Volume III Part 41 (1/2)
The Ma.s.sachusetts School Suffrage a.s.sociation was formed in 1880, Abby W. May, president.[117] Its efforts are mostly confined to Boston. An independent movement of women voters in Boston, distinct from all organizations, was formed in 1884, and subdivided into ward and city committees. These did much valuable work and secured a larger number of voters than had qualified in previous years. In 1880 the number of registered women in the whole State was 4,566, and in Boston 826. In 1884, chiefly owing to the ward and city committees, the number in Boston alone was 1,100. This year (1885) a movement among the Roman Catholic women has raised the number who are a.s.sessed to vote to 1,843; and it is estimated that when the tax-paying women are added, the whole number will be about 2,500.
The National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation[118] of Ma.s.sachusetts was formed in January, 1882, of members who had joined the National a.s.sociation at its thirteenth annual meeting, held in Tremont Temple, Boston, May 26, 27, 1881. According to Article II. of its const.i.tution, its object is to secure to women their right to the ballot, by working for national, State, munic.i.p.al, school, or any other form of suffrage which shall at the time seem most expedient.
While it is auxiliary to the National a.s.sociation, it reserves to itself the right of independent action. It has held conventions[119] in Boston and some of the chief cities of the State, sent delegates to the annual Was.h.i.+ngton Convention[120] and published valuable leaflets.[121] It has rolled up pet.i.tions to the State legislature and to congress. Its most valuable work has been the canva.s.s made in certain localities in the city and country in 1884, to ascertain the number of women in favor of suffrage, the number opposed and the number indifferent. The total result showed that there were 405 in favor, 44 opposed, 166 indifferent, 160 refusing to sign, 39 not seen; that is, over nine who would sign themselves in favor to one who would sign herself opposed. This canva.s.s was made by women who gave their time and labor to this arduous work, and the results were duly presented to the legislature.
In 1883 this a.s.sociation pet.i.tioned the legislature to pa.s.s a resolution recommending congress to submit a proposition for a sixteenth amendment to the national const.i.tution. The Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage granted a hearing March 23, and soon after presented a favorable report; but the resolution, when brought to a vote, was lost by 21 to 11. This was the first time that the National doctrine of congressional action was ever presented or voted upon in the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature. A second hearing[122] was granted on February 28, 1884, before the Committee on Federal Relations. They reported leave to withdraw.
The a.s.sociations mentioned are not the only ones that are aiding the suffrage movement. Its friends are found in all the women's clubs, temperance a.s.sociations, missionary movements, charitable enterprises, educational and industrial unions and church committees. These agencies form a network of motive power which is gradually carrying the reform into all branches of public work.
The _Woman's Journal_ was incorporated in 1870 and is owned by a joint stock company, shares being held by leading members of the suffrage a.s.sociations of New England. Shortly after it was projected, the _Agitator_, then published in Chicago by Mary A.
Livermore, was bought by the New England a.s.sociation on condition that she should ”come to Boston for one year, at a reasonable compensation, to a.s.sist the cause by her editorial labor and speaking at conventions.” Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, invited by the same society to ”return to the work in Ma.s.sachusetts,” at once a.s.sumed the editorial charge. T. W.
Higginson, Julia Ward Howe and W. L. Garrison were a.s.sistant editors. ”Warrington,” Kate N. Doggett, Samuel E. Sewall, F. B.
Sanborn, and many other good writers, lent a helping hand to the new enterprise. The _Woman's Journal_ has been of great value to the cause. It has helped individual women and brought their enterprises into public notice. It has opened its columns to inexperienced writers and advertised young speakers. To sustain the paper and furnish money for other work, two mammoth bazars or fairs were held in Music Hall in 1870, 1871. Nearly all the New England States and many of the towns in Ma.s.sachusetts were represented by tables in these bazars. Donations were sent from all directions and the women worked, as they generally do in a cause in which they are interested, to raise money to furnish the sinews of war. The newspapers from day to day were full of descriptions of the splendors of the tables, and the reporters spoke well of the women who had taken this novel method to carry on their movement. People who had never heard of woman suffrage before came to see what sort of women were those who thus made a public exhibition of their zeal in this cause. In remote places, as well as nearer the scene of action, many people who had never thought of the significance of the woman's rights movement, began to consider it through reading the reports of the woman suffrage bazar.
Female opponents of the suffrage movement began to make a stir as early as 1868. A remonstrance was sent into the legislature, from two hundred women of Lancaster, giving the reasons why women should not enjoy the exercise of the elective franchise: ”It would diminish the purity, the dignity and the moral influence of woman, and bring into the family circle a dangerous element of discord.”
