Over the platform hung two large flags, that of the a.s.sociation, with the two stars of Wyoming and Colorado, and another flag, the work of Georgia ladies, on which was ingeniously depicted the relative standing of the different States on this question. The States where women have no form of suffrage were represented by black stars. Those where they can vote for school committee or on certain local questions had a golden rim. Kansas and Iowa had a wider golden rim, to indicate munic.i.p.al and bond suffrage.
Wyoming and Colorado shone with full and undimmed l.u.s.ter.
Portraits of Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, draped in yellow, adorned opposite sides of the platform.
Many of the delegates were from the Southern States, and some of them strikingly ill.u.s.trated Miss Anthony"s a.s.sertion, "These Southern women are born orators." In sweetness of voice, grace of manner and personal charm they have all the qualities to make most effective speakers, while in the fervor of their equal rights sentiments they go even beyond their sisters from the North and West. One handsome young lady, who sat on the platform a good deal of the time, was supposed to be from New England, because she wore her hair short. It turned out, however, that she was from New Orleans and was a cousin of Jefferson Davis. The announcement of this fact caused her to be received by the audience with roars of enthusiasm.
The Atlanta papers devoted columns every day to friendly reports and innumerable portraits. Ministers of different denominations opened the convention with prayer and their pulpits afterwards for addresses by the ladies. Some of the best people of the city took visitors into their homes, entertaining them hospitably and delightfully, and showing them what a Southern home is like. The national officers and speakers were entertained by the Georgia W.
S. A. at the Aragon, and the State officers generously insisted upon taking almost the entire expenses of the great convention upon their own young shoulders. These "Georgia girls" devoted unlimited time, thought and work to getting up the convention, and then effaced themselves as far as possible....[101]
Perhaps no one person did more, unintentionally, to promote the enthusiasm of the convention than the Rev. Dr. Hawthorne, a Baptist preacher. He had felt called upon to denounce all woman suffragists from his pulpit, not only with severity but with discourtesy, and had been so misguided as to declare that the husbands of suffragists were all feeble-minded men. As the average equal-rights woman is firmly convinced that her husband is the very best man in the world, this remark stirred the women up to a degree of wrath which no amount of abuse leveled against themselves would have aroused. On the other hand, the Atlanta people, even those who were not in favor of suffrage, felt mortified by this unprovoked insult to their guests, and many of them took occasion in private to express their regret. Several speakers at the convention criticised Dr. Hawthorne"s utterances, and every such allusion was received with warm applause by the audience....
At the beginning of the convention four announcements were made which added much to the general good cheer--that South Australia had followed the example of New Zealand in extending Full Suffrage to women; that the Supreme Court of Ohio had p.r.o.nounced the School Suffrage Law const.i.tutional; that the Governor of Illinois had filled a vacancy on the Board of Trustees of the State University by appointing a woman; that the Idaho Legislature had submitted a woman suffrage amendment.
The most perfect arrangements had been made for the meetings, and the novelty of the occasion attracted large crowds, but there was also much genuine interest. The success was partly due to the excellent work of the press of Atlanta. There was, however, no editorial endors.e.m.e.nt except by _The Sunny South_, Col. Henry Clay Fairman, editor.
The national president, Miss Susan B. Anthony, said in opening the convention: "With this gavel was called to order in 1869 that Legislature of Wyoming which established the first true republic under the Stars and Stripes and gave the franchise to what men call the better-half of the people. We women do not say that, but we do claim to be half."
Miss Anthony seldom made a stated address either in opening or closing, but throughout the entire convention kept up a running fire of quaint, piquant, original and characteristic observations which delighted the audience and gave a distinctive attraction to the meetings. It was impossible to keep a record of these and they would lose their zest and appropriateness if separated from the circ.u.mstances which called them forth. They can not be transmitted to future generations, but the thousands who heard them during the fifty years of her itineracy will preserve them among their delightful memories. Perfectly at home on the platform, she would indulge in the same informality of remarks which others use in private conversation, but always with a quick wit, a fine satire and a keen discrimination.
Words of praise or criticism were given with equal impartiality, and accepted with a grace which would have been impossible had the giver been any other than the recognized Mentor of them all. Her wonderful power of reminiscence never failed, and she had always some personal recollection of every speaker or of her parents or other relatives.
