What was the result? Under date of Dec. 16, 1904, Senator Beveridge notified headquarters that the Senate Committee had unanimously voted to strike out the objectionable word "in accordance with your very reasonable request." It was a great victory and more than paid for the labor. Mrs. McCulloch was as good as her word and raised the money to defray all the expenses, giving $100 herself and securing from her friend and ours, Mrs. Elmina Springer of Chicago, $500; Mrs. Mary Wood Swift of California, president of the National Council of Women, contributed $50; our own president, Miss Shaw, gave $25 and there were some small contributions. The work was most economically done, the printing and envelopes costing $118, the postage over $300 and a balance was left.[37]
The report of Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, national treasurer, showed receipts for the year to be $14,662, including bequests of $4,237 from Mrs. Henrietta L. Banker of New York and $500 from Mrs. Armilla J. Starr of Michigan; $2,000 from Mrs. Charlotte A. Cleveland of New York and $100 each from Mrs. Jonas Green of Virginia and Mrs. Helen J. Underwood of California. The disbursements were $12,437. Miss Hauser asked for the money for the next year's work and $4,614 were quickly subscribed. A large number of $50 life memberships were taken. One hundred one-dollar pledges were made in memory of Sacajawea. Mrs. Catt guaranteed that Mrs. Upton and herself would raise $3,000 for the Oregon campaign.
Henry B. Blackwell, chairman of the Presidential Suffrage Committee, gave the welcome information that the U. S. Supreme Court through Chief Justice Fuller had rendered a decision that "the power of every State Legislature in the appointment of presidential electors is plenary, exclusive and final." The report of Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer, chairman of the Libraries Committee, was read by Mrs. Blankenburg and showed that thus far a bibliography of 823 books, pamphlets, etc., on woman suffrage had been compiled. One book bore the date of 1627. Another had the title "No Female Suffrage; Theology, Logic, Anatomy, Physiology and Philology United to Establish the Truism that Woman is No Human Being." Mrs. Blankenburg went as fraternal delegate to the convention of the National Libraries Association meeting in Portland at this time and gave part of this report, which was received with much interest and cooperation was promised.
The report of Mrs. Elnora M. Babcock, chairman of the Press Committee, was as complete and valuable as usual. It said that 80,000 general suffrage articles had been sent out and 6,000 papers supplied by the chairman and committee since the last convention. Each paper in Portland had been furnished with personal sketches of every officer and speaker connected with the convention and copies of all the reports and speeches that could be obtained, as was customary wherever a convention was held. In referring to special articles she said that 5,000 copies from members of the association and residents of Colorado had been sent out in answer to the charges that woman suffrage was responsible for the recent election frauds in that State, which seemed to be made by every opponent who could wield a pen. Answers were widely distributed to the report of the Mosely Educational Commission sent here from Great Britain, and the Male Teachers' Association of New York, to the effect that women should not be employed to teach boys over ten years of age and that teaching was interfering with the marriage of many women and keeping them from their proper place in the world. The article of former President Grover Cleveland in the Ladies' Home Journal denouncing women's clubs and particularly suffrage clubs had been almost universally commented on by the press and required extensive attention. A reply to Cardinal Gibbons's address to the women graduates of Trinity College, Washington, by Mrs. Ida Husted Harper was sent to eighty metropolitan papers and hundreds of shorter ones were scattered broadcast. The excellent work of the various State press chairman was described.
One afternoon was devoted to a conference on How Can We Best Utilize the Press? Mrs. Harper presided and nearly twenty speakers took part. One of the Portland papers commented: "If the great political organs of the United States knew how well these women have the tricks of the trade at their fingers' ends they would employ special detectives to watch for suffrage literature in disguise." Mr. Lathrop, editor of the Portland Journal, said: "A newspaper man in his official capacity is not an educator but a seller of news. One who would treat a suffrage convention as a negligible quantity would lose his job. The question is not how you can get matter about women into the papers but how you can keep it out." Mrs. Florence Kelley added: "We all know to our sorrow that women cannot keep out of the papers but the question is how to get our subject in them in a way to promote it. I can recommend the following method: Write something in editorial style just about as you want it to appear and send it to the editor with a deprecatory note to the effect that it is only raw material but perhaps it could be whipped into an editorial by his able pen. The chances are that the first time he is hard up for one he will use it—probably beheaded or with the end off or the middle amputated to show that the editor is editing, but it will be published."
Miss Anthony was asked for reminiscences of her famous paper, the Revolution, published in New York in 1868-70. Mrs. Duniway gave an interesting account of her paper, the New Northwest, begun in 1871 in Portland and continued for a number of years with the help of her five young sons. She expressed her love for the Woman's Journal, "the dear, reliable, old paper started by Lucy Stone and kept going by the heroic efforts of her husband and daughter," and many joined in this expression. Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby (D. C.), editor of the Woman's Tribune, told of the press conference at the International Council of Women. Mrs. Julia B. Nelson (Minn.) and Miss Amanda Way (Ind.) were among the veteran writers who spoke. Miss Blackwell gave experienced advice and a number of younger women made brief but clever suggestions.
An interesting part of the convention was Woman's Day at the Exposition on June 30 and this day had been chosen for the dedication of the statue of Sacajawea, the Indian woman who led the Lewis and Clark Expedition thousands of miles through the wilderness unknown to white men. It was thus described: "The statue, a beautiful creation in bronze, was the work of Miss Alice Cooper of Denver, a pupil of Lorado Taft, the figure full of buoyancy and animation, a shapely arm suggestive of strength pointing to the distant sea, the face radiant, the head thrown back, the eyes full of daring." The exercises were in charge of the Order of Red Men and the Women's Sacajawea Association, Mrs. Eva Emery Dye, president, and on the platform facing the statue prominent members of the convention sat with President Goode, of the Exposition, Mayor Lane and other dignitaries. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Duniway spoke during the unveiling and presentation ceremonies and Dr. Shaw pronounced the benediction. [See Oregon chapter.]
The afternoon session of the convention was held in Festival Hall on the grounds and greetings were offered for organizations, including the Young Woman's Christian Association by Mrs. L. E. Rockwell and Women's Medical Association by Dr. Esther C. Pohl. Dr. Sarah A. Kendall of Washington responded. The Los Angeles Suffrage Club sent a greeting and Mrs. Helen Secor Tonjes brought one from the New York City Equal Suffrage League. Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman gave an original poem. Mrs. Mabel Craft Deering, a graduate of California State University and the Hastings Law School of San Francisco, read an able paper on Coeducation. Its sentiments were strongly endorsed by Professor William S. Giltner, president of Eminence College, Kentucky, one of the earliest women's colleges, from its beginning in 1858 to its close in 1894. Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, under the title, Sowing the Seed, gave an interesting account of the early trials of her mother and two aunts, the pioneer doctors, Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell. The Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, an aunt by marriage, the pioneer woman minister, who was on the platform, said: "Ever since I made my first suffrage speech in 1848 I have believed that the cause of woman suffrage was the cause of religion and vice versa." Mrs. Maud Wood Park read the eloquent address of Mrs. Lucia Ames Mead on The Organization of the World.
Mrs. May Arkwright Hutton (Idaho), who spoke for the equal suffrage States, gave this unique reminiscence of her early life in Ohio when William McKinley, a young lawyer, after speaking in the town hall, was a guest of her grandfather. She said in part: "Mr. McKinley carried the lantern, leading me by the hand, while I led grandfather, we little dreaming that the kindly young man guiding a child and an old, blind man through the wintry night would some day guide the destiny of the nation. On reaching home, I brought cider, apples and doughnuts from the cellar that we might have what grandfather called a 'schold check' before going to bed. The fire roared in the wide chimney place; grandfather sat in his armchair, Mr. McKinley opposite and I on a low stool between them. They talked of the late war, reconstruction and woman's rights. Then it was that I learned that women were denied rights enjoyed by men. Mr. McKinley deplored the fact and contended that woman was the intellectual equal of man and should be his political equal. Patting my head he said: 'I believe when this lassie grows up she will be a voter.'"
At the close of the session a reception for Miss Anthony and the officers, speakers and delegates was given in the Oregon building by its hostess, Dr. Annice Jeffreys (Mrs. Jefferson) Myers, assisted by Mrs. Coe, the State president. The big reception hall and the parlors were filled with visitors from all parts of the country. The Oregonian said: "When Miss Anthony, the honored guest, reached the Oregon building the band played Auld Lang Syne and the crowds became so dense that it was with difficulty Dr. Myers could escort her to the parlors. Here she stood in line for more than an hour, women and men pressing around her wanting just a word and they got it! She declared that it did not make her nearly so tired as she used to feel when nobody wanted to take her hand." In a letter to the Woman's Journal Miss Blackwell said: "Both in the convention and at all the social functions Miss Anthony has been the central figure, the object of general admiration and affection. It is the strongest possible contrast to the unpopularity and persecution of her early days. All these attentions were most gratifying to the members of the convention, who appreciated her courage and devotion in making this long journey at the age of 85, and afterwards they were remembered with especial pleasure because it was the last in which she was able to take an active part."