U. S. Senator Joseph M. Carey was introduced by Miss Anthony as "the man who on the floor of Congress fought Wyoming's battle for Statehood." His address on Wyoming, the True Republic, was a leading feature of the convention. He said in part:
On the tenth day of July last, the State of Wyoming was born and the forty-fourth star took its place on the old flag. Never was first-born more warmly welcomed, for not only had a commonwealth been created, but the principle of equality of citizenship without regard to sex had been fully recognized and incorporated as a part of the constitution of the new State.
The adoption of a woman suffrage bill by the first Territorial Legislature was graphically described, and after relating the subsequent efforts for its repeal, and its incorporation finally into the State constitution, he told of the struggle in Congress and said:
While I would not make invidious distinctions by giving the names of those in both branches of Congress who favored Wyoming's admission, I wish to say that I was agreeably surprised to have many of the ablest members, both in public and private, disclose the fact that they firmly believed the time would come when women would be permitted to exercise full political rights throughout the United States. They rejoiced that an opportunity had presented itself by which they could show they had no prejudice or opposition in their hearts to women's exercising the rights of citizenship.
He closed with the following strong argument for the enfranchisement of women:
Suffrage should be granted to women for two reasons: first, because it will help women; and second, because it will promote the interests of the State. Whatever doubt I may have entertained in the past concerning either the first or second proposition, has entirely disappeared. From the experiment made under my own eyes I can state in all candor that suffrage has been a real benefit to women. It gives them a character and standing which they would not otherwise possess. It does not lower a woman to be consulted about public affairs, but is calculated to make her more intelligent and thoughtful in matters that concern her own household, especially in bringing up her sons and daughters. It increases her interest in those things which concern the great body of the people. Men in office and out of office, particularly those who expect to serve the public, are compelled to be more considerate of her wishes, and more desirous of doing those things which will secure her approval. The greater the number of persons living under a government who are interested in the administration of its affairs, its well-being and the perpetuity of its institutions, the stronger the government and the more difficult it will be to compass its overthrow....
We frequently hear it said that women will not vote if they have the opportunity; or, if permitted to vote, such an inconsiderable number will exercise the privilege that it will not be worth while to encumber the electoral system by granting it. In all matters in which women have an interest, as large a percentage vote as of the other sex. They have the same interest in all which pertains to good government. They have exercised the privilege of voting not in a careless and indifferent manner but in a way reflecting credit on their good sense and judgment.
I know women who have exercised the fullest political rights for a period of more than twenty years. They have taken the deepest interest in the political affairs of the Territory and young State. Neither in their homes nor in public places have they lost one womanly quality; but their minds have broadened and they have become more influential in the community in which they live. During these years I have never heard of any unhappiness brought into the home on account of women's exercising their political rights. A fair and unbiased test of this question has been made by the people of Wyoming, and no unprejudiced man or woman who has seen its workings, can now raise a single honest objection. Where women have voted, the family relation has not been destroyed, men have loved them none the less, the mountains have not been shaken from their foundations, nor have social earthquakes or political convulsions taken place....
In order that women shall be more influential citizens of the State and better qualified to raise noble men and women to fight the battles of life, and to carry out the true purpose of this republic, they must possess the full rights of citizenship.
At the close of his speech the Senator was presented with a large basket of roses from the delegates.
Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.) spoke on The Right of a Citizen to a Trial by a Jury of His Peers, showing that women never have possessed this right; that in many criminal cases, such as seduction and infanticide, women could better understand the temptations than could men; that the feminine heart, the maternal influence, are needed in the court-room as well as in the home. Mrs. Lida A. Meriwether (Tenn.) spoke in a keen, sarcastic but humorous manner of The Silent Seven, "the legally mute"—minors, aliens, paupers, criminals, lunatics, idiots and women.
The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw took for her subject Women vs. Indians, and reviewed the suffrage amendment campaign in South Dakota the previous year. In an address brimming and bubbling over with wit, satire and pathos, she showed how much greater consideration the Indians received from the men of that State than did women. She told how 45 per cent. of the votes cast the preceding year were for male Indian suffrage and only 37 per cent. for woman suffrage; how Indians in blankets and moccasins were received in the State convention with the greatest courtesy, and Susan B. Anthony and other eminent women were barely tolerated; how, while these Indians were engaged in their ghost dances, the white women were going up and down the State pleading for the rights of citizens; how the law in that State gives not only the property but the children to the husband, in the face of all the hardships endured by those pioneer wives and mothers. She suggested that the solution of the Indian question should be left to a commission of women with Alice Fletcher at its head, and said in closing: "Let all of us who love liberty solve these problems in justice; and let us mete out to the Indian, to the negro, to the foreigner, and to the woman, the justice which we demand for ourselves, the liberty which we love for ourselves. Let us recognize in each of them that One above, the Father of us all, and that all are brothers, all are one."
The Moral and Political Emergency was presented by Mrs. Emma Smith DeVoe (S. D.). Henry B. Blackwell and Mrs. Alice M. A. Pickler described the South Dakota Campaign. Representative J. A. Pickler was introduced by Miss Anthony as the candidate who, when told that if he expressed his views on woman suffrage he would lose votes, expressed them more freely than ever and ran ahead of his ticket; and his wife as the woman who bade her husband to speak even if it lost him the office, and who was herself the only Congressman's wife that ever took the platform for the enfranchisement of women.
Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby took for her subject Ibsen's drama, A Doll's House, and discussed its ethical problems, closing with the sentence: "As long as the fighting qualities of woman remain, there is a chance for the nation to make a robust, steady progress; but if these die out and woman willingly surrenders herself for the sake of selfish ease to the dominance of man, civilization is arrested and true manhood becomes impossible." The convention ended with a scholarly address by Wm. Lloyd Garrison (Mass.) on The Social Aspect of the Woman Question.
The present officers were re-elected. Mrs. Lucia E. Blount (D. C.), chairman of the committee appointed to push the claim of Anna Ella Carroll, reported that a great deal of work had been done by Mr. and Mrs. Melvin A. Root of Michigan, Mrs. Colby and herself. Every possible effort had been made but the prospect was that Congress would do nothing for Miss Carroll. Miss Frances E. Willard brought an invitation from Mrs. Harrison to the National Council of Women and the members of all its auxiliary societies to attend a reception at the White House, which was accepted by the convention. Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin presented in the name of Mrs. Bertha Honoré Palmer an official invitation to the association to meet in Chicago during the Columbian Exposition, promising a hall which would seat five thousand.
Miss Anthony announced that she had engaged permanent headquarters for the association in the Wimodaughsis club building, which action was ratified. It was decided to give especial attention to suffrage work in the Southern States during the year. The wives of the two senators from Wyoming, Mrs. Warren and Mrs. Carey, occupied seats on the platform.
Mrs. Blake reported the work done by the Platform Committee in having suffrage