BLACKWELL FAMILY                       EDNORIALS : WOMAN'S JOURNAL
LUCY STONE                                   1874-75, 18841844 from Aug 22.
and 1845 May 22.
No 7
Lucy Stone Editorials in
Woman's Journal
articles signed L.S.
THE
LIBRARY
TABLET

3088
Plain.May 22 1845
??????????
in its favor, Mrs. Stone appealed to the citizens of Fitchburg to show their appreciation of these facts, by defeating the two former, and re-electing the 
two latter gentlemen.   It is to be hoped that this Club will make it forever impossible for Fitchburg ever again to have a Senator and Representative in the Legislature, who will vote against the equal rights of women, as they did this year.
A large number of tracts were sold.   The demand for the invaluable pamphlet of Mr. Bowditch on the "Taxation of Women in Massachusetts," was greater than our supply.   Altogether the Convention was a good-one.  It was pleasant to meet there, old time abolishonists, who, having fought out that battle, now courageously avow their faith in this younger strife, which is just as sure to be accomplished as was that.  Now if friends in Fitchburg will follow up the advantage which the Convention gave them, they  can be a power in this great work.

THE CONCORD WOMAN SUFFRAGE CONVENTION.
 On Wednesday, the Middlesex County Woman Suffrage  Association held a Convention in Concord.  A hundred years ago began there, the strife for the application of principles which still wait to be applied to women.
The first battle had been celebrated by a grand Centennial, but no man reminded the gathered thousands that government does to women what the British government did to the Colonists.  That women are "taxed without representation and governed without consent." So the Suffrage Convention came to supplement the services of the 19th of April and say that, if it was wrong to tax men a hundred years ago to secure the right to self-government, the value of the same great boon for women is no less, and as utterly needs to be paid.

Mrs. Elizabeth K. Churchill, Miss Eastman, II. B. Blackwell and Lucy Stone came down from the Fitchburg Convention and were reinforced at Concord by William Lloyd Garrison, Julia Ward Howe and Geo. H. Vibbert.
The audience in the afternoon was largely composed of women. But conspicuous among them, was the serene face of A. Bronson Alcott, bringing strength and quietness and help.   The hours of that session were filled up by H. B.  Blackwell, Lucy Stone, Mr. Garrison and Rev.  Geo . H.  Vibbert, with rare good words wich better than rifle shots, made it clear that principles are forever true and always safe to apply and dangerous to neglect.   
The  ladies of Concord had prepared an excellent supper, in the vestry of the Congregational Church, to which speakers and strangers from out of town were cordially invited.  A very pleasant  time it was, too; for, besides the things good for food,  there came the Emersons,  the Alcotts,  the Chamberlaines,  the Robbins of old anti-slavery times, and fair young girls, devout believers in their equal rights, and "little men' ready to lend a hand.

At the evening session the hall was full of men and women, the larger part of whom remained interested listeners till past 10 o'clock.  The solemn and prophetic utterances of Mr. Garrison,  the deeds of the women of the revolution so well told by Mr. Churchill, the illustrations  of Miss Eastman, the argument of Mrs. Howe, the endorsement of the principle by Mr. Emerson, and the appeal of Lucy Stone filled up the evening, and also surely helped to fill up the gulf that yawns between
woman and the enjoyment of her equal human rights.  A letter was read from the Smith sisters,  who had been invited to be present, but were detained by  the necessity of being ready at any moment to appear in Court to answer to the crime of having followed the footsteps, and imitated the example of revolutionary heroes.  Altogether it was a good Convention,  and we came away grateful that in Concord, which is forever hallowed by the great deeds done there, the same self-evident truths had been reaffirmed, and their application to women demanded, and felt grateful for the renewal of old acquaintances and for the genial kindness of new ones.                                          L.S.[August 29, 1844
"   " continued]

over her in the house; carrying to the graves of
her children the dead hopes of all her life;
driven to the wall; in utter despair, endured
for five miserable years - Elizabeth Tilton
said what her tormentors required her to say,
against herself, against her pastor, to her ap-
parent certain ruin, just as men in burning
buildings, to escape the torturing flames, leap
from the top, to certain death. 

Doubtless there are many women who, in
her place, and guiltless as she, would have borne
the dastardly changes in proud silence, scorning
to deny, and refusing to criminate themselves;
women who could be drawn and quartered,
but whom no stress of circumstances could
compel to falsehood. There are other, who
would cling to the wreck, but with all the 
strength of innocense, and pride, and truth, 
would go down with it, shouting above the en-
gulfing waters, "I am not guilty, I never did
it."

But Mrs. Tilton is of gentler mould. She 
lived in her affections, and when they were 
crushed, she was crushed. Henceforth she did
as she was bidden. But in the midst of all,
she turned with the instinct of truth to say,
"My heart aches at the injustice of the state-
ments extorted from me."

