Volume IV Part 34 (1/2)

Do not misunderstand me here. I am far from decrying the benefits of education. n.o.body believes in its necessity more sincerely than I do. In fact I hold that, other things being equal, the educated man is immeasurably in advance of the uneducated one; but the trouble is that other things are often very far from being equal and it is utterly impossible for the average man, educated or not, to be trusted to decide with entire justice between himself and another person when their interests are equally involved....

The intelligent voter in a democratic community can not abdicate his responsibility without being punished. He is the natural leader, and if he refuses to fulfil his duties the leaders.h.i.+p will inevitably fall into the hands of those who are unfitted for the high and holy task--and who is to blame? It is the educated men, the professional men, the men of wealth and culture, who are themselves responsible when things go wrong; and the refusal to acknowledge their responsibility will not release them from it....

The principle of universal suffrage, like every other high ideal, will not stand alone. It carries duties with it, duties which are imperative and which to s.h.i.+rk is filching benefits without rendering an equivalent. How dare a man plead his private ease or comfort as an excuse for neglecting his public duties? How dare the remonstrating women of Ma.s.sachusetts declare that they fear the loss of privileges, one of which is the immunity from punishment for a misdemeanor committed in the husband's presence?

”When I was a child, I spake as a child, I thought as a child, I understood as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Throughout history all women and many men have been forced, so far as government has been concerned, to speak, think and understand as children. Now, for the first time, we are asking that the people, as a whole body, shall rise to their full stature and put away childish things.

The sermon on Sunday afternoon was given by Mrs. Stetson from the topic which was to have been considered by the Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer, The Spiritual Significance of Democracy and Woman's Relation to It. She spoke without notes and ill.u.s.trated the central thought that love grows where people are brought together, and that they are brought together more in a democracy than in any other mode of living.

”Women have advanced less rapidly than men because they have always been more isolated. They have been brought into relation with their own families only. It is men who have held the inter-human relation.... Everything came out of the home; but because you began in a cradle is no reason why you should always stay there. Because charity begins at home is no reason why it should stop there, and because woman's first place is at home is no reason why her last and only place should be there. Civilization has been held back because so many men have inherited the limitations of the female s.e.x. You can not raise public-spirited men from private-spirited mothers, but only from mothers who have been citizens in spite of their disfranchis.e.m.e.nt. In holding back the mothers of the race, you are keeping back the race.”

At the memorial services loving tributes were paid to the friends of woman suffrage who had pa.s.sed away during the year. Among these were ex-Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, ex-Governor Oliver Ames (Ma.s.s.), Dr. James C. Jackson of Dansville (N. Y.), Dr. Abram W.

Lozier of New York City, Thomas Davis, Sarah Wilbur of Rhode Island, Marian Skidmore of Lily Dale, N. Y., and Amelia E. H. Doyon of Madison, Wis., who left $1,000 to the National a.s.sociation.

Henry B. Blackwell spoke of Theodore D. Weld, the great abolitionist, leader of the movement to found Oberlin, the first co-educational college, and one of the earliest advocates of equal rights for women.

He told also of Frederick Dougla.s.s, whose last act was to bear his testimony in favor of suffrage for women at the Woman's Council in Was.h.i.+ngton on the very day of his death. Mrs. Avery gave a tender eulogy of Theodore Lovett Sewall of Indianapolis, his brilliancy as a conversationalist, his charm as a host, his loyalty as a friend, his beautiful devotion to his wife, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, and his lifelong adherence to the cause of woman.

The loss of Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick came with crus.h.i.+ng force, as her services to the a.s.sociation were invaluable. To her most intimate friend, the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, was a.s.signed the duty of speaking a word in her memory, and in broken sentences she said: ”I never knew such earnest purpose and consecration or such a fund of knowledge in any one as Mrs. Dietrick possessed. She never stopped thinking because she had reached the furthest point to which some one else had thought.

She was the best antagonist I ever saw; I never knew any one who could differ so intensely, and yet be so perfectly calm and good-tempered.

What she was as a friend no one can tell. Her death is a great loss to our press work. Perhaps no one ever wrote so many articles in the same length of time. This was especially the case last summer. It seemed as if she had a premonition that her life would soon end, for she sat at her desk writing hour after hour. I believe it shortened her life. She had just finished a book--Women in the Early Christian Ministry--and she left many other ma.n.u.scripts. It would be a pity if the rich, ripe thought of this woman should not be preserved. Her funeral was like her life, without show or display. No one outside the family was present except myself. No eulogy was uttered there; she would not have wanted it. Tennyson's last poem, Crossing the Bar, was recited by her brother-in-law, the Rev. J. W. Hamilton.[106]” Miss Shaw ended her remarks by reciting this poem.

Miss Anthony, who was to close the exercises, was too much affected to speak and motioned that the audience was dismissed, but no one stirred. At length she said: ”There are very few human beings who have the courage to utter to the fullest their honest convictions--Mrs.

Dietrick was one of these few. She would follow truth wherever it led, and she would follow no other leader. Like Lucretia Mott, she took 'truth for authority, not authority for truth.' Miss Anthony spoke also of the ”less-known women”: ”Adeline Thomson, a most remarkable character, was a sister to J. Edgar Thomson, first president of the Pennsylvania railroad. She lived to be eighty, and for years she stood there in Philadelphia, a monument of the past. Her house was my home when in that city for thirty years. We have also lost in Julia Wilbur of the District a most useful woman, and one who was faithful to the end. This is the first convention for twenty-eight years at which she has not been present with us. We should all try to live so as to make people feel that there is a vacancy when we go; but, dear friends, do not let there be a vacancy long. Our battle has just reached the place where it can win, and if we do our work in the spirit of those who have gone before, it will soon be over.”

