House Bill 625 of 1896 started with a most innocent appearance under the t.i.tle, "A bill to enlarge the powers of the police commissioners of Boston." In reality it asked that the powers of the police force be so extended as to allow them to issue permits for the keeping of houses of ill-repute, with authority for their inspection and control.
Other organizations joined this one in opposition, with the result that the bill was defeated.
The a.s.sociation also advocated "A bill to prohibit child insurance,"
on account of the injury done to families by absorbing the means which should be expended for food, clothes and other necessaries in the payment of policies. It was considered, moreover, in the nature of a premium for child murder by neglect.
The most interesting event of 1898 was the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the first woman"s rights convention. Dr. Merritt spoke of the rise of the movement, saying that 1848 was as marked an epoch in the rights of women as was 1776 in the rights of men. Miss Hatch"s paper gave the trend of events previous to the Seneca Falls Convention, showing that these molded public sentiment and gave rise to the calling of this memorable meeting. Speeches, letters from absent members and a roll of honor, each giving the name of an old worker and adding appropriate remarks, followed.
In addition to the usual pet.i.tions was one to Congress in behalf of the Hawaiian women. A protest was also sent against the admission to Congress of Brigham H. Roberts of Utah, a polygamist and an enemy to woman suffrage.
Since 1884 this a.s.sociation has held 128 public meetings. It has been represented by active working delegates at every convention of the National a.s.sociation since becoming an auxiliary in 1882. The recording secretary has held that office for seventeen years, never having been absent from a monthly meeting unless because of illness or attendance at the national conventions. She has been a delegate to the latter for fourteen years.
This a.s.sociation did much pioneer press work. From its first session a report of the same, with items made up of whatever had occurred in any part of the world advantageous to woman"s advancement since the previous meeting, has appeared next day in the leading Boston dailies, with scarcely an omission during the eighteen years.
Besides those already mentioned the following have held office and been faithful workers: Mesdames A. M. Mahony, Sarah A. Rand and Lydia L. Hutchins; and the Misses Hannah M. Todd, Elizabeth B. Atwill, Charlotte Lobdell, Agnes G. Parrott and Sophia M. Hale. In 1901 the society united with the Ma.s.sachusetts State a.s.sociation.
FOOTNOTES:
[303] The History is indebted for the material for this chapter to Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, editor of the _Woman"s Journal_ (Boston) and recording secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation since 1890. It is due to the _Woman"s Journal_, founded in 1869, that so complete a record of the State work has been obtained.
[304] See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. I, p. 215.
[305] Among many names which appear in connection with these annual meetings are those of the Revs. Daniel P. Livermore, Charles W.
Wendte, S. S. Herrick, Philip S. Moxom, Charles F. Thwing, L. B.
Bates, F. A. Abbott, S. W. Bush, William J. Potter, C. P. Pitblado, George Willis Cooke, Fielder Israel, Eben L. Rexford, Christopher R.
Eliot, David A. Gregg, Edward A. Horton, B. F. Hamilton, George A.
Gordon, Charles F. Dole, Nathan E. Wood, W. W. Lucas, the Revs. Ida C.
Hultin, Lorenza Haynes, Mary Traffern Whitney, Lila Frost Sprague, J.
W. Clarke, of the Boston Traveller, D. H. Beggs, President of the Central Labor Union, Judge Robert Pitman, the Hon. Joseph H. Walker, Francis J. Garrison, John Graham Brooks, John L. Whiting, Sam Walter Foss, Sherman h.o.a.r, W. L. Haskel, Mesdames Martha Perry Lowe, E. N. L.
Walton, Martha Sewall Curtis, O. A. Cheney, Ellie A. Hilt, Abby M.
Davis, Judith W. Smith, Misses Anna Gardner, Lucia T. Ames, Eva Channing, Amorette Beecher, Alice Parker, all of Ma.s.sachusetts. The Rev. J. W. Bashford, Delaware College, Ohio, the Rev. Florence E.
Kollock, Illinois, Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, California, Mrs. Helen Coffin Beedy, Mrs. Etta H. Osgood, Maine, U. S. Senator Henry W.
Blair, Mrs. Armenia S. White, Miss Mary N. Chase, New Hampshire, Mrs.
M. L. T. Hidden, Mrs. A. D. Chandler, Vermont, Mrs. Elizabeth B.
Chace, Dr. John C. Wyman, Dr. Ira Aldrich, Jeanette S. French, Louise Tyler, Rhode Island, Mesdames Emily O. Kimball, Josephine M. Bissell, Emily J. Leonard, Annie C. S. Fenner, Judge Joseph and Miss Elizabeth Sheldon, Connecticut, Mrs. Cornelia Collins Hussey, New Jersey, Judge William S. Peirce, Philadelphia, Miss Anna Gordon, Illinois, Dr. Ida Joe Brooks, Arkansas, Ellis Meredith, Denver, Giles B. Stebbins, Michigan, Lloyd McKim Garrison, New York, Amelia B. Edwards, Mrs.
Percy Widdrington, England.
[306] As this board was continued for many years with but little change, and as it indicates clearly the personnel of the a.s.sociation, the remainder is given in full. Vice presidents, Mrs. Mary A.
