kingdom. We are beginning to find in the human race, as in the vegetable and the animal, that the male and the female are designed to be the equals of each other.
It is because woman loves her home that she wants her country to be pure and holy, so that she may not lose her children when they go out from her protection. We want to be women, womanly women, stamping the womanliness of our nature upon the country, even as the men have stamped the manliness of their nature upon it. The home is the sphere of woman and of man also. The home does not mean simply bread-making and dish-washing, but also the place into which shall enter that which makes pure manhood possible. Give woman a chance to do her whole duty. What is education for, what is religion for, but as a means to the end of the development of humanity? If national life is what it ought to be also, a means to the same end, it needs then everything that humanity has to make it sweet and hopeful. Women have moral sentiments and they want to record them. That is the only difference between voting and not voting. The national life is the reflected life of the people. It is strong with their strength and weak with their weakness.
A letter was read to the convention by Miss Anthony from Miss Kitty Reed, daughter of Speaker Thomas B. Reed, who had been with her father in California during the recent suffrage campaign. In referring to this she said:
There and elsewhere the thinking women who opposed it used this argument: There are too many people voting already; the practical effect of woman suffrage would be an increase in the illiterate vote, without a proportionate increase in the intelligent vote. They were not in favor of it unless there could be an educational qualification. In other words, they were opposed to woman suffrage because they were opposed to universal suffrage. I have always regarded universal suffrage as the foundation principle of our government. If "governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" does not mean that, what can it mean? So I tried to persuade these women of the truth of that which I supposed had been settled about one hundred and twenty-one years ago. It is necessary to make women believe that suffrage is a natural right rather than a privilege; that, while abstractly it seems well for an intelligent citizen to govern an ignorant one, human nature is such that the intelligent will govern selfishly and leave the ignorant no opportunity to improve.
It seems to me that the worst obstacle we have to encounter now is not the prejudice of men against women's voting, but a misunderstanding on the part of women of the real meaning of government by the people. This may be ancient history to you, but it impressed me deeply while I was in California and that is why I write it. Of course there are many women who do not think. When they hear woman suffrage spoken of, they go to their husbands and ask them what they think about it, and their husbands tell them that they are too good to vote, and those women are content. It does not occur to them to ask why, if they are too pure and good to vote, they are not excused from obeying the laws and paying taxes.
The report of the first year's work done at national headquarters was very satisfactory. In regard to the Press it contained the following:
The year 1896 has seen the beginning of an effort by our National Association to use systematically the mighty lever of the public press in behalf of our work. We have sent out in regular weekly issues since March hundreds of copies of good equal suffrage articles. These go into the hands of Press Committees in forty-one States, and now between six and seven hundred papers publish them each week. Of forty-one different articles by about thirty different writers, nearly 25,000 copies have been distributed to newspapers. These articles reach, in local papers, not less than one million readers weekly.
We have taken charge of the National Suffrage Bulletin which is edited by the chairman of the organization committee, have had it printed in Philadelphia and mailed from the headquarters. In the past twelve months there have been wrapped and sent out separately 17,700 copies of the Bulletin. A portion of the expenses has been defrayed by special contributions of $900 of the $1,000 given to Miss Anthony by Mrs. Southworth, and $400 through the New York State Association, from the bequest of Mrs. Eliza J. Clapp of Rochester to Miss Anthony.
Mr. Blackwell, as usual, reported for the Committee on Presidential Suffrage, suggesting a form of petition as follows:
Whereas, The Constitution of the United States, the supreme law of the land, expressly confers upon the Legislature of every State the sole and exclusive right to appoint or to delegate the appointment of presidential electors, in article II, section 1, paragraph 2, as follows: "Each State shall appoint in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress;" and
Whereas, In some of the States said appointment has been repeatedly made by the Legislature; and
Whereas, Women equally with men are citizens of this State and of the United States; therefore,
The undersigned, citizens of the State of ——, 21 years of age and upwards, respectfully petition your honorable bodies so to amend the election laws as to enable women to vote in the appointment of presidential electors.
The report of the treasurer, Mrs. Upton, showed that the receipts had risen to $11,825 during the year just passed. It ended thus: "In closing this report the treasurer would like to say that no one person has ever been to the treasury what Miss Anthony has been and is. Every dollar given to her for any purpose whatever, she feels belongs to the work and is most happy when she turns it in. On the other hand the association does very little for her. She pays her own traveling expenses and her own clerk hire. It is to be hoped that this is the last year we may be so neglectful in this direction."
The Congressional Committee, Mrs. Ellen Powell Thompson, acting chairman, reported as a part of the work done: "To still further advance the matter we determined to address a letter to each member of the House and Senate, asking his opinion on the proposed amendment to enfranchise women. At least three-fourths of these letters were promptly answered in most gracious terms, and in many of them hearty sympathy with the purpose of the amendment was expressed. Not a small number declared they were ready to vote for the amendment when opportunity should be given."
Among the State reports those of California, by Mrs. Ellen Clark Sargent, and of Idaho, by Mrs. Eunice Pond Athey, were of special interest, as they contained an epitomized history of the recent campaigns in these States. It was decided that there should be a special effort to make the next annual meeting a noteworthy affair, as it would celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Woman's Rights Convention.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The National-American Convention of 1898.
The Thirtieth annual convention of the suffrage association took place in the Columbia Theatre, Washington, D. C., Feb. 13-19, 1898, and celebrated the Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Woman's Rights Convention.112 In the center of the stage was an old-fashioned, round mahogany table, draped with the Stars and Stripes and the famous silk suffrage flag with its four golden stars. In her opening address the president, Miss Susan B. Anthony, said: "On this table the original Declaration of Rights for Women was written at the home of the well-known McClintock family in Waterloo, N. Y., just half a century ago. Around it gathered those immortal four, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright and Mary Ann McClintock, to formulate the grievances of women. They did not dare to sign their names but published the Call for their convention anonymously.113 We have had that remarkable document printed for distribution here, and you will notice that those demands which were ridiculed and denounced from one end of the country to the other, all have now been conceded but the suffrage, and that in four States."
This convention was the largest in number of delegates and States represented of any in the history of the association, 154 being in attendance and all but four of the States and Territories represented.
The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw devoted the most of her vice-president's report to an account of the work to