I do not speak merely for the University of Chicago. I am proud to belong to a university of letters, a republic that has its branches in all parts of the civilized world. And I am glad that, from the time I started to learn to read, in my own education in this Middle West, from my childhood with my mother, through the church, the Sunday school, the elementary and secondary schools, the college and now the university, I have seen women side by side with men, sharing the same teaching and having the same teachers. That is what we stand for in the Middle West.... The foundation of our institutions throughout the West is this fundamental law, not to be changed, that if there is any advantage to be had, women shall have it now and forever.
Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, national recording secretary, and Miss Jane Campbell, secretary of the Pennsylvania Association, responded. The Hon. Oliver W. Stewart spoke on The Logic of Popular Government. He pointed out that there has been a steady movement of mankind toward government by the people for the people and said in part:
In our own country we can see this growth clearly. Take the election of the President. There was at first no thought that the people should elect him but do you not see how quickly they assimilated the machinery which was provided? We have not changed the machinery but we have changed the spirit, so that instead of the electoral college deliberating and choosing a President, it is scarcely more than a stenographer to take the dictation of the public. The people have absorbed the power themselves, and you can write it as true that they do not surrender any power which they have acquired as the result of their own struggles. If any change should come it would be to give the people a more direct voice rather than a more indirect voice. Take the change in the convention system toward direct primaries. Do you not see how, in spite of politicians, the people have been writing direct primary laws? It is a part of the general movement toward popular government....
There is a steady drift in this direction the world over and it would be an anomalous condition if that movement could exist and there could be at the same time a retrograde movement as to the rights of women.... I have grown philosophical with reference to the temporary defeats that we suffer. The thing to do is to commiserate those who bring about the defeats. I look at the black disgrace with which they will live in history who said they would die for their own rights and yet were tyrants enough to deny the rights of others.... The hour is quickly coming when the genius of our government, where it is true to itself, will have to give the ballot to womankind. May that day come speedily!
This was Dr. Shaw's 60th birthday and many pleasant references had been made to it by the delegates. She began her president's address by saying: "We have never before been more enthusiastic than today. Victory has not come in the United States but we are not working for ourselves alone. Wherever freedom comes to any woman that is our victory and when the new constitution of Finland granted absolute equality to its woman citizens, that was our victory." Municipal suffrage had been given to the women of Natal, South Africa, she said: "and now at the foot of Mt. Ararat, where the ark rested, the Catholicos, or High Priest of that conservative people and religion, the Armenians, has issued an edict that the women of the church shall not only have a voice in the election of its officers but also shall be eligible to official position." She referred to the recent defeat of the suffrage amendment in Oregon and said: "All honor to those 37,000 men who voted for it; their descendants will not be ashamed of their fathers' act. There are today organizations of Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution and there will some day be one of 'Sons and Daughters of the Evolution of Women's Freedom,' but there will never be one of the Tories who fought against that Revolution or this Evolution," and she continued:
This year I took for my motto those splendid words: "Truth loses many battles but always wins its war." We did not win save as those who fight for the truth are always the people who win. There never was, there never will be greater defeat in any human life than the victory which comes to the man or woman who is fighting against the truth, and there never can be a greater victory to any human soul than the fact that it is fighting for the truth, whether it wins or not.... This has been a year of victory in that more women have been enfranchised than in any preceding year. We have the largest membership that we have ever had. We come together in hope and in the firm determination that we will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer and all the summers of our life, and then the battle will not be finished unless the victory is absolutely won for all women.... While we have cause to rejoice we have also cause for sorrow. As an organization it has been the saddest year we have known or ever can know, for there has gone out from among us the visible presence of her who was our leader for over fifty years, and I have just come with others directly from the home in Rochester where we attended the funeral services of the dear sister Mary, who was the first of the two to enter the movement and was always the faithful co-worker and home-maker. Both have folded their hands in rest since our last convention. Each gave her whole life to the cause of woman and each in passing away left all she had to this cause. The sorrow is ours, the peace and the triumphal reward of loving service are theirs. I hope we shall spend no time in mourning and turning to the past but with our faces toward the future, strengthened by the inspiration we have received from our great leader, go on fighting her battle and God's battle until the complete victory is won.
With two exceptions this was the only national convention during the thirty-nine years that had not been animated by the presence of Miss Anthony and the second day—February 15, her 87th birthday—was largely devoted to her.[50] There were three reports on Memorials. One was presented by Mrs. May Wright Sewall (Ind.) for the Executive Committee of the National Council of Women and contemplated a bust to be executed in marble by the sculptor, Adelaide Johnson, who had made the one in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. A second was presented by Mrs. Mary T. Lewis Gannett of Rochester, N. Y., for an Anthony Memorial Building for the women students of the university of that city, who had been admitted largely through the effort of Miss Anthony. [Life and Work, page 1221.] A third was for a $100,000 Memorial Fund for the work of the National American Association. The report of the committee for this third fund, which was presented by Mrs. Avery, stated that the nearness of success for woman suffrage now depended on securing the money to do the necessary work of propaganda, organization, publicity, etc., and that the most fitting memorial to Miss Anthony would be a fund of not less than $100,000 to be used exclusively for "the furtherance of the woman suffrage cause in the United States in such amounts and for such purposes as the general officers of the association shall from time to time deem best." It also provided that the officers should be permitted to select eleven women to act as trustees of this fund, six of whom should be from the official board. This report was unanimously adopted. Mrs. Upton, the national treasurer, at once appealed for pledges and the delegates responded with about $24,000. The business committee of the association elected as its six members Dr. Shaw, Mrs. Avery, Mrs. Upton, Miss Blackwell, Miss Gordon and Miss Clay. Mrs. Henry Villard of New York; Mrs. Pauline Agassiz Shaw of Boston and Miss Jane Addams of Chicago were the only others selected.[51]
According to the custom for a number of years Miss Lucy E. Anthony was requested to present in the name of the association framed portraits of Miss Anthony to various institutions—in this instance to Hull House and the Chicago Political Equality League. Telegrams were received from the Mayor of Des Moines, Ia.; from the Utah Council of Suffrage Women; from the Interurban Woman Suffrage Council of Greater New York, saying they had observed the day by opening headquarters, and from a number of other sources telling that the birthday was being celebrated in ways that would have been pleasing to Miss Anthony.
The evening memorial services were beautiful and impressive. Mason Slade at the organ rendered the great chorus—Guilmant; Cantilene—Wheeldon; Marche Militaire—Schubert. The Rev. Mecca Marie Varney of Chicago offered prayer. During the evening Miss Marie Ludwig gave an exquisite harp solo and Mrs. Jennie F. W. Johnson sang with deep feeling Tennyson's Crossing the Bar, a favorite poem of Miss Anthony's. A telegram of greeting from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was sent through its president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. A tribute of an intimate and loving nature was paid by Miss Emily Howland of Sherwood, a friend of half a century, in which she said: "The first time I ever met Miss Anthony was at an anti-slavery meeting in my own shire town of Auburn, N. Y., which was broken up by a mob and we took refuge with Mrs. Martha Wright, a sister of Lucretia Mott." She spoke of Miss Anthony's "genius for friendship" and quoted the lines: "The bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring." Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery gave a number of instances during their travel in Europe which showed Miss Anthony's strong humanitarianism.
Mrs. Fannie Barrier Williams of Chicago paid touching tribute in behalf of the colored people, in which she said: "My presence on this platform shows that the gracious spirit of Miss Anthony still survives in her followers.... When Miss Anthony took up the cause of women she did not know them by their color, nationality, creed or birth, she stood only for the emancipation of women from the thraldom of sex. She became an invincible champion of anti-slavery. In the half century of her unremitting struggle for liberty, more liberty, and complete liberty for negro men and women in chains and for white women in their helpless subjection to man's laws, she never wavered, never doubted, never compromised. She held it to be mockery to ask man or woman to be happy or contented if not free. She saw no substitute for liberty. When slavery was overthrown and the work of reconstruction began she was still unwearied and watchful. She had an intimate acquaintance with the leading statesmen of the times. Her judgment and advice were respected and heard in much of the legislation that gave a status of citizenship to the millions of slaves set free."