I am eighty-five years old, and I can no longer look forward for future earthly happiness. All my joys are now retrospective, and in the long vista of years that I constantly look back upon, there is no time that affords me more pleasure than that when I was in the Treasury of the United States. The fact that I was instrumental in introducing women to employment in the offices of the Government, gives me more real satisfaction than all the other deeds of my life.
A committee consisting of the national board and chairman of the executive committee was appointed to arrange for a great international meeting the next year.
On the opening day of this convention a vote on woman suffrage was taken in the United States Senate as described in the preceding chapter; at its close a telegram was received that a Municipal Suffrage Bill had been passed by the Kansas Legislature; and its members separated with the consciousness that two distinctly progressive steps had been taken.
FOOTNOTES:
[62] Dr. Newman was an advocate of suffrage for women. After he became Bishop he wrote for publication, July 12, 1894: "The exalted mission of Christianity is to reverse the verdict of the world on the rights of woman. Until Christ came she had been regarded by State and Church, in the most highly civilized lands, as the servant of man, created for his pleasure and subordinated to his authority. Her rights of life, property and vocation were in his hands for control and final disposition.
"Against this tyranny we wage a war of extermination. Henceforth in State and Church, in business and pleasure, whether married or single, woman is to be esteemed an individual, one of the two equal units of humanity, to count one the whole world over, and to possess and exercise the rights of 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"
[63] Among the writers were Harriot Stanton Blatch of England, the Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley, Philadelphia; Prudence Crandall Philleo (Kan.); Mary V. Cowgill, Mary J. Coggeshall, editor Woman's Standard, (Ia.); Belva A. Lockwood (D. C.); General and Mrs. Rufus Saxton, Sallie Clay Bennett (Ky.); Alice M. Pickler (Dak.); Sarah R. Langdon Williams, Sarah M. Perkins (O.); Mr. and Mrs. McClung (Tenn.); telegram signed by Emmeline B. Wells and a long list of names from Utah.