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NATIONAL-AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1891
179

congratulate ourselves upon what we have gained, but the root of the evil still remains—the root of disfranchisement. All organizations of women should join with us in pulling steadily at this deeply-planted and obstinate root."

Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker (Conn.) read an able paper on Woman in Politics and Jurisprudence, in which she showed the necessity in politics and in law of a combination of the man's and the woman's nature, point of view and distinguishing characteristics.

The second evening Mrs. Julia Ward Howe gave an address on The Possibilities of the American Salon, and the Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer considered The Democratic Principle. Mrs. Spencer pointed out that the reason why the advance' in the specific line of woman suffrage had not been so great as in some other directions was because its advocates had to contend with a reaction of disbelief in the democratic principle. In expressing her own faith in this principle she said: "There are wisdom enough and virtue enough in this country to take care of all its ignorance and wickedness. The difficulty is that the average American citizen does not know that he wears a crown. And oh, the pity of it, and the shame of it, when some of us women, who do feel the importance of the duty of suffrage and who need no man to teach us patriotism, wish to help in this work that any man should say us nay!'

Miss Florence Balgarnie, who brought the greetings of a number of great English associations,[1] gave a comprehensive sketch of The Status of Women in England. The Rev. Ida C. Hultin (Ills.) followed in an eloquent appeal that there should be no headship of either man or woman alone, but that both should represent humanity; government is a development of humanity and if woman is human she has an equal right in that development. Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick (Mass.) showed that the present supremacy of men was a reaction from the former undue supremacy of women, and brought out many historical points of deep interest. Mrs. Josephine K. Henry spoke on The Kentucky Constitutional Convention, illustrating the terrible injus-

  1. The Central National Society for Women's Suffrage; the Women's Franchise Leagues of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bedford, Bridgeport, Leicester, Nottingham and York; the Bristol Woman's Temperance Association; the International Arbitration and Peace Society; the Woman Councillors' Society; the Women's Federal Association of Great Britain.