The interest did not diminish during the eight evening sessions. In his invocation Monday night the Rev. Wallace T. Palmer said: "O Lord, we account it a high honor and privilege to take part in this grand work.... May those who are to speak tonight speak for Thy glory and honor."[26] Dr. Shaw presided Monday and thus introduced the first speaker: "Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago is an attorney and the wife of an attorney. The sign on the door is 'McCulloch and McCulloch.' My interest in the firm dates from the time when I performed the ceremony that united them for life." Mrs. McCulloch began her address on Woman's Privileges by saying: "One of the principal reasons why women do not obtain the ballot is because there is rooted in the popular mind the notion that now the laws in all respects are so favorable to women and grant them such great privileges that they would gain nothing more by a vote but instead might lose these privileges. A careful investigation of laws relating to women's property, earnings, rights of action, eligibility to paying positions, selection of family home, guardianship of children and many others where women's interests are involved shows that these so-called privileges usually give women less than men enjoy in the same States and that the vote in their own hands is the only assurance of equal privilege." After referring to the laws in other States Mrs. McCulloch made a thorough analysis of those relating to women in Louisiana, showing them to be archaic and unjust and wholly without special privileges.
The address of M. J. Sanders, president of the Progressive Union, was enthusiastically received as representing the best thought of advanced Southern men. He said in beginning: "I believe my own state of mind on the woman suffrage question when I attended your first public meeting last Thursday evening represented fairly the average male opinion in this city—one of moderate ignorance and considerable indifference. Since listening to the addresses here I have had my ignorance largely dispelled and my indifference dissipated, I hope forever. It has been my lot to attend meetings all over the country but never in my life have I heard such eloquence, such logic and such glorious oratory as in this hall during this convention. A cause that can bring forth such talent and devotion must have in it a great truth.... I have come now to see that the franchise is not an end but a means to an end; that the object of these women is not merely to escape injustice done to themselves but to be able to take part in the great work of reform which is calling for the best energies of the nation. I have seen sufficient of the women who are working in this fight for suffrage to believe that hand-in-hand with earnest men, as co-workers and equals, in no way subordinate, they can furnish brains and power to remove a vast load of the iniquities and inequalities of life and even in our generation lift this country to a plane of civilization wherein the masses shall have a chance for happiness and freedom."
In explaining the absence of Dr. Julia Holmes Smith of Chicago Dr. Shaw said: "She is detained because of illness of her husband and like a good wife she puts him first and the convention second." Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (N. Y.) spoke on the Duties of Today, outlining her address by saying: "The strongest feeling of most women is the sense of duty. The reason they do not see the practicability and immediate need of suffrage is because they do not see the duty of it. There is a gradual development of the sense of duty. The first duty that we recognize is that of self-preservation—our duty to ourselves. Then comes duty to our own, to our family, to those dear to us, before which duty to self must and does go down unfailingly. These two duties to one's self and to one's family are the foundation but they are the beginning of life, not the end of it. Next comes social duty.... In America we rank high in personal and family virtues but not in public virtues. Our great need is for the deep and broad civic virtues...."
An interesting symposium took place one afternoon on The Need of Women in Municipal Politics, with the following speakers: Mrs. Marie Louise Graham (La.), City Politics is but a Broader Housekeeping; Mrs. Carrie E. Kent (D. C.), The Home—the Ballot the Only Weapon for its Defence; the Rev. Kate Hughes (Ill.), Justice Dictates, Expediency Confirms; Dr. Sarah M. Siewers (O.), Men's and Women's Votes the Only True Basis of Reform; Miss Laura E. Gregg (Kans.), The Stepping Stone to a Yet Untried System of Government; Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg (Penn.), Municipal Corruption under the Present System a National Disgrace. Each topic was treated in a keen, incisive manner. Miss Gregg described the practical benefit that the women's municipal vote had been to Kansas. Dr. Siewers gave a dramatic illustration of the need of women's votes in her own city of Cincinnati, which applied with equal force to all cities. Mrs. Blankenburg emphasized all that had been said by an account of conditions in Philadelphia, saying:
Franchises worth millions of dollars are given away to the faithful. Contracts are let to those who will divide with high officials; they are granted to the highest "responsive" and not to the lowest "responsible" bidder. Merchants of vice are licensed and protected. The police are ordered to be blind when they should see keenest. Nearly every office has its price. Even school teachers are blackmailed and forced to pay for their appointment and civil service fades before political influence. The assessors' lists are padded by tens of thousands of dollars and majorities are returned to keep the "machine" and the party it represents in power, regardless of the actual vote cast.... The cry of the reformer is, "We must waken the better element to save our cities. We must make honesty and morality the supreme question in our politics." Who represents these if not women?... Let us for the moment think of a great city where the mothers have a voice in the laws which are designed to protect the children and the interests of the home. Imagine the burdens of city housekeeping being shared with the women who by training are expert housekeepers. Picture a council meeting composed of fathers and mothers discussing ordinances to promote honesty and virtue, prevent vice and extinguish corruption. When this time comes, we shall have less municipal depravity and shall prove to the world that our experiment in democracy is not a failure.
