The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V

by Unknown

Although this was the first convention in many years over which Miss Anthony had not presided she was the first to speak, as Mrs. Catt at once presented her to the audience. With the loyalty which had characterized her life Miss Anthony first read a letter from the honorary president, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, then in her 86th year, which she prefaced by saying: "It is fitting that I should read this greeting from her, as I have stood by Mrs. Stanton's side for fifty years." The letter urged the same vigorous work in the church for woman's emancipation as had been kept up in the States and said: "The canon law, with all the subtle influences that grow out of it, is more responsible for woman's slavery today than the civil code. With the progressive legislation of the last half century we have an interest in tracing the lessons taught to women in the churches to their true origin and a right to demand from our theologians the same full and free discussion in the church that we have had in the State, as the time has fully come for women to be heard in the ecclesiastical councils of the nation. To this end I suggest that committees and delegates from all our State and national associations visit the clergy in their several localities and assemblies to press on their consideration the true position of woman as a factor in Christian civilization."

Press reports of Mrs. Stanton's paper were as follows:

"Woman today, as ever, supplies the enthusiasm that sustains the church and she has a right in turn to ask that the church sustain her in this struggle for liberty and take some decided action with reference to this momentous and far-reaching movement. It matters little that here and there some clergyman advocates our cause on our platform, so long as no religious organization has yet recognized our demand as a principle of justice. Discussion is rarely held in their councils but it is generally treated as a speculative, sentimental question unworthy of serious consideration. Neither would it be sufficient if they gave their adhesion to the demand for political equality, so long as by scriptural teachings they perpetuate our racial and religious subordination." Mrs. Stanton would demand that an expurgated Bible be read in churches. "Such parables as refer to woman as 'the author of sin,' 'an inferior,' 'a subject,' 'a weaker vessel,'" she says, "should be relegated to the ancient mythologies as mere allegories, having no application whatever to the womanhood of this generation. It is not civil nor political power that holds the Mormon woman in polygamy, the Turkish woman in the harem, the American woman as a subordinate everywhere. The central falsehood from which all these different forms of slavery spring is the doctrine of original sin and woman as a medium for the machinations of Satan, its author. The greatest block today in the way of woman's emancipation is the church, the canon law, the Bible and the priesthood. Canon Charles Kingsley said not long ago: 'This will never be a good world for woman till the last remnant of canon law is stricken from the face of the earth.'"[5]

After finishing Mrs. Stanton's letter Miss Anthony presented her own greeting, in the course of which she said:

"If the divine law visits the sins of the parents upon the children, equally so does it transmit to them the virtues of the parents. Therefore if it is through woman's ignorant subjection to man's appetites and passions that the life current of the race is corrupted, then must it be through her intelligent emancipation that it shall be purified and her children rise up and call her blessed.... I am a full and firm believer in the revelation that it is through woman the race is to be redeemed. For this reason I ask for her immediate and unconditional emancipation from all political, industrial, social and religious subjection. It is said, 'Men are what their mothers made them,' but I say that to hold mothers responsible for the characters of their sons while denying to them any control over the surroundings of the sons' lives is worse than mockery, it is cruelty. Responsibilities grow out of rights and powers. Therefore before mothers can rightfully be held responsible for the vices and crimes, for the general demoralization of society, they must possess all possible rights and powers to control the conditions and circumstances of their own and their children's lives."

The audience then listened with keen appreciation to the president's address, during which she said: "If I were asked what are the great obstacles to the speedy enfranchisement of women I should answer: There are three; the first is militarism, which once dominated the entire thought of the world and made its history. Although its old power is gone and its influence upon public thought grows constantly less, it still molds the opinions of millions of people and holds them to the old ideals of force in government and headship in the family. The second obstacle is the unconscious, unmeasured influence upon the estimate in which women as a whole are held that emanates from that most debasing of our evil institutions, prostitution.... The third great cause is the inertia in the growth of democracy which has come as a reaction following the aggressive movements that with possibly ill-advised haste enfranchised the foreigner, the negro and the Indian. Perilous conditions, seeming to follow from the introduction into the body politic of vast numbers of irresponsible citizens, have made the nation timid. These three influences, born of centuries of tradition, shape every opinion of the opponents of woman suffrage. Not an objection, argument or excuse can be urged against the movement which may not be traced to one of these causes."

