is always a matter of regret that the excellent speeches made at these meetings can not be phonographically reported, but it must suffice to say that they covered all the ground, from the principles on which representative government rests, to the teaching of the Bible, which Miss Laura Clay, in an able speech, warmly claimed was on the side of equal rights for women. Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace, that noble mother in Israel, agreed with her, though from a different point of view, while Frederick Douglass claimed that the "Eternal Right exists independent of all books."
The Cincinnati press gave noticeably friendly and fair reports. Hospitality to delegates was abundant. The sunny side of many of the best people of the Queen City was evidently turned toward this meeting. A distinguished member of the Hamilton County bar, who had not been thoroughly converted before, said: "When you come again, let me make the address of welcome!"
The annual report of the chairman of the executive committee stated that the association had continued to supply with suffrage matter all editors who would use it; and that to save postage this weekly bulletin had been put into the form of a small newspaper, the Woman's Column:
Its woman suffrage arguments come back to us in papers scattered from Maine to California, and reach hundreds of thousands of readers who would not take a paper devoted specifically to this reform.... Twenty thousand suffrage leaflets were given to the Rev. Anna H. Shaw, national lecturer for the American W. S. A., whose position as national superintendent of franchise for the W. C. T. U. enables her to use them with great effect; 7,700 were made a gift to the Ohio Centennial Exposition at Cincinnati with hundreds of copies of the Woman's Journal and Woman's Column; also many to the exposition at Columbus; 1,000 leaflets were sent to the meeting of the Wisconsin W. S. A. at Milwaukee, and 500 to its recent meeting at Stevens Point; many were sent to the fair at Ottumwa, Ia.; a large number were distributed at the annual meeting of the National W. C. T. U. in New York, and smaller quantities have been supplied for local use in almost all the States and Territories. Several friends have made donations of money for this purpose, and there is no way in which money goes further or does more good. In August, the association began the publication of a series of tracts under the title of the Woman Suffrage Leaflet. The association has given $50 for work in Montana, $50 in Vermont, $25 in Wisconsin and $15 in New York.
Memorial resolutions were adopted for Louisa M. Alcott, Dr. Mary F. Thomas and James Freeman Clarke, D. D.
The following committee was chosen to continue the negotiations for union with the National Woman Suffrage Association, which had been entered upon in pursuance of the resolution adopted at Philadelphia: the Hon. William Dudley Foulke, Indiana; the Rev. Anna H. Shaw, Michigan; Miss Laura Clay, Kentucky; Mrs. Margaret W. Campbell, Iowa; Prof. W. H. Carruth, Kansas; Miss Mary Grew, Pennsylvania; the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, New Jersey; Mrs. Sarah C. Schrader, Ohio; Mrs. Catherine V. Waite, Illinois; Mrs. May S. Knaggs, Michigan; Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, Massachusetts.
1889.—In January these delegates met with those from the National Association at the convention of the latter in Washington, D. C., and arrangements for the union of the two societies for the following year were practically completed.146
In the summer an appeal was addressed by Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe and Mary A. Livermore to the constitutional conventions which were preparing for Statehood in Dakota, Washington, Montana and Idaho. It said in part:
The undersigned, officers of the American Woman Suffrage Association, though not properly entitled to address your convention, nevertheless ask its courtesy on account of the great interest they feel in the question of the status you will give to women.
You, gentlemen, felt keenly the disadvantage you were under when you had only Territorial rights. If you will consider how much greater are the disadvantages of a class that is wholly without political rights, you will, we feel sure, pardon our entreaty that in building your new constitution you will secure for women equal political rights with men.
The men of the older States inherited their constitutions, with the odious features which the common law imposes upon women. But you are making constitutions. You have the golden opportunity to save your women from all these evils by securing their right to vote in the organic law of the new State. By doing this, over and above the satisfaction which comes from having done a just deed, you will win the gratitude of women for all time, as our fathers won the gratitude of the race when they announced the principle which we ask you to apply. You will also secure the historic credit of being the first men to take the next great step in civilization—a step sure to be taken at no distant day....
Edward Everett once said, illustrating the effect of small things on character: "The Mississippi and the St. Lawrence Rivers have their rise near each other. A very small difference in the elevation of the land sends one to the ocean amid tropical heat, while the other empties into the frozen waters of the north." So, it may seem a small matter whether you admit or shut out women from an equal share in the government. But if you exclude them you shut out a class of citizens pre-eminently orderly, law-abiding and peaceful, and especially interested in the welfare of the home and the safety of society. If, at the same time, you admit all classes of men, however worthless, provided they are out of prison, and if you make them free to stamp their impress upon the government, in the long run you will find the moral tone of the community lowered and cheapened, and your most sacred institutions imperiled by the dangerous classes to whom you entrusted the power which you denied to orderly and good women.
Henry B. Blackwell, secretary of the association, visited North Dakota, Montana and Washington, and personally labored with the members of the three constitutional conventions. He carried with him letters written expressly for these conventions by Governor Francis E. Warren and U. S. Delegate Joseph M. Carey of Wyoming; Governor Lyman U. Humphrey, Attorney-General L. B. Kellogg, Chief Justice Albert H. Horton and all the Judges of the Supreme Court of Kansas; U. S. Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado, U. S. Senator Cushman K. Davis of Minnesota, Governor Oliver Ames, U. S. Senator George F. Hoar, William Lloyd Garrison and others of Massachusetts, commending his mission and expressing the hope that the new States would incorporate equal suffrage in their constitutions. Copies of these letters were placed in the hands of every delegate. Mr. Blackwell devoted over a month to the journey and the work in these Territories, paying his own expenses and giving them and his services to the American Suffrage Association. [Detailed accounts of these efforts will be found in chapters on these three States.]
1890.—In February the American and the National Societies held a convention in Washington under the name of the National-American Association and this body has continued its annual meetings as one organization.
135 The History is indebted for this chapter to Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, editor of The Woman's Journal, Boston, Mass. For early accounts of this organization see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, Chap. XXVI. [Editors of History.
136 Mrs. Helen Ekin Starrett, principal of Highland Park Academy; Miss Ada C. Sweet, head of the Pension Office in Illinois; Mrs. Mary B. Willard, of the Union Signal; Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, of the Inter-Ocean; Dr. Julia Holmes Smith, Helen K. Pierce, Mrs. W. O. Carpenter, Mrs. H. W. Fuller, Mrs. George Harding, Mrs. Catherine V. Waite, Mrs. Elizabeth Loomis and the Rev. Florence Kollock composed the entertainment committee.
137 Mr. Wood, in many public addresses made during the first Kansas amendment campaign in 1867, attributed this action of the Kansas Constitutional Convention to Mrs. Stone; but it is certain that other influences contributed to it. [For a further account of these, see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. I, p. 185. Eds.]
138 Massachusetts gave to this fund $472; Pennsylvania, $201.50; Indiana, $146; New Jersey, $80; Connecticut, $50; New Hampshire, $25; Ohio, $10; Delaware, $5; New Brunswick, Canada, $10.