[33] The Washington Times said: "Mrs. Upton is one of the most popular women in the suffrage movement and her energy is a matter of many years' history. If financial support is to be obtained from States, societies or individuals there is no one more capable of extracting generous subscriptions...." The Star said: "Mrs. Upton has served as treasurer many years. She is energetic, zealous, tactful, possesses a remarkable insight of human nature and is greatly admired. She is president of the Ohio Suffrage Association and member of the Warren board of education. Before she became so engrossed in suffrage she did a great deal of literary work. Her father, Ezra B. Taylor, succeeded Garfield in Congress and she was with him during his thirteen years in office. Miss Anthony always relied on him for advice and assistance."
[34] There was a large amount of unimpeachable testimony that the women had no part in these election frauds. Mr. Shafroth himself said: "The frauds were committed in a bad part of Denver where few women live. To represent them as characteristic of women's election methods in Colorado is an outrage." A prominent Denver lawyer, who was then in Washington, was interviewed on the subject and said: "That 'Exhibit 64' (relating to the alleged frauds by women) was not competent evidence and would have been thrown out by any court. The woman who accused herself and other women of cheating did not stay to be cross-examined; she simply made her affidavit and 'skipped out.' Everything tends to the belief that she was in the employ of the opposite party."
The president of the League for Honest Elections in Denver, when stating that about thirty arrests had been made in connection with the frauds, said: "Of those arrested and bound over, only one is a woman. We believe that she is the least guilty of all and whatever connection she had with the election in her precinct was as the passive instrument of the men in charge of the fraudulent work at that place. Of the persons for whom warrants have been issued but not yet served, only one is a woman. She was a clerk in one of the lower precincts and we understand has left the city. I may say, as a result of my own experience in connection with this League, I find that women have practically nothing to do with fraudulent work."
[35] A Miss Elizabeth McCracken had been sent to Colorado by the Outlook to prepare an article on woman suffrage, which it published. The statements in it were universally repudiated by the press and the people of that State. Mrs. Grenfell said of it at this convention: "It is as absurd to refute her assertions as to reply to Baron Munchausen or to insist that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland never happened. Such conditions as she describes do not exist in Colorado."
CHAPTER V.
NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1905.
Until 1905 the national suffrage conventions had never been held further west than Des Moines, Ia. (1897), but this year the innovation was made of going to the Pacific Coast for the Thirty-seventh annual meeting, June 28-July 5,[36] at the invitation of the managers of the Lewis and Clark Exposition held in Portland, Ore. It was a delightful experience from the beginning, as the delegates from the East and Middle West met in Chicago and had three special cars from there. The Chicago Woman's Club gave a large reception in the afternoon of June 23 for Miss Anthony, the officers and delegates. They took the train that night; Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt joined them in Iowa and others along the way, as it sped westward. The newspapers had given it wide publicity and they were greeted by suffragists at many places. The Political Equality Club of Boone, Ia., brought large bouquets for Miss Anthony, Dr. Shaw and Mrs. Catt, who made brief speeches from the rear platform. The colored porter listened attentively and said: "Well, that settles me; I am for woman suffrage," and afterwards diligently circulated copies of the Woman's Journal on the train. Another ovation awaited them at Council Bluffs. The train waited half an hour at Omaha and the women of the Political Equality Club, the W. C. T. U. and the Woman's Club united in a demonstration. A platform had been improvised and their presidents expressed a welcome to which responses were made by Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, Dr. Shaw, the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Miss Laura Clay and Mr. and Miss Blackwell, editors of the Woman's Journal, while reporters were busy getting interviews. They returned to the train laden with flowers, which they distributed, sending buttonhole bouquets to the engineer, fireman and all the crew.
The train was delayed two hours at Cheyenne and former U. S. Senator Joseph M. Carey and his wife, staunch suffragists and old friends of Miss Anthony, took her for a drive while the officers and delegates walked about the pleasant little city and went to see the handsome State House. Miss Blackwell wrote of the occasion: "Everything in Wyoming was surrounded by a sort of halo. The sky seemed of a more vivid blue, the grass of a brighter emerald than in the States where women do not enjoy equal rights. The leaves of the many cottonwood trees twinkled pleasantly in the clear sunlight, the air was fresh and bracing and the snow mountains looked down upon the city like a visible realization of ideals." The presence of the visitors soon became known and an impromptu reception was held in the large waiting room of the station, which was beautified by potted ferns and palms.