On Mrs. Stanton's arrival a few days before the convention, Miss Anthony learned, to her consternation, that she had prepared no speech for the occasion! She shut her up in a room at the Riggs House with pen and paper, kept a guard at the door, permitted no one to see her, and when the time arrived she was ready with her usual magnificent address.
The council opened Sunday, March 25, in Albaugh's new opera house, with religious services conducted entirely by women, Revs. Phebe A. Hanaford, Ada C. Bowles, Antoinette Blackwell, Amanda Deyo, and a matchless sermon by Rev. Anna H. Shaw, "The Heavenly Vision." It would be wholly impossible to enter into a detailed account of this council, the greatest woman's convention ever held.[40] Although twenty-five cents admission was charged, and fifty cents for reserved seats, the opera house was crowded during the eight days and evenings, and seats were at a premium. Miss Anthony presided over eight of the sixteen sessions. While every speaker was allowed the widest latitude, there was not at any time the slightest friction. Letters were read from celebrated people in most of the countries of Europe and all parts of America. At the pioneer's meeting were eight men and thirty-six women who had been connected with the movement for woman suffrage forty years.[41]
Among the social courtesies extended to this distinguished body of women, were a reception at the White House by President and Mrs. Cleveland; handsome entertainments by Senator and Mrs. Leland Stanford, and Senator and Mrs. T. W. Palmer; a reception at the Riggs House; many smaller parties, dinners and luncheons; and numerous social gatherings of women doctors, lawyers, etc. At all of the large functions Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Lucy Stone stood at the left hand of the hostess, while the other officials and the foreign delegates were also in the "receiving line." At the White House Miss Anthony made the presentations to the President. As every newspaper in the country had complimentary notices of this council and the prominent ladies connected with it, it is scarcely possible to discriminate. The Baltimore Sun said:
The council began its deliberations in the finest humor with everybody, particularly with that prime favorite, Susan B. Anthony. This lady daily grows upon all present; the woman suffragists love her for her good works, the audience for her brightness and wit, and the multitude of press representatives for her frank, plain, open, business-like way of doing everything connected with the council. Miss Anthony when in repose looks worn with the conflict she has waged, though when she goes into action her angular face loses its tired look and becomes all animation. Her word is the parliamentary law of the meeting. Whatever she says is done without murmur or dissent. The women of the council are saved any parliamentary discussions such as arise in the meetings of men; they acknowledge that she is an autocrat. All are agreed that no better system than the absolute control of Susan B. Anthony can be devised.
The New York World commented:
If ever there was a gay-hearted, good-natured woman it is certainly Miss Anthony. From the beginning of this council it is she who has kept the fun barometer away up. The gray-headed friends of her youth are all "girls" to her, and she is a girl among them. Parliamentary rules have been by no means so severe as to keep even the regular proceedings free from her lively interpolation and comment. When Miss Anthony has felt the public pulse or looked at her watch and seen that a speech has gone far enough, she says under her breath, "Your time's about up, my dear." If the speaker continues, the next thing is, "I guess you'll have to stop now; it's more than ten minutes." When this fails, she usually begins to hang gently on the orator's skirt, and if pluckings and pullings fail, she then subsides with a quizzical smile, or stands erect and uncompromising by the speaker's side. There is none of the rude beating of the gavel, nor any paraphrase of "The gentleman's time is up," which marks the stiff proceedings of men "in congress assembled." To an unprejudiced eye this free-and-easy method of procedure might lack symmetry and dignity, but there is not the slightest doubt that Miss Anthony has been as wise as a serpent while being as gentle as a dove.
When Frances E. Willard rose to address the council, she laid her hand tenderly on Miss Anthony's shoulder and said: "I remember when I was dreadfully afraid of Susan, and Lucy too; but now I love and honor them, and I can not put into words my sense of what it means to me to have the blessing of these women who have made it possible for more timid ones like myself to come forward and take our part in the world's work. If they had not blazed the trees and pioneered the way, we should not have dared to come. If there is one single drop of chivalric blood in woman's veins, it ought to bring a tinge of pride to the face that Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Julia Ward Howe and these other grand women, our leaders and our foremothers, are here for us to greet; that they, who heard so much that was not agreeable, may hear an occasional pleasant word while they are alive." Very few of the speakers failed to express their deep feeling of personal obligation and the indebtedness of all women to the early labors of Miss Anthony and the other pioneers.
In her letter to the Union Signal, Miss Willard gave this bit of description: "The central figure of the council was Susan B. Anthony, in her black dress and pretty red silk shawl, with her gray-brown hair smoothly combed over a regal head, worthy of any statesman. Her mingled good-nature and firmness, her unselfish purpose and keen perception of the right thing to do, endeared her alike to those whom she admonished and those whom she praised. In her sixty-ninth year, dear 'Susan B.' seems not over fifty-five. She has a wonderful constitution, and the prodigies of work she has accomplished have forever put to rout the ignorant notion that women lack physical endurance."
In the year of preliminary work for this great council, the thought came many times to May Wright Sewall that it ought to result in something more than one brief convention, and she conceived the idea of a permanent International and also a permanent National Council of Women. During the week in Washington she presented her plan to a large number of the leaders who regarded it with approval. Miss Anthony, chairman of the meeting, by request, appointed a committee of fifteen who reported in favor of permanent councils, and Miss Willard presented an outline of constitutions. After a number of meetings of the delegates the councils were officially formed, March 31, 1888, "to include the organized working forces of the world's womanhood," in the belief that "such a federation will increase the world's sum total of womanly courage, efficiency and esprit de corps, widen the horizon, correct the tendency of an exaggerated impression of one's own work as compared with that of others, and put the wisdom and experience of each at the service of all." A simple form of constitution was adopted, and it was decided that the National Council should meet once in three years and the International once in five.[42]
Immediately upon the close of the council, the National Suffrage Association held its twentieth annual convention and, as many of the delegates remained, the meetings were nearly as crowded as those of the council had been. A local paper remarked "that it seemed as if the Washington people could never hear enough about woman suffrage." A fine address by Caroline E. Merrick was an especial feature, as it presented the question from the standpoint of a southern woman. The Senate committee granted a hearing, the speakers being presented by Miss Anthony. Mrs. Stanton made the principal address, a grand plea for human equality, and the grave and dignified committee gave her a round of applause. She was followed by Frances E. Willard and Julia Ward Howe; Laura Ormiston Chant and Alice Scatcherd, England; Isabelle Bogelot, France; Sophia Magelsson Groth, Norway; Alli Trygg, Finland; Bessie Starr Keefer, Canada.