The meeting of 1895 took place at Saginaw, May 7-9. In the evening Representative George H. Waldo gave a review of his efforts in behalf of the Equal Suffrage Bill, and an enthusiastic indorsement of the measure. This convention had the assistance of Mrs. Chapman Catt, who made the chief address. Mrs. Ketcham retired from the presidency and the association elected Mrs. Knaggs. A new standing committee of five was appointed to secure women physicians and attendants in public institutions for the care of women and girls. After adjournment the Saginaw Political Equality Club was formed.
In 1896 the State convention met in Pontiac, May 19-22. Senator Palmer was the orator of the occasion.
The following July Mrs. Knaggs and Carrie C. Faxon addressed the Democratic State Convention at Bay City, through the courtesy of the Hons. John Donovan and O'Brien J. Atkinson. They were accorded an attentive hearing with much applause, and given a rising vote of thanks, emphasized by an exhortation from the chairman, the Hon. Thomas Barkworth, that the party prepare to concede to the women of the State their political rights.
The annual meeting of 1897 took place in Vermontville, May 11-13. On November 22, 23, a national conference was held in Grand Rapids by Miss Anthony, Miss Shaw and Mrs. Chapman Catt, together with the officers of the State association and many other Michigan women.
In 1898 the convention met in Bay City, May 3-5. On the last evening Mrs. May Wright Sewall of Indiana gave a brilliant address on The Duties of Women Considered as Patriots. Its strong peace sentiments aroused deep interest, as this was at the beginning of the Spanish-American War.
The invitation of the Susan B. Anthony Club of Grand Rapids to the National W. S. A., to hold its annual convention in that city in 1899, having been accepted, the date was fixed for April 27 to May 3, inclusive, and it was decided that the State meeting should immediately follow. This national gathering was full of interest, affording as it did an opportunity of attendance to many women of the State who were unable to go to the convention at Washington.[333] Grand Rapids women were generous in their hospitality, all visitors being entertained free of expense. The executive ability of Mrs. Ketcham was evident from first to last. The State association held a business session May 4, and was addressed by Mr. Blackwell and Mrs. Colby. Mrs. Lenore Starker Bliss was elected president.
An immediate result of the national meeting was the organization of the Anna Shaw Junior Equal Suffrage Club of Grand Rapids, with seventeen youthful members.
In December the American Federation of Labor held its annual convention in Detroit. Miss Anthony addressed it by invitation and urged the members to adopt a resolution asking Congress for a Sixteenth Amendment forbidding the disfranchisement of United States citizens on account of sex. Her speech was most enthusiastically received and the resolution she offered was immediately adopted, and, in the form of a petition which represented nearly 1,000,000 members, duly forwarded to Congress.
Prior to the State convention of 1900 Mrs. Chapman Catt, assisted by Miss Shaw, Miss Harriet May Mills of New York and Mrs. Root, held two days' conventions at Hillsdale, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, organizing suffrage clubs at the first three places. The annual meeting convened in Detroit, May 15-17, Miss Shaw and Mrs. Chapman Catt giving addresses on consecutive evenings. Mrs. Bliss declining renomination, Mrs. Ketcham was unanimously replaced at the head of the State association.[334]
In July, at the request of Miss Anthony, the Columbia Catholic Summer School held in Detroit extended an invitation for a speech on suffrage. Mrs. Chapman Catt was selected, all arrangements being made by Mrs. Jenkins and others. Father W. J. Dalton, who introduced her, said he hoped to see women voting and filling all offices, even that of police commissioner.