Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/85

The following officers were elected: president, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, N. Y.; vice-presidents-at-large, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, N. Y., the Rev. Olympia Brown, Wis., Phoebe W. Couzins, Mo., Abigail Scott Duniway, Ore.; recording secretaries, Ellen H. Sheldon, D. C., Julia T. Foster, Penn.; Pearl Adams, Ills.; corresponding secretary, Rachel G. Foster (Avery), Penn.; foreign corresponding secretaries, Caroline Ashurst Biggs, Lydia E. Becker, England; Marguerite Berry Stanton, Hubertine Auclert, France; treasurer, Jane H. Spofford, D. C.; auditors, Ruth C. Dennison, Julia A. Wilbur, D. C.; chairman of executive committee, May Wright Sewall, Ind., and vice-presidents in every State.

The financial report showed the receipts for 1884 to be in round numbers $2,000, and a balance of $300 still remaining in the treasury.

In her address closing the convention Miss Anthony said:

The reason men are so slow in conceding political equality to women is because they can not believe that women suffer the humiliation of disfranchisement as they would. A dear and noble friend, one who aided our work most efficiently in the early days, said to me, "Why do you say the 'emancipation of women?'" I replied, "Because women are political slaves!" Is it not strange that men think that what to them would be degradation, slavery, is to women elevation, liberty? Men put the right of suffrage for themselves above all price, and count the denial of it the most severe punishment. If a man serving a term in State's prison has one friend outside who cares for him, that friend will get up a petition begging the Governor to commute his sentence, if for not more than forty-eight hours prior to its expiration, so that, when he comes out of prison he may not be compelled to suffer the disgrace of disfranchisement and may not be doomed to walk among his fellows with the mark of Cain upon his forehead. The only penalty inflicted upon the men, who a few years ago laid the knife at the throat of the Nation, was that of disfranchisement, which all men, loyal and disloyal, felt was too grievous to be borne, and our Government made haste to permit every one, even the leader of them all, to escape from this humiliation, this degradation, and again to be honored with the crowning

should be filled and hung in railroad stations, post-offices and hotels, that "he who runs may read." Over these should be printed "Woman Suffrage—Take and Read." All the above methods aim rather at the education of the popular mind than the judiciary and legislative branches of the Government. The next step is to educate the representatives in Congress and on the bench of the Supreme Court in the principles of constitutional law and republican government, that they may understand the justice of the demands for a Sixteenth Amendment which shall forbid the several States to deny or abridge the rights of women citizens of the United States.