The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty YearsHarper, Ida Husted
History
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years
Harper, Ida Husted
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
The delegates and speakers of the National Association then held
meetings at Milwaukee, Wis., Bloomington, Ill., Grand Rapids, Mich.,
Lafayette and Terre Haute, Ind., and reached Cincinnati in time for the
Democratic National Convention, June 22. They were received here with
unexpected courtesy. Mayor Prince, of Boston, and Mr. Eaton, of Kansas,
presented their request for seats, and sixteen were granted them on the
floor of the house, just behind the delegates. A committee room was
placed at their disposal and their notices and placards were printed by
the convention. A hearing was given before the platform committee, with
no limit as to time, and after several had spoken the others were
invited to do so. The chairman, Henry Watterson, declared himself in
favor of the plank desired. The delegations from Maine, New York and
Kansas also were favorable. Miss Anthony was escorted to the platform
upon the arm of Carter Harrison, amid wild applause, given a seat beside
the presiding officer, Wade Hampton, and the clerk was ordered to read
the address which she presented.[2] After all this parade, however, the
platform contained not the slightest reference to the claims of women
or, in fact, to their existence. The results of the appeal to the
Republican and Democratic conventions were precisely the same, except
that the latter administered the dose with chivalry.
The National Prohibition Convention at Bloomington, Ill., officially
invited the suffrage advocates to meet with them and participate in
their proceedings. Phoebe Couzins was sent as a delegate, and the
convention adopted the following plank: "We also demand that women
having privileges as citizens in other respects, shall be clothed with
the ballot for their own protection, and as a rightful means for the
proper settlement of the liquor question." This body, it will be
noticed, not only demanded the ballot for woman but told her what she
would be expected to do with it.
While not at all surprised, Miss Anthony was greatly disgusted with the
action of the Republican and Democratic conventions, but, determined to
leave nothing undone, she soon afterwards called upon General Garfield
at Mentor. He was cordial and expressed himself in favor of equality for
woman in matters of education, work, wages and civil rights, but was not
ready to declare himself in favor of the suffrage and, as was always the
case, urged that the issue be not pressed during _that_ campaign. Mrs.
Blake and others visited General Hancock, the Democratic candidate, and
the New York Sun reports the interview in part:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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