Volume VI Part 25 (1/2)

1905. There was a very large attendance at the Festival on May 10, with Mrs. Mead presiding. Professor Edward c.u.mmings was toastmaster, ex-Governor Garvin of Rhode Island and Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt spoke and the Festival then resolved itself into a celebration of Mr.

Blackwell's 80th birthday (May 4), with the presentation of a silver pitcher from the State a.s.sociation and addresses by William Lloyd Garrison and Mrs. Livermore. She had insisted upon coming, although by no means able. She said, ”Mr. Blackwell and I have worked together for nearly half a century; we have gone anywhere and everywhere for woman suffrage. This evening he has been doing his best to persuade me to go out to the Oregon convention. I can not say half that ought to be said of his character, his devoted service, his fraternal spirit.” She died a few days later and there was profound sorrow for her loss.

At the meeting of the New England a.s.sociation on May 11 Miss Blackwell presided. Francis J. Garrison was elected treasurer. The State annual meeting was held at Holyoke, October 24, 25, in the Second Baptist Church and Mayor Nathan P. Avery gave the address of welcome. Miss Blackwell was made chairman of the board of directors; Mrs. Mead was elected president; Mrs. Schlesinger vice-president. The a.s.sociation took part in the celebration of the centennial of William Lloyd Garrison on December 10. He had been a life-long champion of equal rights for women and his last public speech was made at a suffrage hearing in the State House. There was a noteworthy memorial meeting for Mrs. Edna D. Cheney, long a pillar of the suffrage a.s.sociation and of the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Catherine Breshkovsky, ”the little grandmother of the Russian revolution,”

visited Ma.s.sachusetts this year and addressed a number of meetings arranged by the suffragists, including a large one in Faneuil Hall.

The convention was held in October, 1906, at Lowell in the Trinitarian Congregational Church. Harriet A. Eager gave a stone from the pavement of the little church at Delft Haven in Holland, where the Pilgrims attended their last religious service before sailing for America and the a.s.sociation presented it to the Cape Cod Memorial a.s.sociation to be placed in the monument. The World's W. C. T. U. convention in Boston this month aroused much interest and enthusiasm. At the opening banquet Miss Blackwell gave the address of welcome in behalf of the women's organizations.

1907. The annual meeting took place in Worcester at Trinity Church.

Letters were read from Colonel Thomas W. Higginson and Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller, the only two survivors of the 89 men and women who signed the Call for the first National Woman's Rights Convention, held in Worcester in 1850; and a poem from the Rev. Antoinette L. Brown Blackwell, D. D., the only survivor of the speakers on that occasion.

Dr. Shaw gave an address and conducted a question box and there was a symposium on Why I am a Suffragist by five young women, one a grandniece and namesake of Margaret Fuller.

A noteworthy meeting was held on March 23, 1907, by the Boston Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation to consider ”the indebtedness of women of collegiate and professional training to the leaders of the suffrage movement.” Every woman's college in the State was represented, as well as law and medicine. Mrs. f.a.n.n.y B. Ames presided and college girls in cap and gown acted as ushers. The speakers were Mrs. Howe, Miss Georgia L. White, a.s.sistant Professor of Economics at Smith College; Professor Helen M. Searles of Mt. Holyoke; Dr. Emma Culbertson of the New England Hospital for Women and Children; Miss Emily Greene Balch, a.s.sociate Professor of Economics and Sociology at Wellesley; Miss Caroline J. Cooke, instructor in Commercial Law at Simmons, and Mrs.

Park of Radcliffe.

On August 13 suffragists from different parts of the State again made a pilgrimage to Lucy Stone's old home, West Brookfield, to celebrate her birthday. Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, a daughter of Richard Cobden, one of the ”militant” English suffragettes, spoke at the women's colleges and elsewhere. The Boston a.s.sociation, in connection with the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, gave courses in citizens.h.i.+p, addressed by heads of State and city departments. Mrs. Fessenden conducted many cla.s.ses in Parliamentary practice (these were continued year after year), and there was a ”suffrage day” in the woman's department of the great Food Fair.

