Samuel J. Barrows, member of Congress from Massachusetts, was called from the audience by Miss Anthony, and closed his brief remarks by saying: "I believe in woman suffrage; it has in it the elements of justice which entitle it to every man's support, and we all ought to help secure it." A leading feature of the program was the speech of August W. Machen, head of the free delivery division of the national post office, on Women in the Departmental Service of the United States. He gave the history of their employment by the government, declared they had raised the standard of work and testified to their efficiency and faithfulness.
The Civil Rights of Women were ably discussed by the Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley of the Second Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, who reviewed the existing laws and pointed out the changes in favor of women. In regard to the prevalence of divorce he said: "There is a large class of our fellow-citizens who greatly misinterpret, in my opinion, the significance of the increase in the number of divorces. No one would counsel more earnestly than I, patience and consideration and every reasonable effort on the part of people once married to live together. But I can not dispute the proposition, nor do I believe any one can dispute it, that in the great process of evolution divorce is an indication of growing independence and self-respect in women, a proclamation that marriage must be the union of self-respecting and mutually respected equals, and that in the ideal home of the future that hideous thing, the subjugation of woman, is to be unknown."
Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch (Ills.) discussed The Economic Status of Women. Madame Clara Neymann (N. Y.) read a philosophical paper on Marriage in the Light of Woman's Freedom. The Progress of Colored Women was pictured in an impassioned address by Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, president of the National Association of Colored Women. She received numerous floral tributes at its close. Mrs. Emmy C. Evald of Chicago, with an attractive foreign enthusiasm, told of the work of Swedish women in their own country and in the United States. Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.) with clever satire and amidst laughter and applause, considered Women in Municipalities.
The Pioneers' Evening was one of great interest, when Miss Anthony marshalled her hosts and made "the roll-call of the years." As each decade was called, beginning with 1848, those who began the suffrage work at that time rose on the stage and in all parts of the house and remained standing. Not one was there who was present at the original Seneca Falls Convention, but it had held an adjourned meeting at Rochester, three weeks later, and Miss Anthony's sister, Mary S., responded as having attended then and signed the Declaration of Rights. The daughters of Mrs. Martha C. Wright, who called this convention—Mrs. Eliza Wright Osborne and Mrs. Wm. Lloyd Garrison—and also Mrs. Millie Burtis Logan, whose mother, Miss Anthony's cousin, served as its secretary, were introduced to the audience. The children of Frederick Douglass, who had spoken at both meetings, were present and should have come forward with this group. The Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell stated that she had spoken in favor of woman's rights in 1846. Among the earliest of the pioneers present were John W. Hutchinson, the last of that famous family of singers; Henry B. Blackwell, Mrs. Helen Philleo Jenkins (Mich.), Miss Sarah Wall (Mass.) and Mrs. Hooker. Many of those who arose made brief remarks and the occasion was one which will not be forgotten by those who witnessed it.
Among the letters received from the many pioneers still living was one from Mrs. Abigail Bush, now eighty-eight years old and residing in California, who presided over the Rochester meeting, Aug. 2, 1848. It is especially interesting as showing that even so advanced women as Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Stanton, although they dared call such a meeting, were yet so conservative as to object to a woman's presiding over it:
To Susan B. Anthony, Greeting: You will bear me witness that the state of society is very different from what it was fifty years ago, when I presided at the first Woman's Rights Convention. I had not been able to meet in council at all with the friends until I met them in the hall as the congregation was gathering, and then fell into the hands of those who urged me to take part with the opposers of a woman serving, as the party had with them a fine-looking man to preside at all of their meetings, James Mott, who had presided at Seneca Falls. Afterward I fell in with the old friends, Amy Post, Rhoda de Garmo and Sarah Fish, who at once commenced labors with me to prove that the hour had come when a woman should preside, and led me into the church. Amy proposed my name as president; I was accepted at once, and from that hour I seemed endowed as from on high to serve.
It was a two days' meeting with three sessions per day. On my taking the chair, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton left the platform and took their seats in the audience, but it did not move me from performing all my duties, and at the close of the meeting Lucretia Mott came forward, folded me tenderly in her arms and thanked me for presiding. That settled the question of men's presiding at a woman's convention. From that day to this, in all the walks of life, I have been faithful in asserting that there should be "no taxation without representation." It has seemed long in coming, but I think the time draws near when woman will be acknowledged as equal with man. Heaven grant the day to dawn soon!
Mrs. Catharine A. F. Stebbins (Mich.), who had attended the Seneca Falls Convention and signed the Declaration of Rights, sent an interesting descriptive letter. Mrs. Lucinda H. Stone (Mich.), the mother of women's clubs and a pioneer on educational lines, wrote:
You wanted I should write you any anecdotes of early interest in woman suffrage. The remembrance of Dr. Stone's waking up to that subject has come to me, and I have thought I would tell you about it.
It was some time in the forties that he was requested to deliver a Fourth of July oration in Kalamazoo. I can not tell the exact year, but it was before I had ever heard of the Rochester Convention, or of you or Mrs. Stanton, and he was looking up all that he could find in the early history of our Declaration of Independence, and the principles of Jefferson and the early revolutionists. I remember his coming in one day (it must have been before 1848), seeming very much absorbed in something that he was thinking about. He threw down the book he had been reading, and said to me: "The time will come when women will vote. Mark my words! We may not live to see it, we probably shall not, but it will come. It is not a woman's right or a man's right; it is a human right, and their voting is but a natural process of evolution." ...
Mrs. Esther Wattles, who helped secure School Suffrage and equal property laws for women in the State constitution of Kansas in 1859, sent this message: "My attention was first called to the injustice done to women by a lecture given near Wilmington, Ohio, by John O. Wattles in 1841. He devoted most of his time to lecturing on Woman's Rights, The Sin of Slavery, The Temperance Reform and Peace. I heard him on all these subjects, off and on, till 1844, when we were married.... Seventy-nine summers with their clouds and sunshine, make it fitting I should greet you by letter rather than personal presence. May the cause never falter till the victory is won."