There was special rejoicing at this convention over the admission of Utah as a State with full suffrage for women. Senator and Mrs. Frank J. Cannon and Representative and Mrs. C. E. Allen of Utah were on the platform. In her address of welcome Miss Shaw said:

Every star added to that blue field makes for the advantage of every human being. We are just beginning to learn that we are all children of one Father and members of one family; and when one member suffers or is benefited, all the members suffer or rejoice. So when Utah comes into the Union with every one free, it is not only that State which is benefited, but we and all the world. As the stars at night come out one by one, so will they come out one by one on our flag, till the whole blue field is a blaze of glory.

We expected it of the men of Utah. No man there could have stood by the side of his mother and heard her tell of all that the pioneers endured, and then have refused to grant her the same right of liberty he wanted for himself, without being unworthy of such a mother. They are the crown of our Union, those three States on the crest of the Rockies, above all the others. In the name of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, we extend our welcome, our thanks and our congratulations to Utah, as one of the three so dear to the heart of every woman who loves liberty in these United States.

Senator Cannon said in response: ” ... Only one serious question came before our const.i.tutional convention, and that was whether the adoption of woman suffrage would hinder the admission of our Territory as a State.... But our women had furnished courage, patience and heroism to our men, and so we said: 'Utah shall take another forty-nine years of wandering in the wilderness as a Territory before coming in as a State without her women.' My mother wandered there for twelve years. Women trailed bleeding feet and lived on roots that those of to-day might reap bounteous harvests. Utah gave women the suffrage while still a Territory. Congress, in its not quite infinite wisdom, took it away after they had exercised it intelligently for seventeen years; but the first chance that the men of Utah had they gave it back.”

Representative Allen was called on by Miss Anthony to ”tell us how nice it seems to feel that your wife is as good as you are,” and said in part: ”Perhaps you have read what the real estate agents say about Utah--how they praise her sun and soil, her mountains and streams, and her precious metals. They tell you that she is filled with the basis of all material prosperity, with gold, silver, lead and iron: but greatness can not come from material resources alone--it must come from the people who till and delve. Utah is great because her people are great. When she has centuries behind her she will make a splendid showing because she has started right. She has given to that part of the people who instinctively know what is right, the power to influence the body politic.... This movement is destined to go on until it reaches every State in the Union.”

Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Sarah A. Boyer told of the heroic efforts the women had made for themselves; and Mrs. Emily S. Richards, vice-president of the Territorial suffrage a.s.sociation, described in a graphic manner the systematic and persistent work of this organization. The tribute to its president, Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells, whose influence had been paramount in securing the franchise for the women of Utah, was heartily applauded and a telegram of congratulation was sent to her.[107]

The address of Mrs. Ella Knowles Haskell, a.s.sistant Attorney-General of Montana, on The Environments of Woman as Related to her Progress, attracted much attention. She had been the Populist candidate for Attorney-General and made a strong canva.s.s but went down to defeat with the rest of her party. Soon afterward she married her compet.i.tor, who appointed her his a.s.sistant. She reviewed the laws of past ages, showing how impossible it was then for women to rise above the conditions imposed upon them, and pointed out the wonderful progress they had made as soon as even partial freedom had been granted.

Mrs. Virginia D. Young (S. C.), taking as a subject The Sunflower Bloom of Woman's Equality, gave an address which in its quaint speech, dialect stories and attractive provincialisms captivated the audience.

The convention received an invitation from Mrs. John R. McLean for Monday afternoon to meet Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant on her seventieth birthday. The ladies were welcomed by their hostess and Mrs. Nellie Grant Sartoris, while Miss Anthony, who had attended the luncheon which preceded the reception, presented the ladies to Mrs. Grant.

Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, corresponding secretary, devoted a portion of her report to an account of the visit made by the delegates of the a.s.sociation in response to an invitation from the Woman's Board of Congresses of the Atlanta Exposition, Oct. 17, 1895. The princ.i.p.al address on that occasion was made by Mrs. Helen Gardiner.

This convention was long remembered on account of the vigorous contest over what was known as the Bible Resolution. Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton recently had issued a commentary on the pa.s.sages of Scripture referring to women, which she called ”The Woman's Bible.” Although this was done in her individual capacity, yet some of the members claimed that, as she was honorary president of the National a.s.sociation, this body was held by the public as partly responsible for it and it injured their work for suffrage. A resolution was brought in by the committee declaring: ”This a.s.sociation is non-sectarian, being composed of persons of all shades of religious opinion, and has no official connection with the so-called 'Woman's Bible' or any theological publication.”

The debate was long and animated, but although there was intense feeling it was conducted in perfectly temperate and respectful language. Those partic.i.p.ating were Rachel Foster Avery, Katie R.

Addison, Henry B. Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell, Carrie Chapman Catt, Annie L. Diggs, Laura M. Johns, Helen Morris Lewis, Anna Howard Shaw, Frances A. Williamson and Elizabeth U. Yates speaking for the resolution; Lillie Devereux Blake, Clara B. Colby, Cornelia H. Cary, Lavina A. Hatch, Harriette A. Keyser, J. B. Merwin, Caroline Hallowell Miller, Althea B. Stryker, Charlotte Perkins Stetson, Mary Bentley Thomas and Victoria C. Whitney speaking against it.

Miss Anthony was thoroughly aroused and, leaving the chair, spoke against the resolution as follows: