Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
A newspaper account said: "And then Anna Howard Shaw stepped forward,
the light of a great purpose shining in her eyes. 'Our International
president has asked for recruits,' she said. 'Never have we had so
many as now.' She spoke of the immense gains to the suffrage cause
within the last few months in America and of the suffrage pioneers and
their sufferings, and ended: 'The path has been blazed for us and they
have shown us the way. Who shall say that our triumph is to be long
delayed? It is the hour for us to rally. We have enlisted for the war.
Ninety days? No; for the war! We may not win every battle but we shall
win the war. Happy they who are the burden-bearers in a great fight!
Happy is any man or woman who is called by the Giver of all to serve
Him in the cause of humanity! Friends, come with us and we will do you
good; but whether you come or not we are going, and when we enter the
promised land of freedom we will try to be just and to show that we
understand what freedom is, what the law is. 'God grant us law in
liberty and liberty in law!'"
FOOTNOTES:
[56] Part of Call: Since we met last in convention women in Norway
have won full suffrage; tax-paying women in Iceland have been granted
a vote and made eligible as municipal councillors; Municipal suffrage
has been given to women in Denmark and they now vote for all officers
except members of Parliament; women in Sweden, who already had the
Municipal vote, have been made eligible to municipal offices; a proxy
in the election of the Douma has been conferred on women of property
in Russia. In Great Britain, where they have long possessed Municipal
suffrage, women have been made eligible as mayors, county, borough and
town councillors and their heroic struggle for Parliamentary suffrage
is attracting the attention of the world.
In our own country during the past year, 175,000 women of Michigan
appealed for full suffrage to its constitutional convention and a
partial franchise was given; in Oregon women obtained the submission
of a constitutional amendment for suffrage to a referendum vote.
Though no large victories were won the advocates of equal suffrage
have never felt more hopeful, as public sentiment is in closer
sympathy with them than ever before. Five hundred associations of men,
organized for other purposes and numbering millions of voters, have
officially declared for woman suffrage; only one, the organized liquor
traffic, has made a record of unremitting hostility to it and the
domination of the saloon in politics has wrested many victories from
our grasp....
We cordially invite all men and women who have faith in the principles
of the American government and love liberty and justice to meet with
us in convention in Buffalo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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