Livermore, John G. Whittier, U. S. Senator George F. h.o.a.r, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, Theodore D. Weld, ex Gov. William Claflin, Judge Samuel E. Sewall, William Lloyd Garrison, Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Hon. John Hopkins, Miss Abby W. May, A. Bronson Alcott, Marie E. Zakrzewska, M. D., Col. Thomas W. Higginson, Miss Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Wendell Phillips, Miss Louisa M. Alcott, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Mrs. Adelaide A. Claflin, the Rev. William I. Haven, Judge Thomas Russell, Lucy Sewall, M. D., Robert C. Pitman, George A. Walton, Mrs. C. B. Redmund, Charles W. Slack, Seth Hunt, Mrs. Eliza K. Church, the Rev. Jesse H. Jones, Uretta McAllister, Julia M. Baxter; recording secretary, Charles K. Whipple; treasurer, Miss Amanda M. Lougee; executive committee, Mrs. Lucy Stone, chairman, Mrs. Mary C. Ames, Miss Mary F. Eastman, Mrs. Judith W. Smith, Mrs.
Henrietta L. T. Wolcott, Mrs. W. I. Bowditch, Mrs. S. E. M. Kingsbury, Mrs. E. N. L. Walton, Mrs. S. C. Vogl, S. C. Hopkins, Mrs. E. P.
Nickles, Mrs. Fenno Tudor, Dr. J. T. Leonard, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, Miss Eva Channing, the Rev. J. W. Bashford, Mrs. Harriet W.
Sewall, Miss Kate Ireson, Frederick A. Claflin, Arthur P. Ford, Miss M. Ada Molineux, S. Frank King, Miss Cora Scott Pond, J. Avery Howland.
[307] In the 111 Granges of the State, 70 women were secretaries and 39 lecturers this year.
[308] Mrs. Helen Campbell spoke on Women in Industry, Mrs. Howe on Women in Literature, the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell on Women in the Ministry, Mrs. Charlotte Emerson Brown, president of the General Federation, on Women"s Clubs, Mrs. Susan S. Fessenden, president of the State W. C. T. U., on Women"s Work for Temperance, Mary A. Greene, LL. B., on Women in Law, Dr. Emily Blackwell on Women in Medicine, Mrs. Sallie Joy White, late president of the New England Women"s Press a.s.sociation, on Women in Journalism, and Miss Eastman on Steps in Education for Girls from Dame School to College. The opportunities for women at Va.s.sar, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Boston University and Mt.
Holyoke were presented respectively by Dr. Emma B. Culbertson, Prof.
A. Eugenia Morgan, Miss Cora A. Benneson, Miss E. D. Hanscom and Miss Sarah P. Eastman, president of the Boston Mt. Holyoke Alumnae. Mrs.
Cheney read a paper on Women in Hospitals and Miss Alla Foster gave reminiscences of her mother, Mrs. Abby Kelly Foster. Lucy Stone spoke on the Gains of Forty Years, Colonel Higginson on Landmarks of Progress, Mr. Blackwell on Kansas and Wyoming. Woman Suffrage by State and Federal Legislation; Mr. Garrison on Women Needed as Political Helpmeets; and the Rev. Ada C. Bowles on the Suffrage Revival in Worcester in 1869. Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates spoke on Suffrage, and the Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer on Our Debt to the Pioneers.
Letters were read from U. S. Senators Joseph M. Carey and Francis E.
Warren of Wyoming, ex-president James H. Fairchild of Oberlin, the Hon. Charles Robinson of Kansas, Thomas Davis, husband of Paulina Wright Davis, Francis G. Adams, secretary of the Kansas Historical Society, Theodore D. Weld, Mesdames Hannah M. Tracy Cutler, Elizabeth B. Chace, Frances H. Drake, Caroline Healy Dall, J. Elizabeth Jones, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Caroline M. Severance, Clara B. Colby, Miss Mary Grew, Miss Anna L. T. Parsons, Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett of England, and others.
[309] Mrs. Livermore, the Rev. Charles G. Ames, Mrs. Cheney, Prof.
Ellen Hayes of Wellesley, the Hon. Alfred S. Roe, Mrs. Phebe Stone Beeman, Mrs. Sallie Joy White and Mr. M. H. Gulesian of Armenia, with a poem by Mr. Garrison.
[310] The best known of these names are included in the list of eminent persons in the Appendix.
[311] There were addresses by Fletcher Dobyns and Oswald Garrison Villard of Harvard, Miss Maud Thompson of Wellesley College, Edson Reifsnyder of Tufts, and Miss Mabel E. Adams, with music by the Boston Choral Society.
[312] Miss Elva Hurlburt Young, president of the senior cla.s.s of Wellesley College, A. M. Kales and Raymond M. Alden of Harvard, W. H.
Spofford Pittinger of Providence, R. I. A poem by Mrs. Stetson, Girls of To-day, was recited by Miss Marion Sherman of the Boston School of Oratory.
