On December 16 the association celebrated in Faneuil Hall the one hundred and twentieth anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. One of the last expressed wishes of Lucy Stone had been that the celebration should take place in the Old South Church, but the use of this historic building was refused by the trustees, much to the mortification of the more liberal members of the General Committee of the Old South. Colonel Higginson, who had presided at the centennial celebration of the same event by the suffragists twenty years before, again presided and made the opening address. Other speakers were Mrs. Chapman Catt and Wendell Phillips Stafford. Mr. Garrison gave a poem and Mr. Blackwell read the speech made by Lucy Stone at the celebration in 1873. Letters were read from Senator Hoar, Frederick Douglass and others. Governor-elect Frederick T. Greenhalge and Lieut. Gov.-elect Roger Wolcott occupied seats on the platform.
This year the Massachusetts W. S. A. had become incorporated. It had sent suffrage literature to all the Episcopalian, Unitarian and Universalist clergymen in the State, to most of the Methodist ministers, to 1,100 public school teachers and to a large number of college students. Its president, Lucy Stone, had sent, from her death bed, the largest contribution to the Colorado campaign given by any individual outside of that State. Its secretary, Mr. Blackwell, had attended the National Convention of Republican Clubs at Louisville, Ky., and secured the adoption of the following resolution: "We recommend to the favorable consideration of the Republican Clubs of the United States, as a matter of education, the question of granting to the women of the State and nation the right to vote at all elections on the same terms and conditions as male citizens."
A thousand copies of William I. Bowditch's Taxation Without Representation and George Pellew's Woman and the Commonwealth were bound and presented to town and college libraries. Mayor Nathan Matthews, Jr., of Boston appointed two women on the Board of Overseers of the Poor, despite the strong opposition of the aldermen. He also appointed three women members of a commission to investigate and report to him upon the condition of public institutions. Toward the end of the year he again appointed two women on a similar committee. including one of
