Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
Mrs. Villard presided Monday evening and in introducing Mr. Blackwell,
whom the audience rose to greet, she said: "It is a pleasure for me to
pay also a tribute to the loveliness of his wife, Lucy Stone. To my
childish vision she was a type of perpetual sunshine." Mr. Blackwell
gave the opinion of a man of long observation and experience on How to
Get Votes for Women. Mrs. Craigie spoke on Citizenship--What Is It?
Mrs. Stewart relieved Mrs. Upton of her usual task of taking a
collection and among her witty remarks was one on Bartholdi's statue
of Liberty. "The real goddesses of Liberty in this country do not
spend a large amount of time standing on pedestals in public places;
they use their torches to startle the bats in political cellars."
Referring to the ignoring of women's work in the histories she said:
"When I was a child and studied about the Pilgrim Fathers I supposed
they were all bachelors, as I never found a word about their wives."
Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's topic was Masculine, Feminine and
Human, discussed with her usual keen analysis and illuminated with her
pungent epigrams.
A spirited symposium took place on Pre-Election Methods, led by Mrs.
Stewart, who outlined the work done in Illinois, where it had been
reduced to a system. "We find candidates much less tractable after
election than before," she said, "although we always send literature
and letters to the members-elect and subscribe for the _Woman's
Journal_ for them. We are now strong enough in some districts for
pre-election work to elect our friends and defeat our enemies. Mrs.
Catharine Waugh McCulloch sent a circular letter to every member of
the last Legislature, with questions as to his attitude on woman
suffrage and from the answers she compiled a leaflet recommending the
election of the men who promised to vote for our measures. She sent
this to every paper in Illinois and distributed it as widely as
possible among the women's clubs and women at large. She did the same
with our Congressmen. Not one of the legislators who promised to vote
for our bill voted against it. Our most important measure was lost in
the Senate by a majority of only one vote. Eight of the Senators who
voted against it are up for re-election and we shall do our best to
keep them from going back. Illinois has printed for several years a
Roll of Honor of the legislators who have voted right on our bills."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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