In 1903 the convention was held in the Presbyterial Church at Hornellsville welcomed by Mayor C. F. Nelson and the Rev. Charles Petty, pastor of the church. Mrs. Crossett responded and gave her annual address, which showed much activity during the year. Miss Mills, chairman of the State organization committee, said that she had arranged for fifty-five meetings. Dr. Shaw had spoken in thirty different counties, the president or vice-president accompanying her and organizing clubs at many places. The chairmen of the standing committees—Organization, Press, Legislative, Industries, Work Among Children, Enrollment, School Suffrage—and also the county presidents reported effective work. The addresses of Miss Anthony, Dr. Shaw and Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, national president, were highly appreciated by large audiences. During the summer of 1903, as in many others, Miss Anthony and Dr. Shaw attracted large gatherings at the Chautauqua and Lily Dale Assemblies.
The convention of 1904 met at Auburn. Mrs. Eliza Wright Osborne, daughter of Martha Wright and niece of Lucretia Mott, two of those who had called the first Woman's Rights Convention, entertained the officers and many chairmen in the annex of the hotel, a stenographer, typewriter and every convenience being placed at their disposal. In her own home she had as guests Miss Anthony, Dr. Shaw, Mrs. William Lloyd Garrison (her sister), Emily Howland, Mrs. William C. Gannett, Lucy E. Anthony and others. One evening her spacious house was thrown open for the people of the city to meet the noted suffragists. The convention was held in Music Hall, a gift of Mrs. Osborne to the city, and her son, Thomas Mott Osborne, welcomed it as Mayor.
The old Political Equality Club of Rochester, of which Miss Mary S. Anthony was president for many years, invited the convention for 1905. To go to the home city of the Anthony sisters was indeed a pleasure. They opened their house one afternoon for all who desired to take a cup of tea with them. It was crowded and many expressed themselves as feeling that they were on a sacred spot. A large number went to the third story to see the rooms where Mrs. Ida Husted Harper spent several years with Miss Anthony writing her biography and Volume IV of the History of Woman Suffrage. A reception was given at Powers Hotel attended by over 600 people. During the meetings Miss Anthony introduced a number of women who had attended the first Woman's Rights Convention, which adjourned from Seneca Falls to Rochester, Mary Hallowell, Sarah Willis, Mary S. Anthony and Maria Wilder Depuy.
The convention was held in the Universalist Church. Mayor James G. Cutler, who welcomed the delegates, spoke very highly of his "esteemed fellow citizen, Susan B. Anthony" and presented her with a large bouquet of American Beauty roses. Mrs. Crossett in her annual address compared the convention held at Rochester in 1890, when there were but seven local clubs in the State, with this one representing 100 local and 31 county clubs. Elnora M. Babcock, press chairman, reported 500 papers in the State using articles favorable to woman suffrage.
The convention for 1906 met at Syracuse in the (Samuel J.) May Memorial Church. Miss Anthony had passed away the preceding March. Over the entrance door of the church was a large banner with the last words of the beloved leader, "Failure is Impossible." The afternoon meeting closed with tributes of reverence and appreciation by Mrs. Osborne, Anne Fitzhugh Miller, Marie Jenney Howe, Mrs. Crossett, Miss Mills and Dr. Shaw. Large audiences gathered for the evening meetings, among the speakers being Mrs. Florence Kelley, Mrs. Henry Villard and Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery. Dr. Shaw and Mrs. Avery spoke in the University Chapel to the students.
The convention of 1907, which met in Geneva, received a warm welcome; stores displayed the suffrage colors in their windows and many citizens hung flags over their doorways. The gracious presence of Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller and her daughter Anne, president of the Geneva Political Equality Club, the largest in the State, made the convention especially memorable. The delegates were invited to Lochland, the Miller home on the lake, one afternoon where a memorial service was held on the big porch, the place of many suffrage meetings, in memory of Mary S. Anthony, who had died the preceding February. Affectionate tributes were paid.[123] The convention was welcomed by Mayor Arthur P. Rose, City Attorney W. Smith O'Brien, Miss Miller and Mrs. Charlotte A. Baldridge, county president. Speakers were President Langdon C. Stewardson of Hobart College and Professors F. P. Nash and Nathaniel Schmidt of Cornell University.
The 40th State convention was held in 1908 in Buffalo, whose suffrage club invited the National American Association to hold its convention there the same week, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first Woman's Rights Convention. For eight years Mrs. Richard Williams, president of the club, had carried on the work in this city and had built up an excellent organization. Mrs. George Howard Lewis and Mrs. Dexter P. Rumsey were valuable members. Mrs. Lewis gave $10,000 to Dr. Shaw for suffrage work. The State convention, which met two days before the National, voted to have headquarters at Albany during the legislative session. It also voted to continue the State headquarters in Syracuse. Dr. Shaw had presented the suffrage question at the State Federation of Women's Clubs; Miss Mills had addressed the World's Temperance Congress; members had spoken before the resolution committees of the political State conventions and before many different organizations, institutions, etc. On May 26, 27, Mrs. Stanton Blatch had arranged a meeting in Seneca Falls to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the first Women's Rights Convention, called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and that noble band of women in 1848. Addresses were made by their descendants and a number of the pioneer suffragists and a bronze tablet was placed on the Wesleyan Methodist Church, where the convention was held.
This year Mrs. Clarence Mackay became interested in the work for woman suffrage and organized in New York an Equal Franchise League of which she was president, with headquarters in the Metropolitan Tower. She opened her house for lectures, interested a great many prominent and influential people and also arranged a course of public lectures in one of the theaters, which attracted large audiences. The papers gave columns of space to her efforts and the movement received a great impetus.
It had always been Miss Anthony's strong desire to have headquarters in this large center from which news of all kinds was sent to the four quarters of the globe. She realized the vast numbers of people who could be reached and the great prestige which would be given to the movement but even with her wonderful ability for getting money she never could secure anywhere near enough to carry out this plan in the city where everything must be done on a large scale to be successful. The longed-for opportunity did not come in her lifetime but in 1909 Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont decided to take an active part in the work for woman suffrage and inquired of the leaders what was the most important thing to be done. They answered quickly: "Establish State headquarters in New York City and also bring the National headquarters here." With the executive ability for which she was noted Mrs. Belmont at once rented the entire floor of a big new office building at 505 Fifth Avenue, corner of 42nd Street, and invited both associations to take headquarters there for two years. They did so and the movement received a strong impulse not only in New York but in the country at large. The State association paid no rent and the national press bureau was maintained by Mrs. Belmont.
While in New York City women of the highest character and ability had sponsored the suffrage work it had not attracted the women who could give it financial support. When Mrs. Mackay and Mrs. Belmont identified themselves with it, opened their homes for lectures and interested their friends public attention was aroused. The meetings given in August by Mrs. Belmont at Marble House, Newport, which never before had been opened to the public, received an immense amount of space in the New York papers and those outside. The big headquarters soon were thronged with women; magazines, syndicates and the daily press had articles and pictures; mass meetings and parades followed and thousands of women entered the suffrage ranks. At the end of two years the State association was sufficiently well financed to maintain its headquarters, which remained in New York until its work was finished. Mrs. Belmont never lost her interest in the cause and continued to make large contributions. In a few years Mrs. Mackay turned her attention to other matters but her society was continued under the presidency of Mrs. Howard Mansfield. In 1909, under the direction of Mrs. Catt, its chairman, the Inter-Urban Council of twenty societies became the Woman Suffrage Party and organization along the lines of the political parties was begun.