The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V

by Unknown

The proposition to demand of immigrants a reading and writing qualification on landing strikes me as arbitrary and equally detrimental to our mutual interests. The danger is not in their landing and living in this country but in their speedy appearance at the ballot-box, there becoming an impoverished and ignorant balance of power in the hands of wily politicians. While we should not allow our country to be a dumping-ground for the refuse population of the old world, still we should welcome all hardy, common-sense laborers here, as we have plenty of room and work for them.... The one demand I would make for this class is that they should not become a part of our ruling power until they can read and write the English language intelligently and understand the principles of republican government.... To prevent the thousands of immigrants daily landing on our shores from marching from the steerage to the polls the national Government should prohibit the States from allowing them to vote in less than five years and not then unless the applicant can read and write the English language.... To this end, Congress should enact a law for "educated suffrage" for our native-born as well as foreign rulers, alike ignorant of our institutions. With free schools and compulsory education, no one has an excuse for not understanding the language of the country. As women are governed by a "male aristocracy" we are doubly interested in having our rulers able at least to read and write.

The popular objection to woman suffrage is that it would "double the ignorant vote." The patent answer to this is, abolish the ignorant vote. Our legislators have this power in their own hands. There have been various restrictions in the past for men. We are willing to abide by the same for women, provided the insurmountable qualification of sex be forever removed.... Surely, when we compel all classes to learn to read and write and thus open to themselves the door of knowledge not by force but by the promise of a privilege all intelligent citizens enjoy, we are benefactors, not tyrants. To stimulate them to climb the first rounds of the ladder that they may reach the divine heights where they shall be as gods, knowing good and evil, by withholding the citizen's right to vote for a few years will be a blessing to them as well as to the State....

Mrs. Stanton had made her last address in person to a national convention in 1892, when she resigned the presidency of the association—that incomparable essay on The Solitude of Self—but she never had failed to send her annual battle cry. The one to this convention, which began the fulfilment of her dream of a world-wide movement for woman suffrage, was written with all her old-time logic and forceful argument and it proved to be her last, as her long and valuable life was ended the next November.

Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton (O.) read the paper of Mrs. Caroline Hallowell Miller (Md.), detained at the last moment, on Why We Come Again, in which she explained why the suffragists would continue to come to Washington and haunt Congress until their object, a Federal Amendment, had been attained. The humor for which Mrs. Miller, a staid "Quaker," was noted sparkled in its sentences although she protested that she was entirely serious. Miss Anthony introduced Henry B. Blackwell (Mass.) with the quaint remark: "He was the husband of Lucy Stone; I don't think he can quite represent her but he will do the best he can!" Mr. Blackwell briefly reviewed the agitation for women suffrage during the first half of the 19th century. He told of meeting Lucy Stone in 1850 and being so charmed he advised his elder brother to make her acquaintance; of hearing her address a Massachusetts constitutional convention in 1852 with William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips; of making his own first suffrage speech in Cleveland, O., in 1853 and of his marriage in 1855. In presenting the next speaker Miss Anthony said: "Mr. Blackwell alluded to his brother, who did not marry Lucy but Antoinette—the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first ordained woman minister—who will now address you." Her paper on Chivalry was a clear analysis of the changed ideas of this word, touching with sarcasm on that of the days when the effort for the rights of women began, a chivalry which gave the person and property of the wife, the guardianship of the children, all her legal privileges, to the husband. She traced the evolution from the early privations of the pioneer suffragists to the honors that are now showered upon them and drew a striking contrast between "the dying old chivalry, which made itself the sole umpire of the benefits to be granted, and the increasing new chivalry, which consults the beneficiaries themselves as to their needs and desires."

Miss Anthony then introduced the first woman ordained by the Universalist Church, the Rev. Olympia Brown, who struck the keynote of her address in saying: "When we are vexed by the seeming irrationality of some of our Congressmen, may we not explain it as due to the fact that they are thinking of the kind of men who elected them? The United States debars intelligent American women from voting and says to the riffraff of Europe, 'Come over and help govern us.' It is an experiment which no other country in the world ever did make and no other ever will make and I predict that it will be a failure. It will be necessary to call in the aid of the intelligent American women and soon or late this will be done."

Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller, daughter of the noted Abolitionist, Gerrit Smith, was asked to rise and Miss Anthony paid glowing tribute to him and to many men and women who had stood by the cause of woman suffrage in its early days. The audience were pleased to enjoy once more her informal and unique method of presiding, as glancing over the audience she singled out veteran suffragists who had come to hear and not to speak, calling them by name with some reminiscent comment. Her eye fell upon William H. Bright, who sponsored the bill in the Legislature of Wyoming which gave the first equal suffrage ever granted anywhere to women. In answering the demand of the audience for a speech he told how Mrs. Esther Morris had come from New York State to Wyoming in 1867 and how she and his wife had persuaded him to prepare the bill, which was passed by a Democratic Legislature and signed by a Republican Governor. In response to a general request Miss Anthony told the story, of which audiences never seemed to tire, of that historic occasion when she broke all precedents by addressing a Teachers' Convention in 1853. This interesting session closed with the singing of Auld Lang Syne led by the venerable John Hutchinson.

During a morning session Miss Gordon made her report as corresponding secretary, saying that although it covered only the seven months since the last convention it showed that 6,500 letters had been sent out from the headquarters during this period. In 1895, when Mrs. Catt became chairman of the Organization Committee, she had established headquarters for her work in one little room in the New York World building, that was really an annex of her husband's offices, and begun the publication of a Bulletin, which was the organ of the committee. In 1897 it became the organ of the National Association and had now expanded into a quarterly paper called Progress, which was edited by Alice Stone Blackwell, Ellis Meredith and Laura Gregg. A preliminary edition of 100,000 had been sent out from the headquarters, the expense borne by Boston women, and later 16,000 copies of the October and 20,000 of the January editions had gone to the 14,000 newspapers of the country, to members of Congress and others. A monthly series of Political Equality Leaflets was also commenced and a Course of Study for Clubs and individuals was established for which a dozen or more books were published. These two valuable features were carried on without any expense to the association, as they paid for themselves.

Miss Gordon described the National Conference held in Charleston, S. C., February 3-4, at the invitation of the board of the Inter-State and West Indian Exposition; told of the conference in Baltimore[19] and said of the one in Buffalo: "The far-reaching effect and impetus given to the woman's movement by the Congress of Women held in connection with the Chicago Exposition, determined the Business Committee's acceptance of an invitation to hold a National Conference during the Pan-American Exposition. Too late did we learn that the invitation extended included no responsibility whatever upon the Exposition to further the success of the conference. Buffalo did not represent an organized center and after several fruitless attempts to form a local committee, the headquarters realized that every little detail essential to success must be attended to by the board. From all sides reports of the most discouraging nature were received as to the absolute failure attending all conferences there but nevertheless we started a vigorous correspondence and for five preceding weeks every Sunday paper in Buffalo was supplied with matter from headquarters. To make a long story short, September 9-10 witnessed our conference well attended, with the night sessions crowded and success acknowledged on all sides, even though we labored under the disadvantage of its being held during the season of sorrow and distress in that city while President McKinley's life hovered in the valley of the shadow of death."

Miss Gordon said that during the year Mrs. Catt had made a tour of nine States and taken part in forty meetings. Referring to the efforts made to have a woman suffrage clause put into new constitutions that were being framed in several States she said: "The clause which lived twenty-four hours in the Alabama Constitution, granting to taxpaying women owning $500 worth of property the suffrage on questions of bonded indebtedness, was killed by a disease peculiar to the genus homo known as chivalry. In the case in point, the diagnosis revealed that the fairest, purest and brightest jewels that ever shone under the brilliant rays of God's shining sun would be immeasurably lowered by voting upon questions relating to the taxation of their own property. Yet, under the vagaries of this disease, this same convention conferred on husbands the right to vote on their wives' property. This is the same character of chivalry which gives the wages of the brightest, fairest jewels to the husband, which makes impossible equal pay for equal work and which classes the jewels with the idiots, insane and criminals in that and other States."

The program was so crowded with attractions that it left no time for the usual conferences on work and campaigns, so they were placed at 9:30 a.m. As they had been so largely attended by visitors the preceding year as to call forth a rule from the Board of Officers that thereafter delegates only should be permitted to attend them, this was not disastrous. Early morning conferences therefore were held on Organization and Press and two others took the form of State presidents' councils. The Plan of Work recommended again by the Executive Committee and adopted by the convention urged work in Congressional districts for the 16th Amendment; an attempt to secure tax-paying suffrage; more resolutions by national and State conventions; a campaign to secure suffrage speakers at Chautauqua assemblies and State and county fairs; prizes for essays on woman suffrage in schools and colleges; circulating suffrage libraries and the general use of a suffrage stamp on letters.