This view of the case explains Mrs. Tilton's 
acts. I still hold her a good, true woman, un-
speakably sinned against and wronged, and I
do most cordially give her my hand with all a
woman's sympathy, and cry, "Courage Mrs.
Tilton! beyond this desolating flood and this
furnace seven times heated, are happier days
for you. Then, honorable and honored, you
will be girt about and sustained by the love and
strength of your children who, knowing the
truth of this bitter trial from your lips, will vie
with each other in making smooth and easy,
the path over which you will go to the Blessed 
Beyond, while human sympathy, everywhere,
good Samaritan-like, will pour in oil and wine
for the healing of one who fell among thieves. 
Mrs. Tilton must remember that the tender 
plant leveled by the storm, rises again: that the
tree riven by the lightning, whose roots and 
heart are sound, heals its hurts, lifts again its
comely top, spreads its wide branches, and is 
still a strong and trusted tree. 

[L.S.]

Our daily journals have been filled with both 
praise and blame of the Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher, but which among them has noticed
the rare devotion and courage of his noble
wife, who, believing her husband to be true,
has stood faithfully by him through the storm,
and proved herself the true type of wifehood
for all time to come? A weak woman might
have been moved from her steadfastness of de-
votion by all this pressure of suspicion, con-
spiracy, and falsehood; but she has stood
firm as a rock, and well deserves the commen-
dation, "The heart of her husband doth safe-
ly trust in her. She will do him good and
not evil all the days of her life. Her chil-
dren arise up and call her blessed; her hus-
band also, and he praises her."

[September 5, 1874
Nothing
-----------------------------
September 12, 1874]

WIVES OBEY YOUR HUSBANDS
-----------------------------
Not very long ago, certain religious newspa-
pers quoted texts from the Bible to prove that
it was right to make slaves of men. But they
never quoted other texts, which showed that
the enslavement of men was held to be one of 
the highest crimes. As, "Whoso stealeth a
man and selleth him, or if he be found in his 
hands, he shall surely be put to death."

Just so, now. The Congregationalist of Au-
gust 27, publishes an article of nearly two and
a half columns, which is crowded with texts
from the Bible, to justify the subjection of 
wives. It quotes hos Sarah obeyed Abra-
ham, calling him lord, but fails to quote how
God charged Abraham - "In all that Sarah
hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice!"

It quotes no one of the great and fundamen-
tal principles like the Golden Rule, which set-
tles at once the question of equal human rights. 

St. Paul, who so clearly affirmed that "In 
Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek,
male nor female," is made to seem the chief
apostle of the subjugation of wives. After
[Women obey your husbands continued
September 12, 1874 continued]Aug 22. 1844
A QUESTION ANSWERED.
A subscriber sends us the following question: "Can you find time to send a car, or through the JOURNAL tell a subscriber what book or books give a succinct history of the general and legal status of women, both in past and obtained? By giving such information you will confer a great favor upon many." There is no such book. Thirty years ago, Edward D. Mansfield, an eminent lawyer of Cincinnati, published a volume entitled: "The Legal Rights, Liabilities and Duties of Women: with an introductory history of their legal condition, in the Hebrew, Roman and Feudal civil systems, including the law or marriage and divorce, the social relations of husband and wife, of parent and child, of guardian and ward, and of employer and employed." It was published by John P. Jewett of Cincinnati, was sold extensively, and copies are still found in the book-stores. The historical part of the book has a permanent value, but the legal rights and liabilities of women have so changed, that what was true everywhere, so long ago, is not true anywhere now, unless in some Southern States. Nevertheless the book is well worth buying, as a record of what the legal condition of Woman has been, and is the only one I know of, which in so short at space gives a clear view of the facts.
August 29. 1844
MICHIGAN CAMPAIGN FUND.
Subscriptions and pledges already received are as follows:
N. E. Woman Suffrage Society............... $500
Missouri Woman Suffrage Society............ 400
Mrs. Eben Smith................. 100
Abby W. May................... 50
Saml. May....................... 20
Ada C. Bowles................ 5
Miss C. Scott.................. 5
Wm. H. Ladd................... 2
Harvey Howes................ 1
                                       ------
                                        $1083
All friends of Woman Suffrage who desire to aid in employing speakers and circulating tracts and newspapers in Michigan under the auspices of the Michigan Woman Suffrage Association, are urgently requested to send in their pledges without delay to the office of the WOMAN'S JOURNAL.                                                                          L.S.
August 29 1844
MRS. TILTON.
Those who know Mrs. Tilton well and who believe in her essential goodness and truth of character, should bear that testimony for her now.
Of all the persons in the sad scene which has been passing before our eyes, Mrs. Tilton seems to me to be more wronged and injured, than any other, and at the same time to be the most innocent.
I have known her, more or less intimately, sixteen years. I have seen her in her house and in my own, and have had reason to admire and honor her, in every relation in which I saw her. She was a faithful wife, a discreet and gentle mother, and her house was a model of neatness, good taste and good order.
She never gave her children over to servants. She said to me, "I hire service for other things, but I want to take care of my children myself; so I make their clothes, and teach them their lessons, and am never happier than when, surrounded by them here, I watch their opening intellect." And she looked with motherly pride and tenderness over her little group of fine children, who, I fully believe, will yet "rise up and call her blessed." 
Her husband, even now, while charging her with the most infamous crimes, cannot keep back his real belief that "no whiter souled woman lives than Elizabeth Tilton."
Still, by those who do not know Mrs. Tilton, the question is honestly asked, "What manner of woman is it, who can say, and straight unsay; who, at the bidding of anybody, would affirm and deny the same thing in the same breath?"
But to my mind a full answer is found, in the picture she herself gives of her own utter misery. The man she trusted had failed her. He, who should have sheltered the mother of his children with infinite tenderness, gave to the wide world a hint of nameless crime. The suspicious shadow gathered like a pall about her. She felt her hearth stone crumbling under her feet, and ruin running over all she had--husband, children, home, hope, everything.
Smarting under blows which human eyes could see, and bearing others which, though not seen, give the most cruel hurt; cowering before an infamous woman. who was insta(???)many texts quoted the Congregationalist says:

