Volume IV Part 56 (1/2)

[143] The American W. S. A. afterwards voted to give to each State the entire amount of its gross sales.

[144] Mr. Foulke served as president from 1884 to 1890. During this time but few changes were made in the official board. In 1885 Mrs.

Mary E. Haggart (Ind.) was added to the vice-presidents-at-large; in 1886 Dr. Mary F. Thomas (Ind.), J. K. Hudson (Kas.), the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw (Ma.s.s.); 1887, Mrs. May Stocking Knaggs (Mich.); 1888, Miss Clara Barton (D. C.), Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace (Ind.), Mrs. Phebe C. McKell (Ohio). In 1887 Mrs. Martha C. Callanan (Iowa) was elected recording secretary. The various State auxiliaries made numerous changes in vice-presidents ex-officio and members of the executive committee.

[145] Among speakers not elsewhere mentioned were the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Mrs. Lucy Stone, Mrs. Sarah C. Schrader, Mrs.

Margaret W. Campbell, Mrs. Martha C. Callahan, Dr. Caroline M. Dodson, Madame Calliope Kachiya (a Greek friend of Mrs. Howe's), and Miss Alice Stone Blackwell. Mrs. Wessendorf read a poem, and there were songs by the Blaine Glee Club and by Miss Annie McLean Marsh and her little niece, and violin music by Miss Lucille du Pre.

[146] The American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation was indebted for State reports during the past years to the following: Arkansas, Lizzie Dorman Fyler; California, Sarah Knox Goodrich, Elizabeth A. Kingsbury, Sarah M. Severance, Fannie Wood; Connecticut, Emily P. Collins, Abby B. Sheldon; Dakota, Major J. A. Pickler, Alice M. Pickler; Delaware, Dr. John Cameron; Illinois, Mary E. Holmes, Catherine G. Waugh (McCulloch); Indiana, Florence M. Adkinson, Mary S. Armstrong, Sarah E. Franklin, Adelia R. Hornbrook, Mary D. Naylor; Iowa, Mary J.

Coggeshall, Eliza H. Hunter, Mary A. Work, Narcissa T. Bemis; Kansas, Prof. W. H. Carruth, Mrs. M. E. De Geer, Bertha H. Ellsworth; Kentucky, Mary B. Clay, Laura Clay; Maine, the Rev. Henry Blanchard, Mrs. C. S. Quinby; Ma.s.sachusetts, Henry B. Blackwell, Lucy Stone; Missouri, Rebecca N. Hazard, Amanda E. d.i.c.kenson; Minnesota, Martha Angle Dorsett, Ella M. S. Marble, Dr. Martha G. Ripley; Michigan, Mrs.

E. L. Briggs, Mary L. Doe, Emily B. Ketcham, Mrs. H. L. Udell, Mrs.

Ellis; New Hamps.h.i.+re, Armenia S. White, Mrs. M. H. Ela; New Jersey, Cornelia C. Hussey, Therese M. Seabrook; New York, Lillie Devereaux Blake, Mariana W. Chapman, Mrs. E. O. Putnam Heaton, Anna Holyoke Howard, Hamilton Willc.o.x; Nebraska, Erasmus M. Correll, Deborah G.

King, Lucinda Russell, Clara Albertson Young; Ohio, Lou J. Bates, Frances M. Cas.e.m.e.nt, Orpha D. Baldwin, S. S. Bissell, Mary J. Cravens, Mrs. (Dr.) Henderson, Mrs. M. B. Haven, Martha M. Paine, Mary P.

Spargo, Rosa L. Segur, Cornelia C. Swezey; Oregon, Abigail Scott Duniway, W. S. Duniway; Pennsylvania, Florence A. Burleigh, Mary Grew, Matilda Hindman; Rhode Island, Elizabeth B. Chace, Marilla M.

Brewster, Sarah W. Ladd, Mary C. Peckham, Louise M. Tyler; Tennessee, Lida A. Meriwether, Elizabeth Lyle Saxon; Texas, Mariana T. Folsom; Vermont, Laura Moore; Virginia, Orra Langhorne; Was.h.i.+ngton Territory, Bessie J. Isaacs; Wisconsin, Mary W. Bentley, Alura Collins; Wyoming, Dr. Kate Kelsey.

CHAPTER XXIII.

SUFFRAGE WORK IN POLITICAL AND OTHER CONVENTIONS.

The chapters thus far have given some idea of the endeavor to secure the ballot for women through national suffrage conventions, which bring together delegates from all parts of the country and send them back to their respective localities strengthened and fortified for the work; and which, through strong and logical arguments covering all phases of the question, given before large audiences, gradually have created a wide-spread sentiment in favor of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women. There have been described also the hearings before committees of Congress, at which the advocates of this measure have made pleas for the submission to the State Legislatures of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution which should prohibit disfranchis.e.m.e.nt on account of s.e.x, as the Fifteenth Amendment does on account of color--pleas which a distinguished Senator, who reported against granting them, said ”surpa.s.sed anything he ever had heard, and whose logic if used in favor of any other measure could not fail to carry it” (p. 201); and of which another, who had the courage to report in favor, declared, ”The suffragists have logic, argument, everything on their side” (p. 162).

In addition to this national work the following chapters will show that the State work has been continued on similar lines--State and local conventions and appeals to Legislatures to submit an amendment to the electors to strike the word ”male” from the suffrage clause of their own State const.i.tution. These appeals, in many instances, have been supported by larger pet.i.tions than ever presented for any other object.

Further efforts have been made on a still different line, viz.: through attempts to secure from outside conventions an indors.e.m.e.nt of woman suffrage, not only from those of a political but also from those of a religious, educational, professional or industrial nature. This has been desired in order that the bills may go before Congress and Legislatures with the all-important sanction of voters, and also because of its favorable effect on those composing these conventions and on public sentiment.

The idea of asking for recognition from a national political convention was first suggested to Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B. Anthony in 1868. By their protests against the use of the word ”male” in the Fourteenth Amendment, as described in Chap. I of this volume, they had angered the Republican leaders, some of whom, even those who favored woman suffrage, sarcastically advised them to ask the Democrats for indors.e.m.e.nt in their national convention of this year and see what would be the response. These two women, therefore, did appear before that body, which dedicated the new Tammany Hall in New York City, on July 4. An account of their insulting reception may be found in the History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 340, and in the Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, p. 304. They, with Abby Hopper Gibbons, daughter of Isaac T. Hopper, and Elizabeth Smith Miller, daughter of Gerrit Smith, previously had sent an earnest letter to the National Republican Convention which had met in Chicago in June, asking in the name of the women who had rendered the party such faithful service during the Civil War, that it would recognize in its platform their right to the suffrage, but the letter received no notice whatever.

From that year until the present a committee of women has attended every national convention of all the parties, asking for an indors.e.m.e.nt or at least a commendation of their appeal for the franchise. Sometimes they have been received with respect, sometimes with discourtesy, and occasionally they have been granted a few minutes to make their plea before the Committee on Resolutions. In but a single instance has any one of these women, the most eminent in the nation, been permitted to address a Republican convention--at Cincinnati in 1876. Twice this privilege has been extended by a Democratic--at St. Louis in 1876 and at Cincinnati in 1880. A far-off approach to a recognition of woman's claim was made by the National Republican Convention at Philadelphia in 1872, in this resolution:

The Republican party, mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America, expresses gratification that wider avenues of employment have been opened to woman, and it further declares that her demands for additional rights should be treated with respectful consideration.

Again in 1876 the national convention, held in Cincinnati, adopted the following:

The Republican party recognizes with approval the substantial advance recently made toward the establishment of equal rights for women by the many important amendments effected by the Republican (!) Legislatures, in the laws which concern the personal and property relations of wives, mothers and widows, and by the election and appointment of women to the superintendence of education, charities and other public trusts. The honest demands of this cla.s.s of citizens for additional rights, privileges and immunities should be treated with respectful consideration.

In 1880, '84, '88 and '92 the women were wholly disregarded. The national platform of 1888, however, contained this plank:

We recognize the supreme and sovereign right of every lawful citizen to cast one free ballot in all public elections and to have that ballot duly counted.

The leaders of the woman suffrage movement at once telegraphed to Chicago to the chairman of the convention, the Hon. Morris M. Estee, asking if this statement was intended to include ”lawful women citizens,” and he answered, ”I do not think the platform is so construed here.” A letter was addressed to the presidential candidate, Gen. Benjamin Harrison, begging that in his acceptance of the nomination, he would interpret this declaration as including women, but it was politely ignored.

In 1892 Miss Anthony appeared before the Resolutions Committee of the national convention in Minneapolis and in an address of thirty minutes pleaded that women might have recognition in its platform. At the close many of the members a.s.sured her of their thorough belief in the justice of woman suffrage, but said frankly that ”the party could not carry the load.”[147] The following was the suffrage plank in its platform that year:

We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections, and that such ballot shall be counted as cast; that such laws shall be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich or poor, native or foreign, white or black, this sovereign right guaranteed by the const.i.tution. The free and honest popular ballot, the just and equal representation of all the people, as well as their just and equal protection under the laws, are the foundation of our republican inst.i.tutions, and the party will never relax its efforts until the integrity of the ballot and the purity of elections shall be guaranteed and protected in every State.