The a.s.sociation of Collegiate Alumnae celebrated its quarter centennial in Boston November 5-9, which brought many distinguished suffragists from other States. In 1872 the New England Women's Club had given a reception for the only three college women then in this city. In 1907 this a.s.sociation had 3,147 members, several hundred of them in Boston alone. At the Whittier Centennial celebration at Amesbury on December 17 the poet's champions.h.i.+p of equal rights for women was recalled with his work for other reforms. The Boston Federation of Suffrage Societies was organized by the a.s.sociation for Good Government. The State Federation of Labor and the State Letter Carriers' a.s.sociation endorsed woman suffrage.

The Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sociation Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women changed its organ _The Remonstrance_ from an annual to a quarterly and sent out a copy broadcast. The suffragists followed with an answer. The _Woman's Journal_ pointed out that the M. A. O. F.

E. S. W., according to its own official reports, had sold $40.86 worth of literature in 1905, $13.50 worth in 1906 and $12.30 worth in 1907, and that in 1906 the total receipts were $2,907, of which $2,018 were expended on salaries.[81]

1908. The State annual meeting was held in Boston October 27, 28. Mrs.

Mead presided and Mrs. Ethel Snowden of England was the chief speaker.

There was a reception to Mrs. Howe, with addresses by Mrs. Maud Howe Elliott, Mrs. Carota Von Koch of Sweden and Mrs. Howe. Miss Jane Addams gave suffrage lectures this year at Radcliffe, Smith, Mt.

Holyoke and Wellesley colleges and Boston University, arranged by the College Equal Suffrage League, with large audiences and much enthusiasm. Mrs. Snowden spoke for the State a.s.sociation at Faneuil Hall and a reception was given by the College and Boston suffrage a.s.sociations. Another large suffrage meeting in Faneuil Hall was addressed by Professor Charles Zueblin. Mrs. Park and Mrs. Eager held a series of meetings in Berks.h.i.+re county, arousing much interest. At the suffrage booth in the Boston Food Fair, in charge of the Newton League, 6,255 names were added to the enrollment. The a.s.sociation by this time had more than 100 local branches. This year 145 labor unions endorsed equal suffrage. The a.s.sociation carried on a ”poster campaign,” putting up posters in towns and at county fairs. Mrs.

FitzGerald composed the inscriptions and Mrs. George F. Lowell with a group of friends put them up. At the Biennial of the General Federation of Women's Clubs held in Boston every mention of suffrage was cheered and no one got such an ovation as Mrs. Howe, the fraternal delegate from the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation.

1909. The College Equal Suffrage League of Ma.s.sachusetts attained a members.h.i.+p of 320 this year and a suffrage club was formed at Radcliffe College. At the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology any notices put up by the suffragists were at once torn down. The State annual convention was held in Boston October 22, 23, with the evening meeting in Tremont Temple, and Miss Blackwell was elected president.

For the first time the report of the Legislative Committee was given by Mrs. Teresa A. Crowley, who continued to be its chairman for years.

Ex-Governor Long presided at a memorial meeting for Henry B.

Blackwell, with addresses by Edwin D. Mead, Julia Ward Howe, the Rev.

Charles G. Ames, Professor Sumichrast, Moses H. Gulesian, Francis J.

Garrison, James H. Stark of the Victorian Club, Meyer Bloomfield and Mrs. Isabel C. Barrows. Mr. Blackwell was called by Mrs. Catt ”one of the world's most heroic men.” He was the only man of large abilities who devoted his life to securing equal rights for women. In his youth a reward of $10,000 was offered for his head at a public meeting in the South because of his leading part in the rescue of a young slave girl. He made his first speech for woman's rights at a suffrage convention in Cleveland in 1853. Two years later he married Lucy Stone. She had meant never to marry but to devote herself wholly to the women's cause but he promised to devote himself to the same cause.

