The enfranchisement of women would insure immediate and durable white supremacy, honestly attained, for upon unquestioned authority it is stated that in every southern State but one there are more educated women than all the illiterate voters, white and black, native and foreign, combined. As you probably know, of all the women in the South who can read and write, ten out of every eleven are white. When it comes to the proportion of property between the races, that of the white outweighs that of the black immeasurably. The South is slow to grasp the great fact that the enfranchisement of women would settle the race question in politics. The civilization of the North is threatened by the influx of foreigners with their imported customs; by the greed of monopolistic wealth and the unrest among the working classes; by the strength of the liquor traffic and encroachments upon religious belief. Some day the North will be compelled to look to the South for redemption from those evils on account of the purity of its Anglo-Saxon blood, the simplicity of its social and economic structure, the great advance in prohibitory law and the maintenance of the sanctity of its faith, which has been kept inviolate. Just as surely as the North will be forced to turn to the South for the nation's salvation, just so surely will the South be compelled to look to its Anglo-Saxon women as the medium through which to retain the supremacy of the white race over the African.
Miss Kearney's speech was enthusiastically received and at its end Mrs. Catt said she had been getting many letters from persons hesitating to join the association lest it should admit clubs of colored people. "We recognize States' rights," she said, "and Louisiana has the right to regulate the membership of its own association, but it has not the right to regulate that of Massachusetts or vice versa," and she continued: "We are all of us apt to be arrogant on the score of our Anglo-Saxon blood but we must remember that ages ago the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons were regarded as so low and embruted that the Romans refused to have them for slaves. The Anglo-Saxon is the dominant race today but things may change. The race that will be dominant through the ages will be the one that proves itself the most worthy.... Miss Kearney is right in saying that the race problem is the problem of the whole country and not that of the South alone. The responsibility for it is partly ours but if the North shipped slaves to the South and sold them, remember that the North has sent some money since then into the South to help undo part of the wrong that it did to you and to them. Let us try to get nearer together and to understand each other's ideas on the race question and solve it together."
Mrs. Maud Wood Park (Mass.), who was introduced to the audience as "a very unpopular woman with the anti-suffragists," did not prove to be so with her audience, as in her brief address she charmed every one with her beauty and womanliness and convinced by her delicate wit and keen logic. The last address was made by the Rev. Ida C. Hultin (Mass.), an eloquent summing up of the arguments for woman suffrage, given with a dignity of manner and sweetness of words which thoroughly eliminated any unpleasant feelings that might have been created and diffused a spirit of forgiveness and consecration.
At the conclusion of the program, Mrs. Upton came forward and in the name of the officers of the association presented to Miss Kate Gordon a handsome loving cup with the injunction to "handle it carefully as it is filled to the brim with love"; and to Miss Jean Gordon a large bouquet of roses, "in appreciation of the perfect arrangements that had been made for the convention." The Picayune said: "The two sisters stood side by side on the stage, a picture of feminine loveliness and grace. They tried to speak but their hearts were too full and Miss Kate could only express in a few words their thanks for these tokens of affection and esteem."
All the expenses of the convention had been met by the citizens and the collections had more than paid the travelling expenses of the officers. Nothing had been left undone for the entertainment of the visitors. The New Orleans Street Railway Company gave a trip of several hours in special cars, taking them to Audubon Park and Horticultural Hall, through the handsome residence sections, to the Esplanade, City Park and famous cemeteries. They visited the Howard and Fisk libraries, the Southern Yacht Club, the Exposition and the antiquarian shops. An unusual experience was the boat trip on the Mississippi, tendered by the Progressive Union. On a fine sunshiny morning the several hundred visitors assembled in the palm garden of the St. Charles Hotel, walked to the rooms of the Union and from there to the steamer Alice. They crossed to Algiers, passed the French quarter with the Ursuline Convent, the Stuyvesant Docks, the historic houses and monuments, and saw the great Naval Docks, the large sugar plantations with their big live oaks and magnolias, the immense sugar and oil refineries and met a fleet of huge ocean steamers. Lunch was served on board and the occasion was most interesting, especially to the delegates from the North.
Although this was the longest suffrage convention ever held and the sessions were crowded, the people wanted more. The Progressive Union arranged for meetings Thursday night, to be addressed by Mrs. Catt on The Home and the Municipality, and Friday night by Dr. Shaw on The Fate of Republics. The Athenæum Hall, seating 1,200, was overflowing and as many were gathered on the outside. It was a ten days never to be forgotten by the visitors or the residents, and the convention undoubtedly gave a decided impetus to favorable sentiment for woman suffrage in that section of the South.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Part of Call: The association goes to New Orleans in response to an invitation from the Progressive Union, the Era Club of women and many prominent individuals. It is especially appropriate that the advocates of this important reform should assemble in Louisiana in honor of the action taken by this State in 1898, when its constitutional convention incorporated a clause giving to tax-paying women a vote on all questions of taxation submitted to the electors; and in commemoration of the splendid use they made of this privilege at the election held to secure to New Orleans the completion of its drainage and the establishment of a sewerage system and free water supply....
Never in the fifty years of this movement have its advocates had such a victory to record as was achieved in Australia in June, 1902, when almost the first act of Parliament of the new Federation of States was to confer the full national suffrage with the right to a seat in the Parliament on all qualified women of the entire commonwealth. This one act enfranchised about 800,000. These added to those of New Zealand and of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho, it will be found that 1,125,000 English-speaking women are at the present time in possession of the complete suffrage and all except those of Wyoming have been enfranchised within the past ten years. By adding to these the women of Great Britain and Ireland, who have all except the Parliamentary vote, those of Kansas with Municipal, of Louisiana, Montana, and New York with the Tax-payers' and of over one-half of the States with the school ballot, the 1,125,000 will be multiplied several times....
It is, therefore, with courage and hope inspired by the glorious promise of the new century for greater material and moral progress in all directions than the world has ever known, that the advocates of this measure, which ultimately will affect the destinies of the whole American people, are called in convention to review the labor of the past year, to plan that of the future, to strengthen the old comradeship and greet new workers and friends.