Volume III Part 36 (1/2)

The Opera House, in which the National a.s.sociation held its meeting, was completely filled during all the sessions. The address of welcome was given by Hon. A. J. Poppleton, one of the most distinguished lawyers in that State. He said:

I deem it no light compliment that, in the face of an explicit declaration that I am not in favor of woman suffrage, I have been asked to make, on behalf of the people of Omaha and the State, an address of welcome to the many distinguished men and women whom this occasion has brought together. Doubtless the consideration shown me is a recognition of the fact that I have been a life-long advocate of the advancement of women through the agencies of equality in education, equality in employment, equality in wages, equality in property-rights and personal liberty, in short, a fair, open, equal field in the struggle for life. That I cannot go beyond this and embrace equal suffrage, is due rather to long adherence to the political philosophy of Edmund Burke than any lack of conviction of the absolute equality of men and women in natural rights.

In the winter of 1852-3, when a student at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., while the spot on which we now stand was Indian country as yet untouched by the formative power of national legislation, I listened to Miss Susan B. Anthony, Miss Antoinette Brown and others in the advocacy of the rights of women. It seems a strange fortune that brings now, nearly thirty years after, one of those speakers, crowned with a national reputation, into a State carved out of that Indian country and containing 60,000 people, in advocacy of equal suffrage for her s.e.x. This single fact proclaims in thunder tones the bravery, the fidelity, the devotion of these pioneers of reform, and challenges for them the sympathy, respect, esteem and admiration of every good man and woman in America.

The thirty years commencing about 1850 have been prolific of momentous changes. It is the era of the sewing machine, of the domestication of steam and electricity, the overthrow of the great rebellion, the destruction of slavery, the consolidation of the German empire, the fall of the second Napoleon, the birth of the French republic, the incorporation of India into the British empire, and the revolution of commerce by the Pacific railways and the Suez ca.n.a.l. Great changes have likewise taken place in the structure of our own State and national legislation, the most conspicuous and p.r.o.nounced result being the centralization of power in the federal government. It has been preeminently a period of amelioration, a long stride in the direction of tolerance of opinion, belief, speech and creed. Hospitals, asylums, schools, colleges and the manifold agencies of an advanced Christian civilization for alleviating the average lot of humanity, have grown and multiplied beyond the experience of former times, and men like Matthew Va.s.sar, George Peabody and John Hopkins have hastened to consecrate the abundant fruits of honorable lives to the exaltation and advancement of the race.

But in no direction have greater changes occurred in this country than in the condition of woman in respect to employment, wages, personal and property rights. In all heathen countries at this hour the ma.s.s of women are slaves or worse, wholly deprived of civil rights. In most Christian countries their legal status is one of absolute subordination in person and property to men. In this republic alone have we attained an alt.i.tude where some small measure of justice is meted out to women by the laws. In 1850 a fair measure of her rights was the grim edict of the common law holding her in guardians.h.i.+p prior to marriage, and upon marriage making her and all her possessions practically the property of her husband, while a cruel, unreasonable and vicious public opinion excluded her from all except menial and ill-paid service.

One by one and year by year these barriers have given way, until in many States her property and personal rights enjoy the complete shelter of the law. Now more than half the occupations and employments of this age of industrial activity and progress are thronged with the faithful, efficient and contented labor of women.

The law has broken forever the thraldom of an odious and hopeless marriage by reasonable laws for divorce for just cause, given her the custody of her children, vested her with the absolute power of disposition and control over her property, inherited or acquired, freed it from the claims of her husband's creditors, and clothed her with ample legal remedies even against her husband. Perhaps Nebraska alone of all the States, by its court of last resort, has upheld the power of the wife to make contracts with her husband and enforce them against him in her own name by the appropriate legal remedies. This surely is progress. Beyond this there lies but one field to win or fortress to reduce. Then surely the worn soldier in the long campaign crowned with the garlands of victory may rest from the battle.

Not many years ago, coming from Wisconsin, I think, a girl presented herself in the Illinois courts for admission to the bar, and after a rigid and unsparing examination she was admitted with public compliment. She took an office in the great city of Chicago and in the short remnant of an uncertain life so wrought in her profession as to attain an average professional income, and win the undivided respect and esteem of her professional a.s.sociates. And when from a far country, whither she had gone in hope to escape a fell disease, her lifeless corpse was brought back for sepulture, many of the foremost lawyers of Chicago gathered about her bier and bore emphatic testimony to her virtues as a woman and her attainments as a lawyer. To me no greater work has been done by any American woman. When Alta Hulett un.o.btrusively, silently but indomitably pressed her way to the front of the legal profession, and established herself there, she vindicated the right of her s.e.x to contend for the highest prizes of life, and left her countrywomen a legacy which will ultimately blazon her name imperishably in the history of the advancement of women; and every American woman who, like her, goes to the front of any honorable occupation, employment or profession, and stays there, becomes her coadjutor in work and a sharer in her reward.

Laden with the trophies of thirty years of conflict, of progress, of measurable success, the vice-president of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation and her a.s.sociates present themselves to Nebraska and ask a hearing upon the final issue, ”Shall this work be crowned by granting to women in this State the highest privilege of the citizen--suffrage?” On behalf of the people of a State whose legislature has granted everything else to women--whose devotion to free speech, untrammeled discussion and an independent press has been conspicuous in its const.i.tutional and legislative history--I welcome them to this city and State, and bespeak for them a patient, candid, respectful, appreciative hearing.