He was the unpaid secretary of the American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation for twenty years, of the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sociation for thirty years and of the New England a.s.sociation for nearly forty years. He traveled all over the country organizing suffrage societies, getting up conventions and addressing Legislatures. He attended the Republican national conventions year after year trying to get a suffrage plank and in 1872 secured a mild one in the national platform and a strong one in that of Ma.s.sachusetts. He took part in const.i.tutional amendment campaigns in Kansas, Vermont, Colorado, Michigan, Rhode Island and South Dakota. In 1889, when Was.h.i.+ngton, Montana and North Dakota were about to enter the Union as States, he attended the const.i.tutional convention of each to urge equal suffrage. He was an editor of the _Woman's Journal_ from its founding in 1870 till his death. An able writer, an eloquent speaker, he was widely beloved for his kindness, humor and geniality.

Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the ”militant” suffragettes of England, visited Boston this year. She was met at the station by the suffragists with automobiles and flags and was taken through the streets to the headquarters--Boston's first suffrage procession--and later addressed in Tremont Temple a huge audience, critical at first, highly enthusiastic at the close. A reception was given by prominent suffragists to Miss Ethel M. Arnold of England, and there were lectures by her and Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman; a series of ”pet.i.tion teas” and meetings addressed by Dr. Shaw, Miss Leonora O'Reilly, a labor leader of New York; Judge Ben Lindsey of Denver; Charles Edward Russell, the Rev. Thomas Cuthbert Hall; and by Mrs.

Snowden, Dr. Stanton Coit and the Misses Rendell and Costello, all of England.

In June the first of the open-air meetings that later became so important a feature of the campaign was held on the Common at Bedford.

The speakers were Mrs. FitzGerald, Mrs. Leonora S. Little, Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick and Mrs. Crowley. The attendance was small; people were shy at first of seeming to countenance such an innovation but the crowds grew as the meetings continued and it was found to be the best if not the only way to reach the ma.s.s of voters. A summer campaign of 97 open-air meetings was held, the speakers traveling mainly by trolley, covering a large part of the State and reaching about 25,000 persons.[82] Suffrage b.u.t.tons and literature were distributed, posters put up, and sometimes mammoth kites flown to advertise the meetings. Mrs. H. S. Lus...o...b..had presented a kite big enough to hold up a banner six feet wide by forty deep. The campaigners were resourceful. At Nantasket, when forbidden to speak on the beach, they went into the water with their Votes for Women banner and spoke from the sea to the audience on the sh.o.r.e.

1910. Among the speakers at the Festival in May were Mrs. Frances Squire Potter, former Professor of English at the University of Minnesota; Professor Max Eastman of Columbia University, secretary of the New York Men's League for Woman Suffrage, and Professor Henry S.

Nash of the Episcopal Theological School. At the State annual meeting in Lowell, October 27, 28, Philip Snowden, M. P., of England was a speaker. In connection with the convention Mrs. Park spoke before the Woman's Club; Rabbi Fleischer before the Board of Trade; Miss Alice Carpenter at the Congregational Church in Tewksbury; four factory meetings were held; the suffrage slides were exhibited twelve times at the Merrimac Theater; Miss Foley and Miss Anne Withington addressed seven trade unions; 27,000 fliers were distributed and four street meetings held.

An eight-weeks' summer campaign of open-air meetings was conducted through the great industrial cities of eastern Ma.s.sachusetts, with from four to six regular and occasional special speakers. Three Englishwomen, Miss Margaret G. Bondfield, Miss M. M. A. Ward and Miss Emily Gardner, reinforced the American speakers, Miss Foley, Mrs.

FitzGerald, Mrs. Glendower Evans, Miss Emily Pierson of Connecticut, and others. In each city, besides the outdoor meetings, there was some special feature; in two, garden parties; in Brockton, the women joined the circus parade, driving in a decorated team and giving out fliers.

In Fall River they got two popular stores to wrap a colored flier in every parcel. In Taunton they had an evening band concert on the Common, accompanied with red fire and speeches. In Lawrence Miss Foley made a balloon ascension and showered down rainbow literature upon an eager crowd. Several times the women spoke from the vaudeville stage and showed colored lantern slides. They spoke in parks and pleasure resorts and outside the factories as well as in the streets and at one Yiddish and one French meeting. They held 200 meetings and talked to about 60,000 persons. Afterwards they held outdoor meetings in and about Boston and sent an automobile of speakers and literature to the Aviation Meet. A fall campaign of open-air speaking followed. Mrs.