fell into the hands of those who urged me to take part with the opposers of a woman serving, as the party had with them a fine-looking man to preside at all of their meetings, James Mott, who had presided at Seneca Falls. Afterward I fell in with the old friends, Amy Post, Rhoda de Garmo and Sarah Fish, who at once commenced labors with me to prove that the hour had come when a woman should preside, and led me into the church. Amy proposed my name as president; I was accepted at once, and from that hour I seemed endowed as from on high to serve.
It was a two days' meeting with three sessions per day. On my taking the chair, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton left the platform and took their seats in the audience, but it did not move me from performing all my duties, and at the close of the meeting Lucretia Mott came forward, folded me tenderly in her arms and thanked me for presiding. That settled the question of men's presiding at a woman's convention. From that day to this, in all the walks of life, I have been faithful in asserting that there should be "no taxation without representation." It has seemed long in coming, but I think the time draws near when woman will be acknowledged as equal with man. Heaven grant the day to dawn soon!
Mrs. Catharine A. F. Stebbins (Mich.), who had attended the Seneca Falls Convention and signed the Declaration of Rights, sent an interesting descriptive letter. Mrs. Lucinda H. Stone (Mich.), the mother of women's clubs and a pioneer on educational lines, wrote:
You wanted I should write you any anecdotes of early interest in woman suffrage. The remembrance of Dr. Stone's waking up to that subject has come to me, and I have thought I would tell you about it.
It was some time in the forties that he was requested to deliver a Fourth of July oration in Kalamazoo. I can not tell the exact year, but it was before I had ever heard of the Rochester Convention, or of you or Mrs. Stanton, and he was looking up all that he could find in the early history of our Declaration of Independence, and the principles of Jefferson and the early revolutionists. I remember his coming in one day (it must have been before 1848), seeming very much absorbed in something that he was thinking about. He threw down the book he had been reading, and said to me: "The time will come when women will vote. Mark my words! We may not live to see it, we probably shall not, but it will come. It is not a woman's right or a man's right; it is a human right, and their voting is but a natural process of evolution." ...
Mrs. Esther Wattles, who helped secure School Suffrage and equal property laws for women in the State constitution of Kansas in 1859, sent this message: "My attention was first called to the injustice done to women by a lecture given near Wilmington, Ohio, by John O. Wattles in 1841. He devoted most of his time to lecturing on Woman's Rights, The Sin of Slavery, The Temperance Reform and Peace. I heard him on all these subjects, off and on, till 1844, when we were married.... Seventy-nine summers with their clouds and sunshine, make it fitting I should greet you by letter rather than personal presence. May the cause never falter till the victory is won."
Most of the letters were sent to Miss Anthony personally. Among these were the following:
We, the members of the National Association of Woman Stenographers, take great pleasure in extending congratulations to you on the occasion of your seventy-eighth birthday, and hope that the days of your years may still be many and happy. We also desire to express our appreciation of and gratitude for the work you have done in securing freedom and justice for women. As business women we are better able to comprehend what you have accomplished, especially for those who are bread-winners, and we trust the time may soon come when we shall not be limited to understanding what freedom is, but be able to act in accordance with its principles.
The Nevada Equal Suffrage Association: Although we are young in the ranks and few in number compared with the older States, yet we are none the less loyal to the principles advocated and established by the National Association. We are brave because we draw inspiration from the thoughts and acts of that Spartan band of suffragists of fifty years ago, who devoted the sunshine of their lives and the energies of their philosophic minds to the effort to obtain for womankind their inherent right to have a voice in the Government which derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.
Alfred H. Love, president of the Universal Peace Union: From our rooms in the east wing of Independence Hall, I send greetings to you and your cause. Your cause is ours, and has been one of our essential principles since our organization. Your success is a triumph for peace.
Mary Lowe Dickinson, secretary of the International Order of the King's Daughters and Sons: I hope you will live to see the full day for the cause whose dawn owed so much to your labors, and I can ask nothing better for you than that you have "the desire of your heart," which I am sure will be the ballot for us all.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman physician: Although I can not respond in person to your very friendly invitation to be a representative of "the pioneers," yet I gladly send my hearty greeting to you and to the other brave workers for the progress of the race—a progress slow but inevitable. Amongst all its steps I consider the admission of women to the medical profession as the most important. Whilst thankfully recognizing the wonderful accumulations of knowledge which generations of our brethren have gathered together, our future women physicians will rejoice to help in the construction of that noble temple of medicine, whose foundation stone must be sympathetic justice. Pray allow me to send my warm greeting to the Congress through you.
There were messages and grateful recognition from so many societies and individuals in the United States that it would be impossible even to call them by name; also from the Dominion of Canada Suffrage Club, through Dr. Augusta Stowe Gullen; the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in Great Britain, with individual letters from Lady Aberdeen, Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Mrs. Priscilla Bright McLaren and others; on behalf of the Swedish Frederika Bremer Förbundet, by Carl Lindhagen; on behalf of Finnish women by Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg; on behalf of German women by Frau Hanna Bieber-Bohm, president of the National Council of Women; on behalf of the Woman Suffrage Society of Holland by its secretary, Margarethe Gallé; from the Norwegian Woman Suffrage Club; from the Verein Jugendschutz of Berlin, and from the Union to Promote Woman's Rights in Finland.
The remarkable scenes of the closing evening made a deep impression upon the large audience. After fifty years of effort to overcome the most stubborn and deeply-rooted prejudices of the ages, the results were beginning to appear. Among the speakers were a woman State senator from Utah, Mrs. Martha Hughes Cannon; a woman member of the Colorado Legislature, Mrs. Martha A. B. Conine; a woman State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Miss Estelle Reel of Wyoming; U. S. Senators Henry M. Teller of Colorado, and Frank J. Cannon of Utah, States where women have full suffrage; Representative John F. Shafroth of Colorado—and in the center of this distinguished group, Susan B. Anthony, receiving the fruits of her half century of toil and hardship.
Miss Reel: I want to tell you a little about our work in Wyoming, where women have been voting and holding office for nearly thirty years, and where our people are convinced that it has been of great benefit. Our home life there is as sacred and sweet as anywhere else on the globe. Equal suffrage has been tried and not found wanting. You may ask, What reforms has Wyoming to show? We were the first State to adopt the Australian ballot, and to accept a majority verdict of juries in civil cases. We are noted for our humane treatment of criminals, our care of the deserving poor and the education of our young. Child labor is prohibited. The Supreme Court has just decided that every voter must be able to read the Constitution in English. We have night schools all over the State for those who can not attend school by day. Equal suffrage was given to help protect the home element, and the home vote is a great conservative force. Woman suffrage means stable government, anchored in the steadfast rock of American homes.
Mrs. Conine was commissioned as a delegate to the convention by Gov. Alva Adams of Colorado. She read the statement recently put forth, testifying to the good results of equal suffrage and signed by the Governor, three ex-Governors, all the State Senators and the Representatives in Congress, the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, the Judges of the Court of Appeals, the Judges of the District Court, the Secretary of State, the State treasurer, auditor, attorney-general, the mayor of Denver, the presidents of the State University and of Colorado College, the president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs and the presidents of thirteen women's clubs, and said:
During