States. Most of the speakers and delegates met in Washington on February 15 to celebrate Miss Anthony's seventy-fifth birthday and participate in the triennial convention of the National Council of Women.
101 The three sisters, Claudia Howard Maxwell, Miriam Howard Du Bose and H. Augusta Howard, who as delegates at Washington the previous winter had invited the association to Atlanta, bore the principal part of these expenses and were largely responsible for the success of the convention.
102 The facts and figures presented in the report from Kansas by the president, Mrs. Laura M. Johns, will be found in the chapter on that State.
103 For an account of this beautiful celebration in the Metropolitan Opera House with an audience of 3,000, see Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, p. 848; also Reminiscences of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
104 For account of Mrs. Bradwell's case see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 601; of Mrs. Minor's, same, p. 715.
CHAPTER XVI.
The National-American Convention of 1896.
The suffrage association held its Twenty-eighth annual convention in the Church of Our Father, Washington, D. C., Jan. 23-28, 1896. In her opening remarks the president, Miss Susan B. Anthony, said:
The thought that brought us here twenty-eight years ago was that, if the Federal Constitution could be invoked to protect black men in the right to vote, the same great authority could be invoked to protect women. The question has been urged upon every Congress since 1869. We asked at first for a Sixteenth Amendment enfranchising women; then for suffrage under the Fourteenth Amendment; then, when the Supreme Court had decided that against us, we returned to the Sixteenth Amendment and have pressed it ever since. The same thing has been done in this Fifty-fourth Congress which has been done in every Congress for a decade, namely, the introducing of a bill providing for the new amendment....
You will notice that the seats of the delegation from Utah are marked by a large United States flag bearing three stars, a big one and two smaller ones. The big star is for Wyoming, because it stood alone for a quarter of a century as the only place where women had full suffrage. Colorado comes next, because it is the first State where a majority of the men voted to grant women equal rights. Then comes Utah, because its men in convention assembled—in spite of the bad example of Congress, which took the right away from its women nine years ago—those men, having seen the good effects of woman suffrage for years, voted by an overwhelming majority to leave out the little word "male" from the suffrage clause of their new State Constitution, and their action was ratified by the electors. Next year, if I am here, I hope to rejoice with you over woman suffrage in California and Idaho.
Some one whispered to Miss Anthony that the convention had not been opened with prayer, and she answered without the slightest confusion: "Now, friends, you all know I am a Quaker. We give thanks in silence. I do not think the heart of any one here has been fuller of silent thankfulness than mine, but I should not have remembered to have the meeting formally opened with prayer if somebody had not reminded me. The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw will offer prayer."
Miss Shaw's report as vice-president-at-large was full of the little touches of humor for which she was noted:
The report of my specific work would not take long; but the work that really did count for our association began last May, when your president and I were invited to California. On the way we stopped first at St. Louis, where Miss Anthony spoke before the Women's Federation, the Woman's Council, and the State W. S. A. From there we went to Denver, where we had a remarkable meeting, and a warm greeting was given to Miss Anthony by the newly enfranchised women of Colorado. It was pleasant to find them so grateful to the pioneers. The large opera house was packed, and a reception, in which the newspapers estimated that 1,500 persons took part, was afterwards given at the Palace Hotel.
From Denver we went to Cheyenne, where we addressed the citizens, men and women. For once there were present at our meeting quite as many men as women, and not only ordinary but extraordinary men. After introducing us to the audience, Mrs. Theresa A. Jenkins introduced the audience to us. It included the Governor, Senators, Representatives, Judges of the Supreme Court, city officials, and never so many majors and colonels, and it showed that where women have a vote, men think their meetings are worth going to. We were the guests of the Governor during our stay in Colorado, and guests of a U. S. Senator in Wyoming. At Salt Lake all the city turned out, and I spoke in the Tabernacle to the largest audience I ever had. It was sympathetic too, for Utah people are accustomed to go to church and listen. At Ogden they had to take two buildings for the meeting. At Reno, Nevada, there was a large audience.
The Woman's Congress at San Francisco was the most marvelous gathering I ever saw. The newspapers said the men were all hypnotized, or they would not stand on the sidewalk two hours to get into a church. Every subject considered during the whole week, whether it was the care of children or the decoration of the home, turned on the ballot for women, and Susan B. Anthony was the belle of the ball. The superintendent of San Francisco closed the schools that Miss Anthony might address the 900 teachers. The Ministers' Association passed resolutions favoring the amendment. We went the whole length of the State and the meetings were just as enthusiastic.
The Citizens' Committee asked women to take part in the Fourth of July celebration. The women accepted more than the men meant they should, for they insisted that a woman should be on the program. The Program Committee refused, and the Executive Committee said if they did not put a woman on they should be discharged. Instead of this they proposed that Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper should provide sandwiches for over 5,000 kindergarten children. That was the kind of work they invited such women to do.
The Program Committee discussed the matter, and their discussion could be heard four blocks away, but they finally yielded and invited me to speak. So Miss Anthony and I rode for three miles in a highly-decorated carriage, just behind the mayor and followed by a brass band and the fire brigade, and I wore a big badge that almost covered me, just like the badge worn by the masculine orator. The dispute between the Executive and the Program Committees had excited so much interest that there were more cheers for your president and vice-president as we passed along than there were for the mayor....
They wanted us both to come back in the fall. I went and spoke thirty-four times in thirty-seven evenings.
As the vice-president finished, Miss Anthony observed in her characteristic manner: "Miss Shaw said she only went to California to hold Miss Anthony's bonnet, but, when we left, everybody thought that I had come to hold her bonnet. It is my delight to see these girls develop and outdo their elders. There is another little woman that I want to come up here to the platform, Mrs. Chapman Catt. While she is blushing and getting ready, there is a delegation here from the Woman's National Press Association." Mesdames Lockwood, Gates, Cromwell and Emerson were introduced, and Miss Anthony remarked: "Our movement depends greatly on the press. The worst mistake any woman can make is to get crosswise with the newspapers."105
By this time Mrs. Chapman Catt had reached the platform, and Miss Anthony continued: "Mrs. Catt went down South with me last year to hold my bonnet; and wherever we were, at Memphis or New Orleans or elsewhere, when she had spoken, Miss Anthony was nowhere. It is she who has done the splendid organization work which has brought into the association nearly every State in the Union, and every Territory except the Indian and Alaska and we shall have them next year."
An able address was given by Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby (D. C.) on The Philosophy of Woman Suffrage, in which she said:
Woman suffrage is in harmony with the evolution of the race. The progress