In response to Mrs. Young, bearing the greetings of South Carolina, Miss Anthony said with much feeling:
I think the most beautiful part of our coming together in Washington for the last twenty-five years has been that more friendships, more knowledge of each other, have come through the hand-shakes here than would have been possible through any other instrumentality. I shall never cease to be grateful for all the splendid women who have come up to this great center for these twenty-six conventions, and have learned that the North was not such a cold place as they had believed; I have been equally glad when we came down here and met the women from the sunny South and found they were just like ourselves, if not a little better. In this great association we know no North, no South, no East, no West. This has been our pride for all these years. We have no political party. We never have inquired what anybody's religion is. All we ever have asked is simply, "Do you believe in perfect equality for women?" This is the one article in our creed.
Senator Joseph M. Carey of Wyoming and Representative Lafayette Pence of Colorado referred with great pride to the enfranchisement of the women of their respective States. Mrs. Johns was introduced by Miss Anthony as "the general of the Kansas army;" Mrs. Greenleaf as the Democratic nominee for member of the N. Y. Constitutional Convention; Mrs. Henry as the woman who received 4,500 votes for Clerk of the Supreme Court of Kentucky. Miss Anthony's spicy introductions of the various speakers were always greatly relished by the audiences.
No more impressive or beautiful memorial service ever was held than that in remembrance of Lucy Stone. The principal address was made by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe (Mass.), in the course of which she said:
In all action taken under her supervision, Mrs. Stone was most careful that the main issue should be constantly presented and kept in view. While welcoming every reform which gave evidence of the ethical progress of the community, she yet held to woman suffrage, pure and simple, as the first condition upon which the new womanhood should base itself. Efforts were often made to entangle suffrage with the promise of endless reforms in various directions, but firm as Cato, who always repeated his words that Carthage should be destroyed, Lucy Stone always asked for suffrage because it is right and just that women should have it, and not on the ground of a swiftly-coming millennium which should follow it....
When Lucy Stone first resolved to devote her life to the rehabilitation of her sex, to what a task did she pledge herself! The high road to reform which she held so dear was not even measured before her. The ground was covered with a growth of centuries. Could this small hand that held a sickle hope to cut down those forests of time-honored prejudice and superstition? What had she to work with? A silver voice, a winning smile, the great gift of a persuasive utterance. What had she to work from? A deep and abiding faith in divine justice and in man's ability to follow its laws and to execute its decrees.
The prophetic sense of good to come, vouchsafed to her in the morning of life, did not forsake her at its close. Her mind was of a very practical cast and in her many days of labor her eyes were always fixed upon her work. But when her work was taken from her, she saw at once the heavens open before her and the eternal life and light beckoning to her to go up higher. With a smile she passed from the struggle of earthly existence to the peace of the saints made perfect. Here she was still debarred the right to cast her ballot at the polls, but lo, in the blue urn of heaven her life was received, one glowing and perfect vote for the rights of women, for the good of humanity, for the Kingdom of God on earth.
A few sentences may be given as the key-note of the eulogy of the Hon. Wm. Dudley Foulke (Ind.): "Her career, while different from that of most women, was characterized throughout by entire and consistent womanliness. Among the many admirable qualities that she possessed, it is difficult to single out the one for which she will hereafter be best remembered, but as dauntless moral courage is a rarer quality perhaps than any other, it seems to me that this will remain her brightest jewel."
In the address of Mrs. Josephine K. Henry (Ky.) she referred to the marriage of Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell as follows:
Their matrimonial contract is the grandest chart of the absolute equality of man and woman that has ever been made, and it throws a new halo of consecration and sanctity around the institution of marriage. It has not yet been written in our ecclesiastical and civil codes that every woman shall retain and dignify her own name through life, but civilization is preparing now to issue this edict. The coming woman will not resign her name at the marriage altar, and it will be told in future years of these two great souls who were the first to recognize the dignity of human individuality. The domestic life of this couple who set up the standard of absolute equality of husband and wife was an exquisite idyl, fragrant with love and tenderness, a poem whose rhythm was not marred, a divine melody that rose above the discords and dissensions of domestic life upon the lowlands where man is the ruler and woman the subject.
In the touching tribute of Miss Laura Clay (Ky.) she said: "Lucy Stone is one of those who paid what must be paid for liberty or for any high good of humanity. She made sacrifices and did things that none of us to-day would be called upon to do, did them bravely, did them without shrinking, did them almost without knowing that she was doing anything which would call forth the blessing, the gratitude of the human race."
Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.) referred more especially to the domestic qualities, saying: