The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 46

_Resolved_, That the American Federation of Labor earnestly appeals to Congress to pa.s.s a resolution submitting to the Legislatures of the several States a proposition for a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution that shall prohibit the States from disfranchising United States citizens on account of s.e.x.

Miss Anthony expressed her satisfaction that equal suffrage was endorsed by "the hard-working, wage-earning men of the country, each of them with a good solid ballot in his hand."

Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby (D. C.) gave a historical sketch of Our Great Leaders, replete with beauty and pathos. Miss Kate M. Gordon spoke entertainingly on the possibilities of A Sc.r.a.p of Suffrage.[121] In presenting her Miss Anthony said: "The right of taxpaying women in Louisiana to vote upon questions of taxation is practically the first shred of suffrage which those of any Southern State have secured, and they have used it well. They deserve another sc.r.a.p, and I think they will get it before some of us do who have been asking for half a century."

Miss Gail Laughlin, a graduate of Wellesley and of the Law Department of Cornell University, discussed Conditions of the Wage-Earning Women of Our Country, saying in part:

"Wage-earner" among women is used in a broad sense. All women receiving money payment for work are proud to be called wage-earners, because wage-earning means economic independence.

The census of 1890 reports nearly 400 occupations open to women, and nearly 4,000,000 women engaged in them. But government reports show the average wages of women in large cities to be from $3.83 to $6.91 per week, and the general average to be from $5.00 to $6.68. In all lines women are paid less than men for the same grade of work, and they are often compelled to toil under needlessly dangerous and unsanitary conditions. If the people of this country want to advance civilization, they have no need to go to the islands of the Pacific to do it.

How are these evils to be remedied? By organization, suffrage, co-operation among women, and above all, the inculcation of the principle that a woman is an individual, with a right to choose her work, and with other rights equal with man. Our law-makers control the sanitary conditions and pay of teachers. Here is work for the women who have "all the rights they want." When one of these comfortably situated women was told of the need of the ballot for working women, she held up her finger, showing the wedding ring on it, and said, "I have all the rights I want." The next time that I read the parable of the man who fell among thieves and was succored by the good Samaritan, methought I could see that woman with the wedding ring on her finger, pa.s.sing by on the other side.

It is said that every woman who earns her living crowds a man out. That argument is as old as the trade guilds of the thirteenth century, which tried to exclude women. The Rev. Samuel G. Smith of St. Paul, who has recently declared against women in wage-earning occupations, stands to-day just where they did seven hundred years ago....[122]

Mrs. Helen Adelaide Shaw (Ma.s.s.), in A Review of the Remonstrants, was enthusiastically received. Young, handsome and a fine elocutionist, her imitation of the "remonstrants" and their objections to woman suffrage convulsed the audience and was quite as effective as the most impa.s.sioned argument.

The speakers of the convention were invited to fill a number of pulpits in Washington Sunday morning and evening. In the Unitarian Church, where the Rev. Ida C. Hultin preached, there was not standing room. The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw gave the sermon at the Universalist Church, of which the _Post_ said:

Never in the history of the church had such a crowd been in attendance. The lecture rooms on either side of the auditorium had been thrown open, and these, as well as the galleries, were crowded almost to suffocation. Women stood about the edges of the room, and seats on window sills were at a premium. Outside in the vestibules of the church women elbowed one another for points of vantage on the gallery stairs, where an occasional glimpse might be caught of the handsome, dark-eyed, gray-haired woman who looked singularly appropriate at the pulpit desk. The congregation hung upon every word, and her remarks, sometimes bitter and caustic, were met with a hum of approval from the crowded auditorium.

Perhaps eight-tenths of the congregation were women. Miss Shaw's pulpit manner is easy, but her words are emphasized by gestures which impress her hearers with a sense of the speaker's earnestness. Her voice, while sweet and musical, is strong, and carries a tone of conviction. Her subject last night was "Strength of Character." The text was chosen from Joshua, 1:9: "Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy G.o.d is with thee whithersoever thou goest."

In the opening remarks the speaker said it was now time that women a.s.serted their rights. "Men have no right to define for us our limitations. Who shall interpret to a woman the divine element in her being? It is for me to say that I shall be free.

No human soul shall determine my life for me unless that soul will stand before the bar of G.o.d and take my sentence. Men who denounce us do so because they are ignorant of what they do.

Woman has broken the silence of the century. Her question to G.o.d is, 'Who shall interpret Thee to me?' The churches of this day have not begun to conceive of what Christianity means.

"It is not true that all women should be married and the managers of homes. There is not more than one woman in five capable of motherhood in its highest possible state, and I may say that not one man in ten is fitted for fatherhood. We strongly advocate that no woman and man should marry until they are instructed in the science of home duties. Instead of woman suffrage breaking up families, it has just the opposite effect. In the State of Wyoming where it has existed thirty years, there is a larger per cent. of marriages and a less of divorces than in any other State in the Union. Because a woman is a suffragist is no reason that she may not be a good housekeeper. The two most perfect housekeepers I ever knew in my life were members of my congregation in New England--one was a suffragist and the other had no thought of the rights of women." ...

After the services almost every woman in the congregation crowded forward to shake the hand of the speaker.

On Monday evening the national character of the convention was conspicuously demonstrated, as the speakers represented the East, the South, the Middle West and the Pacific Slope. Mrs. Florence Howe Hall (N. J.), the highly educated daughter of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, read a charming farce ent.i.tled The Judgment of Minerva, the suffragists and the antis, as G.o.ddesses, bringing their cause before Jupiter, with a decision, of course, in favor of the former. Miss Diana Hirschler, a young lawyer of Boston, presented Woman's Position in the Law in a paper which was in itself an ill.u.s.tration of the benefit of a legal training. Mrs. Virginia D. Young (S. C.) told the Story of Woman Suffrage in the South, and sketched the history of the progressive Southern woman, beginning as follows:

The woman suffragists of the South have suffered in the pillory of public derision. It has been as deadly a setting up in the stocks as ever New England practiced on her martyrs to freedom.

The women who have led in this revolt against old ideals have had to be as heroic as the men who stormed San Juan heights in the contest for Santiago de Cuba....

It is out of date to be carried in a sedan chair when one can fly around on a bicycle, and though in our conservative South, we have still some preachers with Florida moss on their chins, who storm at the woman on her wheel as riding straight to h.e.l.l, we believe, with Julian Ralph, that the women bicyclists "out-pace their staider sisters in their progress to woman's emanc.i.p.ation."

Clark Howell, the brilliant Georgian, in his recent address before the Independent Club, set people to talking about him, from Niagara Falls in the East to the Garden of the G.o.ds in the West, by his elucidations of "The Man with his Hat in his Hand;"

but I propose to show you to-night a greater--the Woman With Her Bonnet Off, who speaks from the platform in a Southern city. You know how the women of the stagnant Orient stick to their veils, coverings for head and face, outward signs of real slavery. The bonnet is the civilized subst.i.tute for the Oriental veil, and to take it off is the first manifestation of a woman's resolve to have equal rights, even if all the world laugh and oppose.

In South Carolina the first newspaper article in favor of woman suffrage written by a woman over her own name, was met by the taunt that she had imbibed her views from the women of the North.

But this was merely ignorance of history, for the story of woman suffrage in the South really antedates that in New England. The new woman of the new South, who asks for equal rights with her brother man, is in the direct line of succession to that magnificent "colonial dame," Mistress Margaret Brent of Maryland, who asked for a vote in the Colonial a.s.sembly after the death of her kinsman, Lord Baltimore, who had endowed her with powers of attorney. Margaret Brent antedated Abigail Adams by over a century.

Mrs. Annie L. Diggs, State librarian, depicted Munic.i.p.al Suffrage in Kansas, with the knowledge of one who had been a keen observer and an active partic.i.p.ant.[123] Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway described the work which had been and would be done in the interest of the approaching suffrage amendment campaign in Oregon.

On Tuesday evening Mrs. Mabel Loomis Todd (Ma.s.s.), under the head of The Village Beautiful, told what might be accomplished toward the beautifying of towns and cities if the authority and the means were allowed to women. This was followed by a strong, clear business talk from Mrs. A. Emmagene Paul, superintendent of the Street-Cleaning Department of the First Ward, Chicago, who told how "crooked contractors and wily politicians" at first began to cultivate her.

They found, however, that they could not shake her determination to make them live up to their contracts; they had agreed to clean the streets, they were receiving pay for that purpose, and she, as an inspector, was there to see that the contracts were lived up to. Mrs.

Paul was appointed when the munic.i.p.al government adopted a civil service system, and holds her position by virtue of its examination.

She has checkmated the contractor and politician, and has accomplished a long-needed reform in the street-cleaning department of Chicago.[124]

An interesting description of The Russian Woman was given by Madame Sofja Levovna Friedland, who said that there is little suffrage for either men or women in Russia, but such as there is both alike possess. Mrs. Amy K. Cornwall, president of the Colorado Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation, related the work accomplished by the women of her State since they had been enfranchised; "only six years," she said, "and yet we are expected to have cleaned up all Colorado, including Denver." Grace Greenwood (Mrs. Sara J. Lippincott) was introduced by Miss Anthony as a suffragist of thirty years' standing.

The audience was greatly amused by her recital of the answers which she had made to the "remonstrants" more than a quarter of a century ago, showing that they were using then exactly the same objections which are doing service to-day. Several of the speakers having failed to appear, a very unusual occurrence, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, president of the International Council of Women, was pressed into service by Miss Anthony. She introduced her address gracefully by saying: "We women think we believe in freedom, but we are often told that we love best the tyrant who can make us obey, and I can testify to the truth of it," motioning toward Miss Anthony. She then made an eloquent and convincing plea for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women.

The mornings were devoted to committee reports and to ten-minute reports from each of the States, often the most interesting features of the convention. The afternoons were given to Work Conferences, when all the various details of the work were discussed under the leadership of those who had proved most competent--methods of organization, of holding conventions, etc. The treasurer, Mrs. Upton, stated that the receipts for the past year were $10,345; that the a.s.sociation had an indebtedness of about $1,400, and Miss Anthony, desiring to leave it entirely free from debt, had raised almost all of this amount herself; that the books now showed every bill to be paid.

Before the close of the convention almost $10,000 were subscribed toward the work of the coming year. It was decided to hold a National Suffrage Bazar in New York City before the holidays in order to add to this fund.[125]

Mrs. Chapman Catt, chairman of the Organization Committee, reported that with the secretary of the committee, Miss Mary G. Hay, she had visited twenty States, lecturing and attending State conventions, giving fifty-one lectures and traveling 13,000 miles. Ten thousand letters had been sent out from the office.

The comprehensive report of Mrs. Elnora M. Babc.o.c.k (N. Y.), chairman of the Press Committee, showing the remarkable success achieved in securing the publication of articles on suffrage, seemed to offer the best possible proof of an increasing favorable public sentiment.

Articles had been furnished regularly to 1,360 newspapers; 3,675 had been prepared on the present convention and birthday celebration; altogether 31,800 weekly articles had been sent out and, so far as could be ascertained, all had been published. The number of papers which would use plate matter on suffrage was limited only by the money which could be commanded to supply it.

Miss Anthony, in reporting for the Congressional Committee, made a good point when she said:

One reason why so little has been done by Congress is because none of us has remained here to watch our employes up at the Capitol. n.o.body ever gets anything done by Congress or by a State Legislature except by having some one on hand to look out for it.

We need a Watching Committee. The women can not expect to get as much done as the railroads, the trusts, the corporations and all the great moneyed concerns. They keep hundreds of agents at the national Capital to further their interests. We have no one here, and yet we expect to get something done, although we labor under the additional disadvantage of having no ballots to use as a reward or punishment. Whatever takes place in Washington is felt to the circ.u.mference of the country. I have had nearly all the States send pet.i.tions to Congress asking that upon whatever terms suffrage is extended to the men of Hawaii and our other new possessions, it may be extended to the women, and it is this which has stirred up the anti-suffragists in Ma.s.sachusetts, New York and Illinois to their recent demonstrations.... Mrs. Harper has culled extracts from all the favorable congressional reports we have had during the past thirty years, and we have made a pamphlet of them, which will be laid on the desk of every member of Congress.[126]

Mary F. Gist, Anna S. Hamilton and Emma Southwick Brinton were introduced as fraternal delegates from the Woman's National Press a.s.sociation; Mrs. William Scott, from the Universal Peace Union; Dr.

Agnes Kemp, from the Peace Society of Philadelphia; Elizabeth B.

Pa.s.smore from the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends. Letters of greeting were received from Mrs. Priscilla Bright McLaren of Scotland, Mrs. Mary Foote Henderson, of Washington, D. C., and many others.

Among the memorial resolutions were the following:

In reviewing the gains and losses of the past year, we recall with profound regret the loss of those tried and true workers for woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, George W. and Mrs. Henrietta M. Banker of New York, who died within a few days of each other. "Lovely in life, in death they were not divided." Although we shall sorely miss their genial and inspiring presence, they will continue by the munificent provisions of their wills to aid the cause.

We are also saddened by the news just received of the decease of Dr. Elizabeth C. Sargent of San Francisco, our valued co-worker in the recent California Suffrage Campaign, and daughter of our lifelong friends, U. S. Senator Aaron A. and Mrs. Ellen Clark Sargent. All advocates of equal suffrage unite in offering to the bereaved mother their heartfelt sympathy in her loss.

