The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V

by Unknown

Sunday services were held on the train and during the week days business meetings in the stateroom of Miss Anthony and Dr. Shaw. As the journey neared the end the porter confided to Lucy E. Anthony, the railroad secretary, who arranged the trip: "I ain't never travelled with such a bunch of women before—they don't fuss with me and they don't scrap with each other!" Monday morning they entered the magnificent scenery along the Columbia River and at The Dalles were met by Mrs. Duniway and a party of friends. By noon they had reached the City of Roses and were comfortably settled in the Portland Hotel and the hospitable homes of the city.

The convention, held in the First Congregational Church, was planned for a very full program of ten days instead of the usual week. Notwithstanding the Exposition was in progress and conventions were a matter of daily occurrence, none of the national suffrage conventions ever had fuller or more satisfactory reports. Journal, Telegram and Oregonian vied with each other and the Associated Press sent out whatever was requested of it. The Oregonian said of the first executive session: "Room 618 in the Portland Hotel was the scene of a notable gathering yesterday afternoon. Lawyers, doctors, ministers of the gospel, lecturers of renown and expert auditors were in close conference, mapping out a plan of campaign by which they will fight for their rights in this land of the free and home of the brave. That they have not had the rights accorded by the Declaration of Independence to all American citizens they attribute to the fact that they are women and it is to convince unseeing mankind that women who are intelligent enough to obey laws are capable of helping frame them, that the most profound and representative women of the country are gathered here in the interests of equal suffrage." Miss Blackwell presented this interesting picture in her letter to the Woman's Journal.

The convention has opened magnificently, with glorious sunshine, great audiences, full and friendly press reports and the suffragists of the Pacific Coast outdoing themselves in cordial hospitality. The beautiful city of Portland is so full of flowers at this season that the whole city might be thought to have decorated in honor of the coming of the national convention. As the yellow-ribboned delegates go through the streets they constantly utter exclamations of delight over the enormous roses, the curtains of dark blue clematis draping the verandas, the luxuriant masses of ivy and the majestic trees rising above the velvet lawns and casting their shade upon the many handsome residences.... Hospitable Oregonians send in presents to the officers of huge red and yellow apples and baskets of mammoth cherries nestling in their green leaves....

The large gray stone church has its auditorium hung with American flags and bunting of the suffrage color; portraits of Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony stand back of the pulpit and along its front runs the word "progress" in large letters made of flowers.... A splendid bouquet of white lilies has just been sent to the convention as a greeting from the Oregon State Federation of Women's Clubs and another of rich red roses from the Portland Woman's Club, and the platform is imbedded in carnations from local florists. All sorts of organizations seem to vie with each other in welcoming their happy guests.

The convention was opened with prayer by the Rev. Elwin L. House, pastor of the church. The president, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, was in the chair and greetings were given from the Oregon Suffrage Association by its president, Mrs. Henry Waldo Coe; the National Council of Women by the president, Mrs. Mary Wood Swift (Calif.), who called attention to the fact that it was organized by suffragists; the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union by Mrs. Lucia Faxon Additon; the National Grange by Mrs. Clara H. Waldo, who said: "The basic principle of the Grange is equal rights for men and women and it practices what it preaches, all the offices being open to women." Greetings from the National Federation of Labor were offered by Mrs. F. Ross; the Ladies of the Maccabees by Mrs. Nellie H. Lambson; the Federation of Women's Clubs by Mrs. Sarah A. Evans; the Forestry Association by Mrs. Arthur H. Breyman; the Women's Henry George League by Dr. Mary H. Thompson, the pioneer woman physician of Oregon. The National Conference of Charities and Corrections, then in session in Portland, sent greetings by Mrs. Lillie R. Trumbull, who said: "If woman suffrage means anything it means the protection of children, therefore we march under the same banner."

Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway, the pioneer suffragist of the northwest, presented to Dr. Shaw a gavel from the Oregon Historical Society with a letter from its secretary, Dr. George H. Himes, describing the six kinds of wood out of which it was made, each of important historical value. It was accepted with thanks and used by her to preside over the convention. A Centennial Ode, composed by Mrs. Duniway, was finely read by Mrs. Sylvia W. McGuire. The response to all these greetings was made by Miss Anthony, of whom the Oregonian said: "The appearance of Susan B. Anthony was the signal for a wild ovation. The large audience rose to its feet and cheered the pioneer who has done so much for the cause of equal suffrage and who is still the life of a great work. At the close of the session men and women rushed forward, eager to clasp her hand and pay homage to her. There are many famous delegates present at this convention, women whose names are known in every civilized nation on the globe, but none shines with the luster which surrounds Miss Anthony." She began by recalling her visit in 1871, when Mrs. Duniway and she made a speaking tour of six weeks in the State; the long stage rides over the corduroy roads, the prejudice encountered but personal friendliness and large audiences everywhere, and continued:

I am delighted to see and hear in this church today the women representatives of so many organizations and it is in a measure compensation for the half-century of toil which it has been my duty and privilege to give to this our common cause. The sessions of this convention will be treated by the press of America exactly as it would treat any national gathering which was representative in character and had an object worthy of serious attention. The time of universal scorn for woman suffrage has passed and today we have strong and courageous champions among that sex the members of which fifty years ago regarded our proposals as part of an iconoclasm which threatened the very foundation of the social fabric.... Elizabeth Cady Stanton and I made our first fight for recognition of the right of women to speak in public and have organizations among themselves. You who are younger cannot realize the intensity of the opposition we encountered. To maintain our position we were compelled to attack and defy the deep-seated and ingrained prejudices bred into the very natures of men, and to some of them we were actually committing a sin against God and violating His laws. Gradually, however, the opposition has weakened until today we meet far less hostility to equal suffrage itself than then was manifested toward giving women the right of speaking in public and organizing for mutual advantage.

The opening exercises closed with an address by the Rev. Thomas L. Eliot, a Unitarian minister, who with his wife had encouraged Miss Anthony during that visit of 1871. He said his mother's great-aunt, Abigail Adams, had probably uttered the first declaration for woman suffrage on American soil, and paid a warm tribute to Mrs. Duniway's long and earnest labors for this cause as he had seen them during his thirty-seven years in Oregon.

At the insistence of Dr. Shaw Miss Anthony presided at the first evening session. It was said that she had wielded the gavel at more conventions than any other woman and she had presided over national suffrage conventions for nearly forty years, but this proved to be the last at which she filled that honored position. A press report said: "Her voice is more vigorous than that of many a woman half her age and she speaks with fluency and ease." The Oregonian thus described her appearance on this occasion: "A rare picture she made in the high-backed oaken chair, her snowy hair puffed over her ears in old-time fashion and the collar of rose point lace, which seems to belong to dignified old age, forming a frame for her gentle but determined face. When she rose to call the meeting to order she was deluged with many beautiful floral tributes and drolly peering over the heap of flowers she said: "Well, this is rather different from the receptions I used to get fifty years ago. They threw things at me then—but they were not roses—and there were not epithets enough in Webster's Unabridged to fit my case. I am thankful for this change of spirit which has come over the American people."

Governor George E. Chamberlain gave the welcome of the State, declaring himself unequivocally and emphatically in favor of woman suffrage and expressing the hope that Oregon was now ready to grant it. T. C. Devlin extended the welcome of the city as proxy for the Mayor, who addressed the convention later. The Hon. Jefferson Myers, president of the State Commission for the Exposition, paid eloquent tribute to Miss Anthony and her co-workers and said: