The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V

by Unknown

We welcome you with hearts tender with the remembrance of the past, when two of the great historic figures which have made this convention possible gave their labors to Kentucky. In the early fifties, Lucy Stone, in the vigor and freshness of her lovely youth and enthusiasm for high ideals, spoke in the cities and towns on both sides of the Ohio River; and in 1881 she held in Louisville a convention of the American Woman Suffrage Association. She established the Woman's Journal, which is now edited, with all the noble moral principles and polished literary ability which have characterized it throughout, by her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, who is with us today. In 1879 that other heroic woman, Susan B. Anthony, made a tour through central Kentucky and left an enduring monument of her visit in the Equal Rights Association of Richmond, Madison County, which has had the longest continuous existence of any woman suffrage society in the State....

We welcome you with hearts strong with hope for the future. The glorious victories that we have had inspire us and in all the harbingers of hope we see none greater than the Men's Leagues for Woman Suffrage. These prove to us that the men of our country are preparing to extend equal political rights to women, who, since the time when this vast continent was a wilderness, have stood side by side with them in the heroic labors which have made it blossom like the rose with the fairest civilization the world has ever known. In the great International Alliance Congress at Stockholm men of many nations formed themselves into a Suffrage League, and the Men's League of California did grand service in the glorious victory in their State. This noble land extends from California across the continent to Virginia where the latest league of men has just been formed. We see in this generous cooperation of the men of our nation a better exposition of the legend on Kentucky's shield, "United we stand, divided we fall," when man and woman shall clasp hands and become a truer realization of the vision of the poet and the patriot.

Mrs. Patty Blackburn Semple, president of the Louisville Woman's Club, in offering its welcome, said: "When the Woman's Club was organized three subjects were tabooed—religion, politics and woman suffrage. We kept to the resolution for awhile but gradually we found that our efforts in behalf of civic improvements and the correcting of outrageous abuses were handicapped at every turn by politics. Last year an appeal came to the Woman's Club—to the women of Louisville—to take our schools out of politics. It was a gigantic fight but we won. As the climax of our struggle we spent the greater part of election day at the polls and I think at the close of that day every one of us had exhausted all the joys of 'indirect influence,' which is supposed to satisfy every craving of the female heart. Our club will be twenty-one years old in November, and—we want to vote! We will make you most heartily welcome and most of us will also welcome the principles for which you stand."

Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch (Ills.), first vice-president of the National Association, in responding said: "Now we know definitely that all the things we have heard about Kentucky are true; we have met her brave women and handsome colonels. While we remember all the tradition of the past we live in the present. Kentucky is proud of what her men named Clay have done in the past but it is a pleasure to us to know that today when Kentucky wants anything done she appeals to a woman who is either Clay by name or Clay by blood." Another chivalry is coming into the world besides that felt by a strong man for a beautiful woman. It is that felt by strong women for their weaker and less fortunate sisters. It is the chivalry foreshadowed by Spenser in The Færie Queene, in Britomart, the noble knight, herself a woman, who rescued Amoretta and devoted herself to the help of all weak and helpless women."

Assistant District Attorney Omar E. Garwood of Denver, a founder and the secretary of the Men's Defense League, to refute the misrepresentations of the practical working of woman suffrage in Colorado, was introduced and outlined its work. Mrs. Alexander Pope Humphrey was presented and gave a cordial invitation to a reception for the convention at her home, Truecastle, at the close of the afternoon session, which was as cordially accepted. Mrs. Ben Hardin Helm, a sister of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, was greeted and expressed her sympathy with the work of the association.

After these pleasant ceremonies at the morning session the convention immediately proceeded to business and listened to the reports from the various committees. That of the new corresponding secretary, Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, gave a graphic illustration of the rapid increase in the size and scope of the work in her department. After describing the demands from almost every State and saying that the correspondence had doubled during the past year while the output of literature had tripled, she continued:

The correspondence with Canada has been very interesting and has steadily increased and we have sent a good deal of literature to British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia. Literature and letters have gone to Switzerland, Finland and even Japan, in answer to requests, the Japanese correspondent being in the midst of writing a book on the rights of women, because, as he quaintly put it, he believed there was "undoubtedly a truth in it." We have a steadily increasing stream of requests for suitable programs for study clubs, also a sudden spurt of requests for suffrage speakers from the Federation of Women's Clubs. The example of the last Biennial, when woman suffrage appeared for the first time on the official program of the Federation, has precipitated almost an epidemic of suffrage meetings in the State federations and local clubs.

The Official Board of the association has made a serious recommendation to the State officers to push the plan of political district organization as the best and most systematic and reliable way of preparing for the submission of a suffrage amendment. A leaflet giving the details of the plan has been published and widely distributed and it has been accepted as scheduled or in modified form in ten States, in most of which the name Woman Suffrage Party has been adopted, following the example of New York City, which was the first to adapt the enrollment work long ago established by the National Association to the needs of modern political action.... The National office prepared reports of the work of the association for the meeting of the U. S. National Council of Women and for the congress of the International Suffrage Alliance in Stockholm. We have established an exchange of propaganda with the International Shop in London. At the suggestion of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt we have cooperated with the Women's Enfranchisement League of Cape Colony, South Africa, by asking a large number of American women writers to send copies of their books to an exhibition and sale there of women's work.

Since our last convention there have been two annual meetings of the House of Governors, the first in Kentucky, at which Miss Laura Clay obtained a hearing and presented our cause in a most admirable address; the second in New Jersey, at which a hearing was obtained for Dr. Shaw, who was accorded every courtesy and received with heartiest enthusiasm by the Governors and afterwards by their wives. In Kentucky Governor Wilson was largely instrumental in securing the hearing; in New Jersey, although the governor is also a Wilson, he is unfortunately an "anti," but by the efforts of Governor Shafroth of Colorado, a place on the program was made for Dr. Shaw.

Two valuable compilations have been made, one showing how many times and when and what sort of suffrage bills have been introduced into Legislatures in the last ten years, and the other showing the exact procedure necessary for amending the constitutions of the various States. Under the direction of Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch, our legal adviser, a series of questions on the legal status of women has been printed and sent with letters to the various States. The returns will be published in pamphlet form. At the suggestion of Miss Clay, letters were sent to all members of Congress urging their effort to include women as electors in the bill providing for the direct election of U. S. Senators. Copies of Hampton's Magazine for April were sent to special lists of people in Wisconsin, Kansas and California, which contained Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr's article on Colorado Women Voters.