A vote of thanks was pa.s.sed to Bishop Spaulding of Peoria, Ills., Bishop McQuaid of Rochester, N. Y. (Catholics), and the Rev. Frank M.

Bristol of the M. E. Metropolitan Church, Washington (the one attended by President McKinley), for their recent sermons referring favorably to woman suffrage. These were the more noticeable as during this convention Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore devoted his Sunday discourse to a terrific arraignment of society women and those asking for the suffrage, denouncing them alike as destroyers of the home, etc.

The National a.s.sociation requested the appointment by President McKinley of Mrs. Bertha Honore Palmer as National Commissioner from the United States to the Paris Exposition, and of Mrs. May Wright Sewall as delegate to represent the organized work of women in the United States. Both of these appointments were afterwards made.

The corresponding secretary read invitations for the next annual convention from the Citizens' Business League of Milwaukee; the Business Men's League and the Mayor of Cincinnati; the Chamber of Commerce of Detroit; the Business Men's League of San Antonio; the Cleveland Business Men's Convention League; the Suffrage Society of Buffalo and the following: "The Minnesota Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation takes great pride in being able to invite you most cordially to hold your annual meeting for 1901 in the city of Minneapolis. We guarantee $600 towards expenses and more if necessary. Enclosed are invitations from the Board of Trade, the Mayor and our three daily newspapers, all a.s.suring us of financial backing." This was signed by Mrs. Martha J.

Thompson, president, and Dr. Ethel E. Hurd, corresponding secretary.

The invitation was accepted.

The usual hearings were held Tuesday morning, February 13, in the Marble Room of the Senate and the committee room of the House Judiciary, both of which were crowded to the doors, the seats being filled with women while members of Congress stood about the sides of the room. That before the Senate Committee--John W. Daniel (Va.), chairman; James H. Berry (Tenn.); George P. Wetmore (R. I.); Addison G. Foster (Wash.)--was confined to a historical resume of the movement for woman suffrage, the speakers being presented by Miss Anthony. The Work with Congress was carefully delineated by Mrs. Colby, who concluded: "Everything that a disfranchised cla.s.s could do has been done by women, and never in the long ages in which the love of freedom has been evolving in the human heart has there been such an effort by any other cla.s.s of people. Surely it ought to win the respect and support of every man in this republic who has a brain to understand the blessings of liberty and a heart to beat in sympathy with a struggle to obtain it."[127]

Munic.i.p.al Suffrage in Kansas was described by Mrs. Laura M. Johns.

Woman Suffrage in Colorado was presented by Mrs. Bradford. Mrs.

Harriot Stanton Blatch told of Woman Suffrage in England, closing as follows:

We have heard about the suffrage in the Western States of America, and the reply always is: "Oh, that is all very well for thinly populated countries." Now I am going to tell you a little of the suffrage question in England, not a thinly populated country, with its 20,000,000 of people crowded in that small s.p.a.ce.

Gentlemen of the committee, I would like to draw your attention to one thing, which is true in America as well as in England--that nothing has been given to women gratuitously. They have had at each step to prove their ability before you gave them anything else. In 1870 England pa.s.sed the Education Act, which gave women the right to sit on the school boards and to vote for them. It was the first time they had had elective school boards in England; before that all the education had been controlled by church organizations, who had appointed boards of managers. Women had been appointed to those boards and so admirable had been their work that when the law was pa.s.sed in 1870 many women stood for election and were elected, and in three cases they came in at the head of the polls. Five years after that a verdict was pa.s.sed upon the work of those women as school officials, for in 1875, women were allowed to go on the poor-law boards. In 1894 the law was further modified so that it contemplated the possibility of a larger circle of poor-law guardians. Before that there had been a high qualification--occupation of a house of a certain rental, etc., but now that was all pushed aside. What was the result?

Nearly 1,000 women are now sitting on the poor-law boards of England; 94 on the great board of London itself.

These local boards deal with the great asylums, with the great pauper schools, with the immense poorhouses and, more than that, they deal with one of the largest funds in England, the outdoor and indoor relief. What has been the verdict upon the work of those women on the poor-law board? In 1896 there was the question, when this law was extended to Ireland, whether women should be put on those boards. The vote in Parliament was 272 in favor of the women and only 8 against. Eight men only, so unwise, so foolish, left in the great English Parliament, who said it was not for women to deal with those immense bodies of pauper children, not for women to deal with this outdoor relief fund, not for women to deal with the unfortunate mothers of illegitimate children....