A pleasant incident of the convention was the presentation to the audience of Mrs. E. R. Hunter, of Wichita, Kan., a real voter. Letters of greeting were read from Miss Matilda Hindman of Pennsylvania, Senator M. B. Castle of Illinois, Mrs. Mary B. Clay of Kentucky, and Judge Stanton J. Peelle of Indiana. Mrs. Stone, the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell and Mrs. Mary A. Livermore were elected delegates to the International Council of Women to be held in Washington, D. C., in 1888, with Dr. Mary F. Thomas, Miss Mary Grew and Mrs. Hannah M. Tracy Cutler as alternates.
After Mrs. Howe's address on the last evening, The Battle Hymn of the Republic was sung standing, the great assembly joining in the chorus. The officers had the pleasure of visiting Bryn Mawr College, by invitation of Dean M. Carey Thomas, during the convention.
In December of this year, a Suffrage Bazar was held in Boston for the joint benefit of the American W. S. A. and of the State suffrage associations that participated,[143] which was a success both socially and financially. The Woman's Journal of December 17 said:
Music Hall is a wonderful sight; the green and gold banner of Kansas occupies the place of honor in the middle of the platform, flanked on the left by the great crimson banner of Michigan with its motto "Neither delay nor rest," and on the right by the blue flag of Maine, decorated with a pine branch and cones. The bronze statue of Beethoven which has looked calmly down upon so many different assemblages in Music Hall, gazes meditatively at the Kansas table, with a large yellow sunflower which surmounts the Kansas banner blazing like a great star at his very feet. Next comes the banner of Vermont, rich and beautiful, though smaller than the rest, in two shades of blue, with the seal of the State in the center surrounded by wild roses and bearing the motto "Freedom and Unity." At the extreme right of the platform hangs the banner of Pennsylvania, yellow, with heavy crimson fringe and the motto "Taxation with Representation." On the other side of Michigan is a large portrait of Wendell Phillips, sent by friends in Minnesota. At the left are the Woman's Journal exhibit, press headquarters and a display of exquisite blankets made at the Lamoille mills and contributed to the Vermont exhibit by the manufacturer, Mrs. M. G. Minot.
All down the hall on both sides and across the middle hang the many banners of the Massachusetts local leagues, of all sizes and colors and with every variety of motto and device. At the extreme end hangs the white banner of the State Association.
This handsome banner, bearing the motto, "Male and female created He them, and gave them dominion," was presented to the association by Miss Cora Scott Pond and the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, to whose energetic work the success of the bazar was largely due.
Mrs. Livermore, the president of the bazar, made the opening address on the first evening. Floor and gallery were filled and scores of yellow-ribboned delegates threaded their way through the smiling crowd. Mrs. Howe followed, saying in part:
Addresses this evening are something like grace before meat; they are expected to be short and sweet. The grace is a good thing because it reminds us that we do not live by bread alone but by all the divine words with which the Creator has filled the universe. The most divine word of all is justice, and in that sacred name we are met to-night. In her name we set up our tents and spread our banners....
In the suspense in which we have so long waited for suffrage, I sometimes feel as if we were in a dim twilight through which at last a single star sheds its way to show us there is light yet, and then another and another star follow. Wyoming was the first, the evening star—we may call her our Venus; then came Washington Territory, and then Kansas. What sort of a star shall we call Boston? She might aptly be compared to sleepy old Saturn, surrounded by a triple ring of prejudice. Dr. Channing was asked once if he did not despair of Harvard College. He replied: "No, I never quite despair of anything." Therefore, following his good example, I never quite despair of Boston. We want our flag to be full of such stars as those I have mentioned.
Mrs. Lucy Stone closed a brief address by saying: "To-morrow will be election day and the papers urge all citizens to go and vote; but there are 60,000 women in Boston who have the same interest in the city government that men have, and yet can have no voice in the matter. Make this bazar a success and so enable us to take Massachusetts by its four corners and shake it till it gives suffrage to women."
1888.—The twentieth annual meeting was held in Cincinnati, Ohio, November 20-22, with large crowds in attendance and much interest shown. The Enquirer said: "The audiences may be said to have chestnutized the time-honored assertion that advocates of the ballot for the fair sex are unable to win even womankind to their way of thinking. New faces of ladies of the highest standing in society are seen at every succeeding session. The Scottish Rite Cathedral has rarely or never held as large a number of ladies, and equally rarely has there been present at a meeting of woman suffragists so large a proportion of men." And the Commercial Gazette: "The Scottish Rite Cathedral never held a finer-looking company, composed as it was of a large number of the oldest and best citizens."
The Hon. Wm. Dudley Foulke presided.[144] Addresses of welcome were made by the Hon. Alphonso Taft and Mrs. McClellan Brown, president of the Wesleyan Woman's College. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe responded.