In _The Revolution_ of August 5, 1869, Parker Pillsbury said:
Dolly Chandler and the hundred and ninety-four other women who asked the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature not to allow the right of suffrage, were very impudent and tyrannical, too, in pet.i.tioning for any but themselves. They should have said: ”We, Dolly Chandler and her a.s.sociates, to the number of a hundred and ninety-five in all, do not want the right of suffrage; and we pray your honorable bodies to so decree and enact that we shall never have it.” So far they might go. But when they undertake to prevent a hundred and ninety-four thousand other women who do want the ballot and who have an acknowledged right to it, and are laboring for it day and night, it is proper to ask, What business have Dolly Chandler and her little coterie to interpose? n.o.body wants them to vote unless they themselves want to. They can stay at home and see n.o.body but the a.s.sessor, the tax-gatherer and the revenue collector, from Christmas to Christmas, if they so prefer. Those gentlemen they will be pretty likely to see, annually or quarterly, and to feel their power, too, if they have pockets with anything in them, in spite of all pet.i.tions to the legislature.
It did not occur to these women that by thus remonstrating they were doing just what they were protesting against. What _is_ a vote? An expression of opinion or a desire as to governmental affairs, in the shape of a ballot. The ”aspiring blood of Lancaster” should have mounted higher than this, since, if it really was the opinion of these remonstrants that woman cannot vote without becoming defiled, they should have kept themselves out of the legislature, should have kept their hands from pet.i.tioning and their thoughts from agitation on either side of the subject. Just such illogical reasoning on the woman suffrage question is often brought forward and pa.s.ses for the profoundest wisdom and discreetest delicacy! The same arguments are used by the remonstrants of to-day, who are now fully organized and doing very efficient political work in opposing further political action by women. In their carriages, with footman and driver, they solicit names to their remonstrances. As a Boston newspaper says:
The anti-woman suffrage women get deeper and deeper into politics year by year in their determination to keep out of politics. By the time they triumph they will be the most accomplished politicians of the s.e.x, and unable to stop writing to the papers, holding meetings, circulating remonstrances, any more than the suffrage sisterhood.
These persons, men and women, bring their whole force to bear before legislative committees at woman suffrage hearings, and use arguments that might have been excusable forty years ago. However this is merely a phase of the general movement and will work for good in the end. It can no more stop the progress of the reform than it can stop the revolution of the globe.
Political agitation on the woman suffrage question began in Ma.s.sachusetts in 1870. A convention to discuss the feasibility of forming a woman suffrage political party was held in Boston, at which Julia Ward Howe presided, and Rev. Augusta Chapin offered prayer. The question of a separate nomination for State officers was carefully considered.[123] Delegates were present from the Labor Reform and Prohibition parties, and strong efforts were made by them to induce the convention to nominate Wendell Phillips, who had already accepted the nomination of those two parties, as candidate for governor. The convention at one time seemed strongly in favor of this action, the women in particular thinking that in Mr. Phillips they would find a staunch and well tried leader. But more politic counsels prevailed, and it was finally concluded to postpone a separate nomination until after the Republican and Democratic conventions had been held. A State central committee was formed, and at once began active political agitation. A memorial was prepared to present to each of the last-named conventions; and the candidates on the State tickets of the four political parties were questioned by letter concerning their opinions on the right of the women to the ballot. At the Republican State convention held October 5, 1870, the question was fairly launched into politics, by the admission, for the first time, of two women, Lucy Stone and Mary A. Livermore, as regularly accredited delegates. Both were invited to speak, and the following resolution drawn up by Henry B.
Blackwell, was presented by Charles W. Slack:
_Resolved_, That the Republican party of Ma.s.sachusetts is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their patriotic devotion to the cause of liberty; that we rejoice in the action of the recent legislature in making women eligible as officers of the State; that we thank Governor Claflin for having appointed women to important political trusts; that we are heartily in favor of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women, and will hail the day when the educated, intelligent and enlightened conscience of the women of Ma.s.sachusetts has direct expression at the ballot box.
This resolution was presented to the committee, who did not agree as to the propriety of reporting it to the convention, and they instructed their chairman, George F. h.o.a.r, to state the fact and refer the resolution back to that body for its own action. A warm debate arose, in which several members of the convention made speeches on both sides of the question. The resolution was finally defeated, 137 voting in its favor, and 196 against it. Although lost, the large vote in the affirmative was thought to mean a great deal as a guaranty of the good faith of the Republican party, and the women were willing to trust to its promises. It was thought then, as it has been thought since, that most of the friends of woman suffrage were in the Republican party, and that the interests of the cause could best be furthered by depending on its action.
The women were, however, mistaken, and have learned to look upon the famous resolution in its true light. It is now known as the _coup d'etat_ of the Worcester convention of 1870, which really had more votes than it was fairly ent.i.tled to. After that,--”forewarned, forearmed,” said the enemies of the enterprise, and woman suffrage resolutions have received less votes in Republican conventions.
