Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, who had been the corresponding secretary of the association for twenty-one years, had insisted that she should be allowed to resign from the office. A pleasant incident not on the program took place one morning during the convention when Miss Anthony came to the front of the platform and said: "I have in my hand a thousand dollars for Rachel Foster Avery. It has been contributed without her knowledge by about four hundred different persons; most of you are on the list. I asked for this testimonial because I felt that you would all rejoice to show your appreciation of her long and faithful services and her great liberality to the cause. I should never have been able to carry on the work of the society as its president for so many years but for her able coöperation. She thinks she cannot talk but we know that she can work. She has done the drudgery of this association for more than twenty years and I hope the woman who will be chosen in her place, whoever she may be, will be as consecrated and free from all self-seeking."
Miss Kate M. Gordon, president of the Era Club of New Orleans, was almost unanimously elected as corresponding secretary. The only other change in the official board was the retirement of Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch as second auditor and the election of Dr. Cora Smith Eaton in her place. In referring later to Dr. Eaton, Mr. Blackwell said: "In my attendance upon thirty-three successive annual national conventions I have never seen one with such complete and faithful preparation by the local committee and such abundant and cordial welcome.... It seemed natural to recognize the generous hospitality thus extended to the convention by the people of Minnesota by choosing Dr. Eaton of Minneapolis, chairman of this local committee, as one of the auditors for the coming year."[11]
A closely reasoned address on the Ethics of Suffrage was made by Louis F. Post of Chicago, in the course of which he said:
Suffrage is a right, not a privilege. That it is a right of every individual is the only basis for women's demanding it. If it is not a right but a privilege that may be granted to men and withheld from women, be granted to the white and withheld from the black, be given to those who have red hair and kept from those with black hair; if it may be rightfully given to the millionaire and kept from the day laborer; rightfully extended to those who can read and withheld from those who cannot, or to those with a college education and from those who have only a common-school education—if these are the only bases on which women claim a share in government, then the fundamental argument for woman suffrage disappears.
Reason back far enough on the privilege line of argument and you soon come to that fetish of tradition, the divine right of kings. So if you cannot put your claim on any better ground than privilege you would better not go on.... Being a right, it is also a duty. He who has a right to maintain has a duty to perform. This is the firm rock upon which woman suffrage must rest. It must be demanded because women are members of the community, because they have common interests in the common property and affairs of the community; in a word, they have rights in the community and duties toward it which are the same as the rights and duties of every other sane person of mature age who keeps out of the penitentiary.
An unexpected pleasure was a brief address by Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, a veteran suffragist and prominent physician of New York, who was attending the convention of the American Medical Association. She based her argument for equal suffrage on the injustice practiced toward women physicians when they seek the opportunity for hospital practice. Mrs. F. W. Hunt, wife of the Governor of Idaho, testified to the good results of woman suffrage in that State for the past five years. Others who gave addresses were the Rev. Alice Ball Loomis (Wis.), The Feminine Doctor in Society; Mrs. Lydia Phillips Williams, president of the Minnesota Federation of Clubs, Growth and Greetings; Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert (Ill.), For the Sake of the Child; Miss Frances Griffin (Ala.), A Southern Tour; the Rev. Olympia Brown (Wis.), The Tabooed Trio; Mrs. Annie L. Digges (Kas.), The Duty of the Hour; Miss Laura A. Gregg (Neb.), Who Will Defend the Flag?; the Rev. Celia Parker Woolley (Ill.), Woman's Worth in the Community; the Rev. William B. Riley (Minn.), Woman's Rights and Political Righteousness.[12]
An inadequate newspaper account of the very able address of Miss Gail Laughlin (N. Y.), on The Industrial Laggard, said:
Miss Laughlin described the nineteenth as the industrial century of which the factory was a notable product and co-operation the spirit. Men were trained to do one thing well and by division of labor the maximum result was attained with the minimum expenditure of labor and capital. This principal of division of labor has been applied everywhere except in the household, the field which especially concerns women. Household labor is outside the current of industrial progress. It is not even recognized as an industrial problem because it is not a wealth-producing industry. Students of economics will sometime understand that the industries which consume wealth should receive attention as well as those which produce it. Business principles are not applied to the domestic service problem. There are no business hours. The person is hired, not the labor. One woman described the situation: "If you have a girl, you want her, no matter at what time." There is no standard of work and the result is confusion worse confounded. The servant's goings-out and comings-in are watched and she has no hours to herself. Is it any wonder that so many women prefer to go into factory life at less pay but where they can have some hours of their own?
The report of the Committee on Legislation for Civil Rights, Mrs. Laura M. Johns (Kans.), chairman, showed that it had been in correspondence with many State associations which were working for the repeal of bad laws and the enactment of good ones; for raising the age of consent; for child-labor bills; for women physicians in State institutions; for women on school boards and in high educational positions and for many other civil and legal measures. Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby's report on Industrial Problems affecting Women and Children showed much diligent research into the discriminations against women in the business and educational world and gave many flagrant instances. "In Government positions," she said, "this was clearly due to their lack of a vote."
The Government departments at Washington are almost entirely governed by politics and women are greatly discriminated against, notwithstanding civil service rules. The report of A. R. Severn, chief examiner for the Civil Service Commission, shows that during the last ten years less than ten per cent. of the women who have passed the examinations have been appointed, while more than 25 per cent. of the men who passed obtained positions. To prevent the possibility of women obtaining high-class positions the examinations for these are not open to women. Of the 58 employments for which examinations were held, women were admitted to only 22. The per cent. of women employed of those who had passed was 13 in 1898; 6 per cent. in 1899, and lower in 1900, not a woman being appointed to a clerk's position from the waiting list. The Post Office Department in the last year sent out an order that women should not be made distributing clerks wherever it was possible to appoint men.... Legislation for the protection of children has been defeated in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina. In the factories of Birmingham, it is stated, children of six and seven are obliged to be at work by 5:30 a.m. and to work twelve hours daily, attending spindles for ten cents a day. Jane Addams says she knows from personal observations that in certain States the conditions of child labor are as bad as they were in England half a century ago. In the great cotton mills at Columbia, S. C., she found a little girl scarcely five years old doing night work thirteen hours at a stretch, for three days in the week.