Miss Anthony replied briefly to Mr. Poppleton's eloquent address and returned the thanks of the convention for the courtesy with which its members had been received by the citizens of Omaha.[93]

She then read a letter from the president of the convention:

TOULOUSE, France, September 1, 1882.

_To the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation in Convention a.s.sembled:_

DEAR FRIENDS: People never appreciate the magnitude and importance on any step in progress, at the time it is taken, nor the full moral worth of the characters who inspire it, hence it will be in line with the whole history of reform from the beginning if woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt in Nebraska should in many minds seem puerile and premature, and its advocates fanatical and unreasonable. Nevertheless the proposition speaks for itself. A const.i.tutional amendment to crown one-half of the people of a great State with all their civil and political rights, is the most vital question the citizens of Nebraska have ever been called on to consider; and the fact cannot be gainsaid that some of the purest and ablest women America can boast, are now in the State advocating the measure.

For the last two months I have been a.s.sisting my son in the compilation of a work soon to be published in America, under the t.i.tle, ”The Woman Question in Europe,” to which distinguished women in different nations have each contributed a sketch of the progress made in their condition. One interesting and significant fact as shown in this work, is, that in the very years we began to agitate the question of equal rights, there was a simultaneous movement by women for various privileges, industrial, social, educational, civil and political, throughout the civilized world.

And this without the slightest concert of action, or knowledge of each other's existence, showing that the time had come in the natural evolution of the species, in the order of human development, for woman to a.s.sert her rights, and to demand the recognition of the feminine element in all the vital interests of life.

To battle against a palpable fact in philosophy and the acc.u.mulated facts in achievement that can be seen on all sides in woman's work for the last forty years, from slavery to equality, is as vain as to fight against the law of gravitation. We shall as surely reach the goal we purposed when we started, as that the rich prairies of Nebraska will ere long feed and educate millions of brave men and women, gathered from every nation on the globe.

Every consideration for the improvement of your home life, for the morality of your towns and cities, for the elevation of your schools and colleges, and the loftiest motives of patriotism should move you, men of Nebraska, to vote for this amendment.

Galton in his great work on Heredity says:

We are in crying want of a greater fund of ability in all stations of life, for neither the cla.s.ses of statesmen, philosophers, artisans nor laborers, are up to the modern complexity of their several professions. An extended civilization like ours comprises more interests than the ordinary statesmen or philosophers of our race are capable of dealing with, and it exacts more intelligent work than our ordinary artisans and laborers, are capable of performing. Our race is overweighted, and appears likely to be dragged into degeneracy by demands that exceed its powers. If its average ability were raised a grade or two, a new cla.s.s of statesmen would conduct our complex affairs at home and abroad, as easily as our best business men now do their own private trades and professions. The needs of centralization, communication, and culture, call for more brains and mental stamina, than the average of our race possesses.

Does it need a prophet to tell us where to begin this work? Does not the physical and intellectual condition of the women of a nation decide the capacity and power of its men? If we would give our sons the help and inspiration of woman's thought and interest in the complex questions of our present civilization, we must first give her the power that political responsibility secures.

With the ballot in her own right hand, she would feel a new sense of dignity, and command among men a respect they have never felt before.

Nebraska has now the opportunity of making this grand experiment of securing justice, liberty, equality, for the first time in the world's history, to woman, through her education and enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, of lifting man to that higher plane of thought where he may be able wisely to meet all the emergencies of the period in which he is called on to act. Let every man in Nebraska now so do his duty, that, when the sun goes down on the eighth of November, the glad news may be sent round the world that at last one State in the American republic has fully accorded the sacred right of self-government to all her citizens, black and white, men and women. With sincere hope for this victory,

Cordially yours, ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

Many interesting letters were received from friends at home and abroad, of which we give a few. The following is from our Minister Plenipotentiary at the German Court:

BERLIN, September 9, 1882.

Miss ANTHONY: _Esteemed Friend_: At this great distance I can only sympathize with the earnest effort to be made this fall to secure political recognition for women in Nebraska. I am glad that the prospect is so good and that Nebraska, which gave a name, with Kansas, to the first successful resistance to the encroachments of slavery, is the arena where the battle is to be fought under such promise of a just result. By recognizing the right of its women to an equal share in all the duties and responsibilities of life, Nebraska will honor itself while securing for all time wholesome laws and administration.

I believe society would more benefit itself than grant a favor to women by extending the suffrage to them. All the interests of women are promoted by a government that shall guard the family circle, restrain excess, promote education, s.h.i.+eld the young from temptation. While the true interests of men lie in the same direction, women more generally appreciate these facts and ill.u.s.trate in their lives a desire for their attainment. Could we bring to the ballot-box the great fund of virtue, intelligence and good intention stored up in the minds and hearts of our wives and sisters, how great the reinforcement would be for all that is n.o.ble, patriotic and pure in public life! Who should fear the result who desires the public welfare? From the stand-point of better principles applied to the direction of public affairs and the best individuals in office, the argument seems impregnable.

It is getting late to resist this measure on the ground that the character of women themselves would be lowered by contact with politics. That objection is identical with the motive which causes the Turk to shut up his women in a harem and closely veil them in public. He fears their delicacy will be tarnished if they speak to any man but their proprietor. So prejudice feared woman would be uns.e.xed if she had equal education with man. The professions were closed to women for the same consideration.