When the memorial prepared by the State Central Committee was presented to the Democratic State convention, that body, in response, pa.s.sed a resolution conceding the _principle_ of women's right to suffrage, but at the same time declared itself against its being _enforced_, or put into practice. To finish the brief record of the dealings of the Democratic party, with the women of the State, it may be said that since 1870, it has never responded to their appeals, nor taken any action of importance on the question.
In 1871 a resolution endorsing woman suffrage was pa.s.sed in the Republican convention. In June, 1872, the national convention at Philadelphia, pa.s.sed the following:
_Resolved_, That the Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their n.o.ble devotion to the cause of freedom; their admission to wider fields of usefulness is viewed with satisfaction; and the honest demand of any cla.s.s of citizens for additional rights, should be treated with respectful consideration.
The Ma.s.sachusetts Republican State Convention, following this lead, again pa.s.sed a woman suffrage resolution:
_Resolved_, That we heartily approve the recognition of the rights of woman contained in the fourteenth clause of the national Republican platform; that the Republican party of Ma.s.sachusetts, as the representative of liberty and progress, is in favor of extending suffrage to all American citizens irrespective of s.e.x, and will hail the day when the educated intellect and enlightened conscience of woman shall find direct expression at the ballot-box.
This was during the campaign of 1872, when General Grant's chance of reelection was thought to be somewhat uncertain, and the Republican women in all parts of the country were called on to rally to his support. The National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation had issued ”an appeal to the women of America,” asking them to cooperate with the Republican party and work for the election of its candidates. In response to this appeal a ratification meeting was held at Tremont Temple, in Boston, at which hundreds stayed to a late hour listening to speeches made by women on the political questions of the day. An address was issued from the ”Republican women of Ma.s.sachusetts to the women of America.” In this address they announced their faith in and willingness to ”trust the Republican party and its candidates, as saying what they mean and meaning what they say, and in view of their honorable record we have no fear of betrayal on their part.” Mrs. Livermore, Lucy Stone and Huldah B. Loud took part in the canva.s.s, and agents employed by the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sociation were instructed to speak for the Republican party.[124] Women writers furnished articles for the newspapers and the Republican women did as much effective work during the campaign as if each one had been a ”man and a voter.”
They did everything but vote. All this agitation was a benefit to the Republican party, but not to woman suffrage, because for a time it arrayed other political parties against the movement and caused it to be thought merely a party issue, while it is too broad a question for such limitation.
General Grant was reelected and the campaign was over. When the legislature met and the suffrage question came up for discussion, that body, composed in large majority of Republicans, showed the women of Ma.s.sachusetts the difference between ”saying what you mean and meaning what you say,” the Woman Suffrage bill being defeated by a large majority. The women learned by this experience that nothing is to be expected of a political party while it is in power. To close the subject of suffrage resolutions in the platform of the Republican party, it may be said that they continued to be put in and seemed to mean something until after 1875, when they became only ”glittering generalities,” and were as devoid of real meaning or intention as any that were ever pa.s.sed by the old Whig party on the subject of abolition. Yet from 1870 to 1874 the Republican party had the power to fulfill its promises on this question. Since then, it has been too busy trying to keep breath in its own body to lend a helping hand to any struggling reform. At the Republican convention, held in Worcester in 1880, an attempt was made by Mr. Blackwell to introduce a resolution endorsing the right conferred upon women in the law allowing them to vote for school committees, pa.s.sed by the legislature of 1879. This resolution was rejected by the committee, and when offered in convention as an amendment, it was voted down without a single voice, except that of the mover, being raised in its support. Yet this resolution only asked a Republican convention to endorse an existing right, conferred on the women of the State by a Republican legislature! A political party as a party of freedom must be very far spent when it refuses at its annual convention to endorse an act pa.s.sed by a legislature the majority of whose members are representatives elected from its own body. Since that time the Republican party has entirely ignored the claims of woman. In 1884, at its annual convention, an effort was made, as usual, by Mr.
Blackwell, to introduce a resolution, but without success, and yet some of the best of our leaders advised the women to ”stand by the Republican party.”[125]
The question of forming a woman suffrage political party had, since 1870, been often discussed.[126] In 1875 Thomas J. Lothrop proposed the formation of a separate organization. But it was not until 1876 that any real effort in this direction was made. The Prohibitory (or Temperance) party sometimes holds the balance of political power in Ma.s.sachusetts, and many of the members of that party are also strong advocates of suffrage. The feeling had been growing for several years that if forces could be joined with the Prohibitionists some practical result in politics might be reached, and though there was a difference of opinion on this subject, many were willing to see the experiment tried.