Doubtless it is not thus divinely made the
duty of the wife to obey the husband simply
because hs is a man and she is a woman: but
because he is her man, and she is his woman. 
....Therefore, since it is a priori to be presumed
to be the proper function of ever woman - 
whose physical peculiarities, or other
exceptionalities, may not strongly suggest
that the common rule will not in her case hold 
good - to sphere herself by becoming the loving
and dutiful wife of some man whose lack
she fits; should hold wifehood ever in view,
and should shape its special culture toward
the end of fitting your women physically,
mentally, spiritually, to be good wives and
mothers.... 

It is much against nature to try to train a
woman to be a man, as it would be to seek to
qualify a man to be a woman. There is indeed,
a certain broad - and now ever broadening
- plane of though, study and culture. 
which is entirely common to both sexes, and
in regard to which tuition and discipline are 
in order for the one equally with the other. 
But beyond that, their natural paths begin to
diverge. There can be no objection, of
course, that a woman should acquire any
amount of knowledge, considered merely as 
knowledge; but for her to master the specialties
of the working of a locomotive which she
will never drive, etc, etc.

The impertinence which attempts to decide 
for women what knowledge is proper for
them, is only equaled by the advice that women
shall sphere themselves, each to some
man, to whom she shall be in subjection, supplying
his lack, and serving for life. 

The slaves went free in spit of Biblical 
quotations, and so will Woman. [LS]

--------------------------------------
THE ANNUAL MEETING.
--------
The Annual Meeting of the AMERICAN WOMAN 
SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION, which will take
place in Detroit, Oct. 13 and 14, in accordance
with the Call at the head of our columns, will
be an occasion of very great importance. A
full attendance of the friends of Suffrage from
all parts of the county is earnestly desired.

Let the various State and Local Societies
take immediate steps to secure full delegations,
corresponding in number with their Congressional
delegates. Where no such Societies exist,
let individual friends of Suffrage come
and represent themselves. Business of the utmost
importance will be transacted, and plans 
of work must be matured for the coming year. 
There is no time to be lost; immediate action 
is necessary. 

Notwithstanding the scarcity of money and
the political apathy which everywhere prevails,
let the friends of reform rally to the support
of Impartial Suffrage for women fully
aware that the establishment of Equal Rights
for All is essential to the highest interests of
civilized society. 

---------------------------
IOWA WOMAN SUFFRAGE CONVENTION.
-------------
No report of the proceedings of the Iowa
Woman Suffrage Convention has yet reached
us. We hope to give our readers full particulars
next week. Our own contribution was 
the following letter, and it advises a method
of action which, in our judgment, will be 
found indispensable to success. 

To Mrs. Martha C. Callanan, Ch'm Ex. Com.:
BOSTON, Sept. 7, 1874.
DEAR FRIEND: - IN behalf of the Woman
Suffragists of New England, we desire to congratulate
you upon the progressive attitude of
your State on the great question of Equal 
Rights for Woman. The changes recently
made in your laws relative to married women,
place Iowa, in this respect, alongside of Kansas
in advance of all other States, not only of
America, but of the world. The general intelligence
of your people has already established
Co-education of the sexes in your schools,
Colleges and State University. The equality
of social conditions, which so widely prevails,
and the absence of any considerable degraded
class, give you a fair field for carrying out the
great experiment f democratic institutions. 