[313] Other officers have been Recording secretary, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, treasurers, Miss Amanda M. Lougee, Mrs. Harriet W. Sewall, Francis J. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, chairmen of the executive committee, Mrs. Lucy Stone, Mrs. Judith W. Smith, Miss Blackwell. Vice presidents for 1900 are the Hons. George F. h.o.a.r, John D. Long, William Claflin, W. W. c.r.a.po, Josiah Quincy, George A. O. Ernst, J. W.
Candler, Lieut. Gov. John L. Bates, Col. T. W. Higginson, the Rev.
George Willis Cooke, William I. Bowditch, William Lloyd Garrison, Prof. Ellen Hayes, Mesdames Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Pauline Aga.s.siz Shaw (Quincy A.), Oliver Ames, f.a.n.n.y B. Ames, Abby Morton Diaz, Susan S. Fessenden, Ole Bull, Emma Walker Batch.e.l.ler, Martha Perry Lowe, Mary Schlesinger, Miss Mary F. Eastman, Miss Lucia M. Peabody.
[314] Mr. Blackwell was corresponding secretary from 1871 to 1893, Miss Laura Moore of Vermont, one year, and Mrs. Ellen M. Bolles of Rhode Island, from 1894 to the present time, recording secretaries, Charles K. Whipple, Mrs. O. Augusta Cheney, Mrs. Ellie A. Hilt, Miss Eva Channing, treasurers, Mrs. Harriet W. Sewall, John L. Whiting, Miss Amanda M. Lougee, Francis J. Garrison. The vice presidents are the presidents and prominent members of the New England State a.s.sociations.
[315] Limited s.p.a.ce has prevented any resume of the speeches made during these years in the conventions or before the legislative committees. The reader is referred to the files of the _Woman"s Journal_ which have been placed in a number of public libraries. The names of legislators who have advocated woman suffrage will be found at the close of Legislative Action.
[316] The one to the Republican members was signed by Alanson W.
Beard, William Claflin, William W. c.r.a.po, Henry L. Dawes, Frank P.
Goulding, Thomas N. Hart, George F. h.o.a.r, John D. Long, Samuel May, Adin Thayer and John G. Whittier; the other to the Democratic by Josiah G. Abbott, Edward Avery, John M. Corse, John E. Fitzgerald, John Hopkins, George E. McNeil, Bushrod Morse, Frederick O. Prince, Albert Palmer and Charles H. Taylor.
[317] These letters have been doing duty ever since, being quoted in adverse reports of congressional committees, Legislatures, speeches and doc.u.ments of the opponents, etc.
[318] This was the last time Lucy Stone addressed a legislative committee. She had presented her first plea in 1857. Every year since 1869 she had made her annual pilgrimage to the State House to ask for the rights of women.
[319] The remonstrants in past years had gone repeatedly before legislative committees, and since 1897 they have appeared and spoken every year in opposition to any form of suffrage for women.
[320] Mr. Saunders, when asked by a reporter of the Boston _Record_ if it was true that he received $150 per month for his services, declined to say, but stated that he should consider that a small amount, as he was giving practically all of his time and effort.
[321] The M. A. O. F. E. S. W. says that this was not done by the a.s.sociation officially. It was certainly done by some of its prominent members.
[322] On one occasion, after Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and her a.s.sociates had made their appeals, Mr. Keenan referred to them in the legislative debate as "women masquerading in pants," and said, "I never knew a woman who loved her children or her home that wanted to vote."
[323] Dr. Lyman Abbott of New York, Miss Heloise E. Hersey, Miss Sarah E. Hunt, Mesdames Barrett Wendell, W. W. Vaughan, Judith Andrews, Nathaniel Payne, James H. Robbins, Frank B. Fay and Henry Thompson also "remonstrated."
[324] It seems desirable to preserve the names of those who have championed and voted for a measure so bitterly opposed. Those of the eighty four opponents may drop into oblivion. Honor roll Senators S.
Stillman Blanchard, Arthur B. Breed, Gorham D. Gilman, Robert S. Gray, Charles H. Innes, Francis W. Kittridge, Joel D. Miller, Henry S.
Milton, Joseph O. Neill, Isaac N. Nutter, Representatives John E.
Abbott, Charles H. Adams, Frederick Atherton, Frank E. Badger, Thomas C. Batchelder, John L. Bates, Alanson W. Beard, Amos Beckford, Frank P. Bennett, Thomas W. Bicknell, John B. Bottum, Harvey L. Boutwell, George A. Brown, Walter J. D. Bullock, Edward B. Callender, James F.
Carey, George D. Chamberlain, Albert Clarke, Charles Carleton Coffin, Henry Cook, Louis A. Cook, Charles U. Corey, Fred E. Crawford, Franklin Cross, Arthur B. Curtis, Francis W. Darling, William D.
Dennis, Solomon K. Dexter, E. Walter Everett, George H. Fall, Frank E.
Fitts, Jubal C. Gleason, Samuel L. Gracey, James W. Grimes, Thomas E.
Grover, Luther Hall, Harris C. Hartwell, Martin E. Hawes, William R.
Hayden, Alfred S. Hayes, Ehhu B. Hayes, Charles E. Haywood, Edmund Hersey, John Hildreth, John G. Horan, Charles R. Johnson, George R.