Dr. Augusta Stowe-Gullen, a prominent physician of Toronto and an early suffragist, who had come as a fraternal delegate from the Canadian Association, spoke of the excellent results of the School and Municipal vote in the hands of women. "We have better officials," she said, "and therefore less dishonesty but the greatest gain has been in the educative and broadening effect on women and men. The polls, which used to be even in old stables, are now in the school houses and the general tone of elections has been improved." Later Dr. Stowe-Gullen gave a long and thoughtful address at an evening session on The Evolution of Government.
The Memorial Service on March 21 was opened with prayer by the Rev. Marie Jenney and the singing of "The Lord is my shepherd," by Miss Gordon. Mrs. Catt, who presided, paid eloquent tribute to those who had died during the year, among them Mrs. Esther Morris, to whom the women of Wyoming were principally indebted for the suffrage in 1869; to the Hon. Thomas B. Reed of Maine, one of the most distinguished Speakers of the lower House of Congress and always a staunch supporter of woman suffrage; to Madame Sophie Levovna Friedland, delegate from Russia to the International Woman Suffrage Conference the preceding year, who died soon after returning home; to Dr. Hannah Longshore, the first woman physician in Philadelphia, and told of the bitter opposition she had to overcome, adding: "She gave to the Pennsylvania Association its splendid president, her daughter, Mrs. Blankenburg." Mrs. Catt spoke also of Mrs. Cornelia Collins Hussey of New Jersey and her boundless generosity, saying: "Often and often she sent a hundred dollars to our treasury with a note: 'I have just sold a piece of real estate and I want to give a part of the proceeds to the suffrage cause.'" Miss Blackwell added to the tribute: "A quiet woman of Quaker blood, never seeking office or prominence, she came to the relief of our distressed officers on innumerable occasions. She once told me that there were many who could write and speak for equal suffrage but that the Lord seemed to have given her only one talent, that of making money, and she meant to use it for the cause.... She was a great believer in preaching the gospel of reform through the printed page and she and her daughter, Dr. Mary D. Hussey, who was like-minded with her, have sent out probably more equal suffrage literature than any other two women in the United States. She placed the Woman's Journal in a great number of college reading-rooms and sent it far and wide. During the thirty-three years that the paper has been published—and published always at a financial loss—she has been one of its most steadfast and generous friends."[27]
"The palm of victory has come this year to Elizabeth Cady Stanton," said Mrs. Catt, "but though she has gone it is still our privilege to have her friend and co-worker, Susan B. Anthony, and I echo the prayer of every heart that she may be here till all women are enfranchised." Miss Anthony was most affectionately greeted and said: "I feel indeed as if a part of my life had gone. Mrs. Stanton always said that when the parting came she wanted me to go first, so that she might write my eulogy. I am not a 'word-artist,' as she was, and I can not give hers in fitting terms." She read from the last volume of the History of Woman Suffrage extracts from her great speeches and related a number of instances showing her characteristics. Dr. Shaw then began a eulogy, which can only be marred in quoting from memory, by saying: "Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony and Lucy Stone held up the standard of truth and when they were urged to lower it in order to suit the ideas of the world they answered: 'We will not lower our standard to the level of your world; bring the world up to the standard.' ... I shall always be thankful that I lived in the present age and knew these women who never quailed in the face of danger. The side of Mrs. Stanton that I like best to think of is her home life, her family affections and her friendships. I was once a guest for several days in the same house with her and other leaders and she was so vivacious, so fresh, so full of joy of life that it was delightful to be with her. She was so witty that no one wanted to leave the room a minute for fear of losing something she might say. I used to love to see her after she took a nap; though so advanced in years she would always awaken with a look of wonder and pleasure like a child just gazing out upon life."[28]
Tributes also were paid to Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer of Massachusetts; Mrs. Thomas M. Patterson of Colorado; the Hon. Albert H. Horton of Kansas; Mrs. Addie M. Johnson of Missouri; Miss Anna C. Mott of Ohio; the Hon. Lester H. Humphrey and Mrs. Hannah L. Howland of New York; Dr. Marie Zakrzewska of Massachusetts and other workers in the cause. Mrs. Gilman closed the services by reading her beautiful memorial poem, In Honor, written for the occasion.
A unique feature of the convention which lightened its serious tone was Dr. Shaw's "question box," into which any one might drop a question and at intervals she would take them out and answer them on the spur of the moment to the delight of her audience. "If women voted," was one of them, "would they not have to sit on juries?" "Many women would be glad of a chance to sit on anything," she answered with a smile. "There are women who stand up and wash six days in the week at 75 cents a day who would like to take a vacation and sit on a jury at $1.50. Some women would like to sit on a jury at the trial of the sharks that live by corrupting boys and girls. It would be easier for a woman to sit on a jury and send to the penitentiary the men who are trying to ruin her boy than to be always watching the boy." Another question was: "Have not men a better right to the suffrage because they have to support the family?" She answered: "It is fallacy to say that the men support the women. The men by their industry provide the raw material and the women by their industry turn it into clothing and nourishment. When my father sent home a barrel of flour my mother did not lead us eight youngsters up to that barrel of raw flour at mealtime and say, 'Children, here is your dinner.' When he bought a bolt of cloth she did not take that bolt of cloth and wind it around us and say, 'Children, here are the clothes your father has sent you.' The woman has always done her full share of supporting the family. In the South under the old régime she bore more than an equal part of the care, for the planter could hire an overseer for the plantation work but the wife could not hire one for the work of the house."