E. Merrick, La.; Mrs. Helen Coffin Beedy, Dr. Abbie M. Fulton, Mrs. Charlotte Thomas, Me.; Mrs. Harriet Jackson, Md.; Mrs. William Lloyd Garrison, Mass.; Mrs. Helen P. Jenkins, Mrs, Emily B. Ketcham, Mich.; Mrs, Phebe Wright, N. J.; Mrs. H. E. Burger, Miss Mary Anthony, Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller, N. Y.; Mrs. Harriet B. Stanton, O.; Dr. Jane V. Meyers, Mrs. G. M. S. P. Jones, Dr. Agnes Kemp, John K. Wildman, Dr. and Mrs, C. Newlin Pierce, Penn.; Mrs. Virginia D. Young, S. C.; Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells, Utah; Miss Laura Moore, Vt.; Mrs. M. H. Grove, W. Va.
- ↑ Miss Anthony had objected strongly to Mrs. Stanton's letter to the convention of 1901 criticising the church, and she did not approve of demanding an educational requirement for the suffrage when women would have to obtain it by consent of men of all classes. Mrs. Stanton's letter, therefore, was sent for Mrs. Colby to read, who was in sympathy with its sentiment.
- ↑ The Charleston conference was held in the Assembly Room of the Woman's Building, welcomed by Mayor Smyth, Mrs. S. C. Simons, president of the women's department, and Mrs, Virginia D. Young in behalf of the State Press Association. Mrs. Catt responded and later Mr. Blackwell made an address, Among the speakers here and in German Artillery Hall was the Hon. R. R. Hemphill (S. C.), always a staunch advocate of woman suffrage. An afternoon reception was given by the Woman's Board. The Nets and Courier and other papers bad long and excellent reports. The Baltimore conference was held a few days later in the main auditorium of the Central Y. M. C. A. Hall, with the Kev. Anna Howard Shaw presiding. It was welcomed by Dr. E. O. Janney of Johns Hopkins Medical School, and the national speakers were Miss Laura Clay, president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association; Dr. Cora Smith Eaton, Judge J. G. Flenner of Idaho; the Rev. Olympia Brown, Mrs. Colby, Mise Gordon and Mr. and Mies Blackwell.
- ↑ A Washington paper said: "There were a good many men in the audience and they did not look much as they do in the comic papers. The suffragists' husbands in caricature are consumptive, cadaverous, insignificant mortals, trailing around in the wake of rambunctious and overwhelming wives; but most of the men who mixed themselves up with this convention looked as if they could not very easily have been dragged there if they had not wanted to come. Some of them were six feet tall and broad in proportion and none of them looked as if they had been in the habit of asking their wives for permission to think. They did not act like cats in a strange garret either but as if they were having the time of their lives, No wonder; when a man does make up his mind to come out for woman suffrage he can depend upon it he is going to be appreciated."
- ↑ Besides the women ministers mentioned in this chapter sessions were opened by the Rev. Ulysses G. B. Pierce, the Rev. John Van Schaick, Jr., the Rev. Alexander Kent and the Rev. Donald C. McLeod, all of Washington.
The excellent musical program was in charge of Miss Etta Maddox of Baltimore. She was a graduated lawyer but the courts of Maryland had refused her permission to practice, as contrary to law. After the convention she was accompanied to Baltimore by Miss Laura Clay, Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, an attorney of Iowa; Miss Gail Laughlin, a New York lawyer; Dr. Cora Smith Eaton and Mr. Blackwell. The Judiciary Committee of the State Senate granted a hearing conducted by Miss Maddox. By the end of March both Senate and House had passed a bill giving women the right to practice law.
- ↑ Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Upton and Miss Blackwell were made a committee to present the matter to President Roosevelt. Protests arose from all parts of the country and before they had time to call on him he declared himself opposed to "regulated vice." The dispatches of March 22 announced that a general order signed by Secretary Root had gone from the War Department to Manila that no more "certificates" would be issued but that soldiers as well as women would be inspected and cases of disease would be sent to the hospital.
