Mrs. Chapman Catt spoke for the Course of Study in Political Science, which had been in operation only five months, had sold five hundred full sets of books and reported over one hundred clubs formed. The committee on credentials reported 138 delegates present, and all the States and Territories represented except thirteen. A very satisfactory report of the first year's work of the organization committee was presented by its chairman, Mrs. Chapman Catt, which closed as follows:
Our committee are more than ever convinced that it is possible to build a great organization based upon the one platform of the enfranchisement of women. With harmony, co-operation and determination we shall yet build this organization, of such numbers and political strength that through the power of constituency it can dictate at least one plank in the platform of every political party, and secure an amendment from any Legislature it petitions. We believe it will yet have its auxiliaries in every village and hamlet, township and school district, to influence majorities when the amendment is submitted. More—we believe ere many years its powers will be so subtle and widespread that it can besiege the conservatism of Congress itself, and come away with the laurel wreath of victory.
Nearly $3,300 were at once pledged for the committee, Miss Anthony herself agreeing to raise $600 of this amount.
Mrs. Chapman Catt presented also a detailed Plan of Work, which included Organization, Club Work, Letter Writing, Raising of Money and Political Work. Of the last she said: "The time has fully come when we should carry the rub-a-dub of our agitation into 'the political Africa,' that is into every town meeting of every township of every county, and every caucus or primary meeting of every ward of every city of every State.... For a whole half century we have held special suffrage meetings, with audiences largely of women; that is, women have talked to women. We must now carry our discussion of the question into all of the different political party gatherings, for it is only there that the rank and file of the voters ever go. They won't come to our meetings, so we must carry our gospel into theirs. It will be of no more avail in the future than it has been in the past to send appeals to State and national conventions, so long as they are not backed by petitions from a vast majority of the voting constituents of their members."
With the thousand dollars which had been put into Miss Anthony's hands by Mrs. Louisa Southworth of Cleveland the preceding year, national headquarters had been opened in Philadelphia with Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, corresponding secretary, in charge. Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, treasurer, reported total receipts for 1895 to be $9,835, with a balance of several hundred dollars in the treasury.
The principal feature of the Saturday evening meeting was the address of Miss Elizabeth Burrill Curtis, daughter of George William Curtis, on Universal Suffrage. She said in part:
I find many people in my native State of New York who are leaning toward a limited suffrage, and therefore I am beginning to ask, "What does it mean? Is democratic government impossible after all?" For a government in order to be democratic must be founded on the suffrages of all the people, not a part. A republic may exist by virtue of a limited suffrage, but a democracy can not, and a democratic government has been our theoretical ideal from the first. Are we prepared, after a hundred and twenty years, to own ourselves defeated?... Universal suffrage, to me, means the right of every man and woman who is mentally able to do so, and who has not forfeited the right by an ill use of it, to say who shall rule them, and what action shall be taken by those rulers upon questions of moment....
This brings me to what I wish to say about those who desire a limited suffrage. Who are they, and to what class do they belong? For the most part, as I know them, they are men of property, who belong to the educated classes, who are refined and cultivated, and who see the government about them falling into the hands of the unintelligent and often illiterate classes who are voted at the polls like sheep. Therefore these gentlemen weep aloud and wail and say: "If we had a limited suffrage, if we and our friends had the management of affairs, how much better things would be!"
Do not misunderstand me here. I am far from decrying the benefits of education. Nobody 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 leadership 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 shirk 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 Massachusetts 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 illustrated 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 sex. You can not raise public-spirited men from private-spirited mothers, but only from mothers who have been citizens in spite of their disfranchisement. 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 passed away during the year. Among these were ex-Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, ex-Governor Oliver Ames (Mass.), 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 Association.
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 Douglass, whose last act was to bear his testimony in favor of suffrage for women at the Woman's Council in Washington 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.