She kept the audience in continuous good-humor and furnished a variety to the program of which the newspaper reporters joyfully availed themselves. At the morning business meetings which were always informal there would often be a running dialogue something like the following, when Mrs. Alberta C. Taylor was called to the platform:
MISS ANTHONY: This is an Alabama girl, transplanted to the Rockies--a daughter of Governor Chapman of Alabama. She is as good a Southerner as any one, and also as good a Northerner and Westerner.
MRS. TAYLOR: A Southern paper lately said no Southern woman could read the report of the late election in Colorado without blushing. I went through the election itself without blushing, except with gratification.
MISS ANTHONY: Instead of degrading a woman it makes her feel n.o.bler not to be counted with idiots, lunatics and criminals. It even changes the expression of her face.
VOICE IN THE AUDIENCE: How many women are there in the Colorado Legislature?
MRS. TAYLOR: Three.
MISS ANTHONY: It has always been thought perfectly womanly to be a scrub-woman in the Legislature and to take care of the spittoons; that is entirely within the charmed circle of woman"s sphere; but for women to occupy any of those official seats would be degrading.
MISS LUCY E. ANTHONY: What salaries do the women legislators receive?
MRS. TAYLOR: The same as the men, $4 a day. The pay of our legislators is small. A prosperous business man has to make a great sacrifice to go to the Legislature, and we can not always get the best men to serve. This is an additional reason for making women eligible. There are more first-cla.s.s women than first-cla.s.s men who have the leisure.
MISS SHAW: We are accused of wishing to belittle men, but in Colorado they think a man"s time is worth only as much as a woman"s.
MRS. CLARA B. COLBY: The Hon. Mrs. Holley has just introduced in the Colorado House, and carried through it against strong opposition, a bill raising the age of protection for girls to eighteen years.
MRS. DUNIWAY: I was in the Colorado House and saw it done. The women members are highly respected. I have never seen women so honored since those of Washington were disfranchised. The leading men are as proud of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of their women as Georgia men will be when the time comes. The Colorado women have organized a Good Government League to promote education, sanitation and general prosperity.
MRS. TAYLOR: A bookseller in Denver told me that since women were given the suffrage he had sold more books on political economy than he had sold since Colorado was admitted into the Union.
MISS ANTHONY: The bill raising the age of protection for girls shows that suffrage does not make a woman forget her children, and the bookseller"s remark shows that she will study the science of government.
MRS. MARY BENTLEY THOMAS: One of our most conservative Maryland women, who married in Colorado ten years ago, writes to me: "I enjoyed every moment of the campaign, especially the primary meetings." A Virginia woman who also married a Colorado man writes back: "Come West, where women are appreciated, and where they are proud and happy citizens." She adds: "If you will come I will show you the sweetest girl baby you ever saw."
MRS. HENRY: Let it be recorded that the first bill introduced by a woman member in any State Legislature was a bill for the protection of girls.
On motion of Mrs. Colby, it was voted to send a telegram of congratulation to the Hon. Mrs. Holley.
Again:
Before introducing the president of the Florida W. S. A. Miss Anthony said: "For several years a big box of oranges has come to me from Florida. Not long ago, I got home on one of the coldest nights of the year, and found a box standing in my woodshed, full of magnificent oranges. Next morning the papers reported that all the oranges in Florida were frozen; but the president of the suffrage a.s.sociation saved that boxful for me."
MRS. ELLA C. CHAMBERLAIN: Those were all we saved.... A man in Florida who hires himself and his wife out to hoe corn, charges $1.25 for his own services and 75 cents for hers, although she does just as much work as he, so the men who employ them tell me.
It costs his wife 50 cents a day to be a woman.
VOICE IN THE AUDIENCE: And the 75 cents paid for her work belongs to her husband.
MISS ANTHONY: I suppose those are colored men.
MRS. CHAMBERLAIN: No, they are white.
MISS ANTHONY: White men have always controlled their wives"
wages. Colored men were not able to do so until they themselves became free. Then they owned both their wives and their wages.
The delegate from the District of Columbia answered in a very faint tone of voice, and Miss Anthony remarked that "this was through mortification because even the men there had no more rights than women." When another delegate could not be heard she said: "Women have always been taught that it is immodest to speak in a loud voice, and it is hard for them to get out of the old rut." At another time:
MISS LAVINA A. HATCH: In Ma.s.sachusetts there are between 103,000 and 105,000 families which have no male head. Some of these pay large taxes and none of them has any representation.