At the close of Mrs. Catt's address Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford of Denver presented her with a handsome gavel in behalf of the suffrage association of Colorado. The gavel was made of Colorado silver and the settings and engravings of Colorado gold. In one side was a Colorado amethyst, and the Colorado flower, the columbine, was burned into the gavel by a Colorado girl. Mrs. Bradford said she wished Mrs. Catt the good luck said to follow the possessor of an amethyst, who "shall speak the right word at the right time." She presented it as an expression of gratitude for her aid in their successful suffrage campaign of 1893. "We are apt to attribute everything good in Colorado to woman suffrage," said Mrs. Catt in response, "but in my secret mind I think much of it is due to the progressiveness of the Colorado men. They must be better than other men or they would not have enfranchised their women. I cannot love Colorado any better than I do but I shall always value this gavel as a precious souvenir of that wonderful campaign."

In her report as vice-president at large the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw said regarding her many suffrage speeches during the year: "The manager of a bureau lately said to me: 'If you would only give up for a time the two reforms in which you are most interested, woman suffrage and prohibition, you could earn enough money on the regular lecture platform in a few years to live on for the rest of your life.' Any woman who does not live for unselfish service is a useless cumberer of the earth. I would rather be known as an advocate of equal suffrage and starve than to speak every night on the best-paying platforms in the United States and ignore it."

The first evening of the convention was opened with prayer by the Rev. Marion H. Shutter.[6] The audience was far beyond the seating capacity of the large church and in presenting the official speakers Mrs. Catt said: "This is a great contrast to the early days when we did not use to be welcomed because we were not welcome. Now we are welcomed wherever we go but not often, as here, by the representative of a whole State." Governor Samuel R. Van Sant gave a hearty western greeting, which, he said, he wanted to make as cordial as he could express it and as broad as the State he lived in. He made this point among others: "You are doing a splendid work and the reason you do not get the ballot sooner is because you do not convert your own sex. I know for I have been a member of the Legislature. If you wanted to vote as much as you want other things you would go there and block the legislators so they couldn't get to their seats." Mayor Albert A. Ames extended the welcome of the city and declared his belief in woman suffrage. Former Mayor William Henry Eustis ended his address in behalf of the Commercial Club and Board of Trade by saying: "Commercial bodies are temporary but a great movement like this is eternal." Former Mayor James Gray, representing the press, assured them of its coöperation and said that from a dozen to twenty women were doing important work on the papers of the city. Mrs. Maud C. Stockwell, president of the State Suffrage Association, welcomed them to "the hearts of the women of Minneapolis."

Dr. Shaw closed the evening with a stirring address on An Invisible Foe, in which she referred to the many refusals they had had from the anti-suffrage leaders to come to the convention and debate the question. She accused them of wearing a khaki-colored uniform to conceal themselves from the foe and declared they were always careful to make their attacks when the enemy was not present, saying: "The anti-suffragists are not fighting woman suffrage, they are fighting the ideals of democracy and leaning toward an aristocracy. Take note of the words they use to designate the people, 'mob,' 'hordes,' etc. They look at the people as not only incapable and ignorant now but so for all time and they never learn that in the heart of every individual in the mob lie the forces which make for martyrs or for brutes." "From point to point through long and close argument the brilliant speaker moved with lightning velocity," said a press report. "She called up the anti-suffrage arguments made by the Rev. Samuel G. Smith of St. Paul, in his recent series of sermons on women, and laughed to scorn their plea for 'the days of chivalry,' which, she said, were a man's protection of his own women against other men. Woman must work out God's ideal of what a woman should be and she cannot do it until she is absolutely free as man is free."