frage in the next decade than ever before. I have not been for nearly fifty years in this movement without gaining a certain "notoriety," at least, and this enables me to get a hearing before the annual conventions of many great national bodies, and to urge on them the passage of resolutions asking Congress to submit to the State Legislatures a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution forbidding disfranchisement on account of sex. This is a part of the work to which I mean to devote myself henceforward. Then you all know about the big fund which I am going to raise so that you young workers may have an assured income and not have to spend the most of your time begging money, as I have had to do.
The convention proceeded to the election of officers. Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.), who was a candidate for president, asked permission to make a personal explanation and said: "I have received from many parts of the United States expressions of regard and esteem that have deeply touched me. But in the interests of harmony I desire to withdraw my name from any consideration you may have wished to give me." Of the 278 votes cast for president Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt (N. Y.) received 254; eleven of the remaining twenty-four were cast for Miss Anthony and ten for Mrs. Blake. The other members of the old board were re-elected almost unanimously.[1]
The Washington Post said: "There was a touching scene when the vote for Mrs. Chapman Catt was announced. First there was an outburst of applause, and then as though all at once every one realized that she was witnessing the passing of Susan
- ↑ From the founding of the National Association in 1869 the presidency was usually held by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, while Miss Susan B. Anthony was either vice-president, corresponding secretary or chairman of the executive committee, although she sometimes filled the presidential chair. Mrs. Stanton continued as president until 1892, when she resigned at the age of seventy-six. Miss Anthony was elected that year and held the office until 1900, when she resigned at the age of eighty. Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery served as corresponding secretary for twenty-one years, from 1880 to 1901. Her resignation was reluctantly accepted and a gift of $1,000 was presented to her, the contribution of friends in all parts of the country. The other officers since 1884 have been as follows: Vice-presidents-at-large, Miss Anthony, Matilda-Joslyn Gage, the Rev. Olympia Brown, Phoebe W. Couzins, Abigail Scott Duniway and, from 1892, the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw; treasurers, Jane H. Spofford from 1880 to 1892, and since then Harriet Taylor Upton; recording secretaries, Ellen H. Sheldon, Julia T. Foster, Pearl Adams, Julia A. Wilbur, Caroline A. Sherman, Sara Winthrop Smith, Hannah B. Sperry and, since 1890, Alice Stone Blackwell; auditors, Ruth C. Denison, Julia A. Wilbur, Eliza T. Ward, Ellen M. O'Connor, the Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley, Harriet Taylor Upton, the Hon. Wm. Dudley Foulke, May Wright Sewall, Elien Battelle Dietrick, Josephine K. Henry, H. Augusta Howard, Annie L. Diggs, Sarah B. Cooper, Laura Clay, Catharine Waugh McCulloch. Mrs. Sewall was chairman of the executive committee from 1882 until she resigned in 1890 and Lucy Stone was elected; in 1892 she begged to be relieved as she was seventy-four years old. The committee was then abolished, its duties being transferred to the business committee.
