her to vote and hold office.
On the last evening, the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, U. S. Commissioner of Labor, delivered a valuable address on The Industrial Emancipation of Women, in which he said:
Until within a comparatively recent period, woman's subjection to man has been well-nigh complete in all respects, whether such subjection is considered from a social, political, intellectual or even a physical point of view. At first the property of man, she emerged under civilization from the sphere of a drudge to that of a social factor and, consequently, into the liberty of cultivating her mental faculties....
Industrial emancipation, using the term broadly, means the highest type of woman as the result, the word "industrial" comprehending in this sense all remunerative employment. The entrance of woman into the industrial field was assured when the factory system of labor displaced the domestic or hand labor system. The age of invention, with the wonderful ramifications which invention always has produced, must be held accountable for bringing woman into a field entirely unknown to her prior to that age. As an economic factor, either in art, literature or industry, she was before that time hardly recognizable. With the establishment of the factory system, the desire of woman to have something more than she could earn as a domestic or in agricultural labor, or to earn something where before she had earned nothing, resulted in her becoming an economic factor, and she was obliged to submit to all the conditions of this new position. It hardly can be said that in the lower forms of industrial pursuits she superseded man, but it is true that she supplemented his labors....
Each step in industrial progress has raised her in the scale of civilization rather than degraded her. As a result she has constantly gone up higher and gained intellectual advantages, such as the opening to her of the higher institutions of learning, which have in turn equipped her for the best professional employment. The moral plane of the so-called workingwoman certainly is higher than that of the woman engaged in domestic service, and is equal to that of any class of women in the community....
As women have occupied the positions of bookkeepers, telegraphers and many of what might be called semi-professional callings, men have entered engineering, electrical, mechanical and other spheres of work which were not known when women first stepped into the industrial field. As the latter have progressed from entire want of employment to that which pays a few dollars per week, men, too, have progressed in their employments, and occupied larger fields not existing before....
Woman is now stepping out of industrial subjection and coming into the industrial system of the present as an entirely new economic factor. If there were no other reasons, this alone would be sufficient to make her wages low and prevent their very rapid increase.... The growing importance of woman's labor, her general equipment through technical education, her more positive dedication to the life-work she chooses, the growing sentiment that an educated and skilful woman is a better and truer companion in marriage than an ignorant and unskilful one, her appreciation of the value of organization, the general uplifting of the principle of integrity in business circles, woman's gradual approach to man's powers in mental achievement also, her possible and probable political influence—all these combined, working along general avenues of progress and evolution, will bring her industrial emancipation, by which she will stand on an equality with man in those callings in life for which she may be fitted. As she approaches this equality her remuneration will be increased and her economic importance acknowledged....
If woman's industrial emancipation leads to what many are pleased to call "political rights," we must not quarrel with it. It is not just that all other advantages which may come through this emancipation shall be withheld simply because one great privilege on which there is a division of sentiment may also come.
One of the greatest boons which will result from the industrial emancipation of woman will be the frank admission on the part of the true and chivalric man that she is the sole and rightful owner of her own being in every respect, and that whatever companionship may exist between her and man shall be as thoroughly honorable to her as to him.
Miss Harriet May Mills (N. Y.) gave a paper on The Present Political Status of Woman, which showed the trained mind and logical method of thought one would expect from a graduate of Cornell University. The last address of the convention was given by the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, entitled The America Undiscovered by Columbus. This, like so many of Miss Shaw's unsurpassed lectures, will be lost to posterity because unwritten and not stenographically reported.
In her report as vice-president-at-large Miss Shaw announced that she had given during the year 215 lectures for which she had received pay, twenty-five of these for suffrage associations and the rest for temperance and literary organizations, but on every occasion it had been a suffrage lecture. In addition she had given gratuitously to the service of this cause lectures which at her regular price would have amounted to $1,265. She also related the following incident: "I was present at the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Denver, and Miss Willard introduced me as a fraternal delegate from the National Suffrage Association. I made my little speech and the whole convention arose and waved their handkerchiefs at the message sent by this body. One woman jumped to her feet and moved that a telegram be returned from that convention, giving its sisterly sympathy. Miss Willard got up and said, 'Shoo, ladies; this is different from what it was in Washington in 1881, when you refused to let me have Miss Anthony on my platform. Things are coming around, girls.'"
The corresponding secretary, Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, announced that thirty-three State associations were auxiliary to the national. Miss Adelaide Johnson was introduced as the sculptor who had modeled the fine busts of Lucretia Mott, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, which were on the platform. Miss Laura Clay reported on the work that had just been commenced in the Southern States, which she considered a most hopeful field. In the discussion on Press Work, when it was proposed that the association start an official paper, Miss Anthony said with much feeling: "I had an experience in publishing a paper about twenty-five years ago and I came to grief. I never hear of a woman starting a suffrage paper that my blood does not tingle with agony for what that poor soul will have to endure—the same agony I went through. I feel, however, that we shall never become an immense power in the world until we concentrate all our money and editorial forces upon one great national daily newspaper, so we can sauce back our opponents every day in the year; once a month or once a week is not enough.
The resolutions presented by the chairman, Mrs. Dietrick, were adopted without dissent,94 except the last:
Whereas, The Constitution of the United States promises noninterference with the religious liberty of the people; and
Whereas, Congress is now threatening to abridge the liberties of all in response to ecclesiastical dictation from a portion of the people; therefore,
Resolved, That this association enters a protest against any national attempt to control the innocent inclinations of the people either on the Jewish Sabbath or the Christian Sunday, and this we do quite irrespective of our individual opinions as to the sanctity of Sunday.
Resolved, That we especially protest against this present attempt to force all the people to follow the religious dictates of a part of the people, as establishing a precedent for the entrance of a most dangerous complicity between Church and State, thereby subtly undermining the foundation of liberty, so carefully laid by the wisdom of our fathers.
This precipitated the discussion as to the opening of the World's Fair on Sunday which had been vigorously waged during two preceding conventions without resulting in definite action. It was now continued during three sessions and then, by majority vote, indefinitely postponed. Mrs. Avery, chairman of the Columbian Exposition Committee,95 closed her report as follows: "As we are to be represented in so many ways during the World's Fair—i. e., at the World's Congress of Representative Women, in the Suffrage Congresses, in the meetings to be held in the auditorium of the Woman's Building, in the program to be presented by us for the approval of the Committee on General Meetings of the Board of Lady Managers—I would strongly urge against attempting to hold a separate Suffrage Congress, either national or international, during the Exposition." This was agreed