MRS. MARIANA W. CHAPMAN: In about two-thirds of the State of New York, and not including New York City, women are a.s.sessed on $348,177,107.
MRS. LOUISA SOUTHWORTH: This year, with the new income tax, I shall pay in taxes, national, State and munic.i.p.al, $5,300.
MISS ANTHONY: Yet why should she have a right to vote?
Inconsistency is the jewel of the American people.
MRS. MERIWETHER: Tennessee caps the climax in taxation without representation. In Shelby County there are two young women, sisters, who own farms. Both are married, and both were sensible enough to have their farms secured to themselves and their children. In one case, at least, it proved a wise precaution. One of these young women asked the other, when she went to town, to pay a few bills for her and settle her taxes. Accordingly she went to the tax office, and as she handed in the papers she noticed written at the foot of her sister"s tax bill, "Poll tax, $1.00." She exclaimed, "Oh, when did Mrs. A. become a voter? I am so glad Tennessee has granted suffrage to women!" "Oh, she hasn"t; it doesn"t," said the young clerk with a smile. "That is her husband"s poll tax." "And why is she required to pay her husband"s poll tax?" "It is the custom," he said. She replied, "Then Tennessee will change its custom this time. I will see the tax collector dead and very cold before I will pay Mr. A."s poll tax out of my sister"s property in order that he may vote, while she is not allowed to do so!"
MISS ANTHONY: It seems to me that these Southern women are in a state of chronic rebellion.
MRS. MERIWETHER: We are.
In closing this meeting Miss Anthony said: "Now, don"t all of you come to me to tell me how glad you are that I have worked for fifty years, but say rather that you are going to begin work yourselves."
The delegates were eloquently welcomed in behalf of the South by Bennett J. Conyers of Atlanta, who declared that "suffrage for women is demanded by the divine law of human development." He said in part:
The work of Miss Anthony needs no apology. She has blazed a way for advanced thought in her lonely course over the red-hot plowshares of resistance. Now almost at the summit she looks back to see following her an army with banners. May she long worship where she stands at Truth"s mountain altar, as, with the royal sunset flush upon her brow, she catches the beckoning of the lights twinkling on the heavenly sh.o.r.e.... The South is a maiden well worthy of the allegiance of this cause, and when her aid is given it will be as devoted as it has been reserved. The South is the land where has lingered latest on earth the chivalry which idealized its objects of worship. What though it may have meant repression? Is it any wonder that the tender grace of a day that is dead even now lingers and makes men loath to welcome change?
Perhaps it can not be told how much it has cost men to surrender the ideal, even though it be to change it for the perfected womanhood....
The address of welcome for the State was made by Mrs. Mary L.
McLendon, who spoke earnestly in favor of equal suffrage, saying:
If Georgia women could vote, this National Convention could hold its session in our million dollar capitol, which rears its grand proportions on yonder hill. Crowning its loftiest pinnacle is the statue of a woman representing Liberty, and on its front the motto, "Justice, Wisdom and Moderation." It was built with money paid into our State"s treasury by women as well as men, both white and black; but men alone, white and black, have the privilege of meeting in legislative session to make laws to govern women. Men are also allowed to hold their Democratic, Republican, Prohibition and Populist Conventions in its halls. It is with difficulty that women can secure a hearing before a legislative committee to pet.i.tion for laws to ameliorate their own condition, or to secure compulsory training in the public schools, that their children may be brought up in the way they should go, and become sober, virtuous citizens.
Major Charles W. Hubner extended the welcome of the city, saying in conclusion: "Reason and right are with you, and these, in the name of G.o.d, will at last prevail." Afterwards he contributed the poem, "Thank G.o.d that Thought is Free." Miss Anthony was presented by Miss H.
Augusta Howard and, after a speech complimentary to Southern women, introduced Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.), who eulogized Southern Chivalry, and Mrs. Lida A. Meriwether (Tenn.), who spoke in behalf of Motherhood. Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates (Me.) made the closing address, in which she said: "As surely as I want to vote--and nothing is more certain--the man for whom I have most wished to vote was your own beloved Henry W. Grady. There is something else for women to do than to sit at home and fan themselves, "cherishing their femininity."