It is therefore, with sincere pleasure that
we have noted the timely action of your last
Legislature, in taking steps to submit the question
of Impartial Suffrage to the qualified
voters of your State, and we rejoice that the 
Republican party of Iowa, at its recent Convention,
have commended and ratified that
action. 

But one further step remains to be taken in
order to ensure success. A brief, forcible statement,
showing the rightfulness and expediency of
extending Suffrage to women, should be placed in
the hands of every voter in your State. This is a 
work of time, and can only be done by immediate
and thorough organization. If we fail 
of success in Michigan, this fall, it will be solely
for want of time and money to do this necessary
preliminary work. 

Now is your golden opportunity. Do not
wait for the action of the next Legislature, but
move at once. Take steps to create a corresponding
Committee in every county, for the
systematic circulation of tracts and newspapers. 

For this purpose we respectfully tender you
the use of our stereotyped plates and printing
facilities without charge. For 84.00 per thousand,
or even less, we can supply you in large
quantities with the arguments of Geo. Win.
Curtis, Senator Washburn, T. W. Higginson,
Geo. F Hoar, John Stuart Mill, Mary F. Eastman, 
and others.

Hoping that your Convention will realize the 
imperative necessity, and provide the means
of immediate faithful, systematic work, we
remain, dear friend, yours very truly, 
LUCY STONE,
HENRY B. BLACKWELL.

[Sept 19. 1874]

A SYMPATHETIC RESPONSE.
------------------
An interesting evidence of the truth of the
old saying, that "one touch of Nature makes
the whole world kin," will be found in the
fact that no article has ever appeared in the
WOMAN'S JOURNAL which has elicited so many
and varied expressions of approval as our recent
editorial in behalf of Elizabeth Tilton. They
have come from all parts of the country, from
people of both sexes, and in all ranks of life. 
The following is one of manhy: [L.S]

God bless Lucy Stone, and Mary A. Livermore
for their brave, strong and just words
for Mrs. Tilton! Would they were read and
pondered by all true women and men. It
would stop scandal, and rouse sympathy, respect
and justice for the cruelly stricken Elizabeth. 

"Team me to feel another's woe
And hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me."

[Sept 26, 1874]

THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
----------------------
The State and local Societies auxiliary to
the AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION,
with their accustomed promptness, are
preparing to send delgates to the Annual
Meeting, which will be held to Detroit on the
13thand 14th of October, in order to make
this annual meeting an assured success, as
each previous annual meeting of this Association
has been. 

One of the pleasantest, as well as one of 
the most valuable features of our last meeting,
was the report which each State Society made
of its own work, and method of work. 
We hope this will be done again this year. 

In the appointment of delegates, each State 
Society should see to it that some one of its
delegates in prepared to report the present
condition of the cause in that State, and the
work that has beendone by it during the
past year. 

Arrangements have been made for delegates
and members to meet at the Biddle House in
Detroit, where reduced rates have been secured. 
Friends in Detroid are. cooperating

with us, and send us the following notice of the formation of a 

COMMITTEE OF RECEPTION. 

There is every promise of a good meeting. 
Let the members and friends of the American
Society then come together, prepared to do
their best to aid our common cause, which
in Michigan takes the front rank, in the possibility
and hope of victory this fall. [L.S.]

------------------------
THE ANNUAL MEETING AT DETROIT.
----------------------

Delegates and members of the American 
Woman Suffrage Association are requested
to make their headquarters at the BIDDLE 
HOSUE, where reduced rates are secured, and
where other arrangements will be perfected. 

The Executive Committee will hold a business
meeting at the Biddle House on Monday
evening, October 12. A full attendance is
important. 

Among the speakers expected, in addition to
many eminent friends in Michigan, are Mrs. 
Julia Ward Howe, Hon. John Whitehead,
Mary A. Livermore, Gen A. C. Voris, Abba
G. Woolson, Henry B. Blackwell, Lucy Stone, 
Hon. J.B. Bradwell, Mary F. Eatman, Bishop
Gilbert Haven, D.D., Margaret W. Campbell
Martha C. Callanan, Margaret V. Longley, 
Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Elizabeth K. Churchill,
Mary F. Thomas, M.D., and others whose 
names will be announced next week. 

------------------------
WOMAN SUFFRAGE AT OLD ORCHARD BEACH
------------------
The following kindly and appreciative account
of thhe "Basket Picnic" given by the ladies
of the Woman Suffrage Club of Haverhill,
Mass., to their friends in Massachusetts
and Maine, is taken from special despatches
to the Boston Daily Glob nd Portland Transcript.
[x x x x x x x x]
Lucy Stone followed with a powerful and 
effective address. She drew a graphic picture
of a nation which would so soon round out the
full years of the first century of its existence
with centennial celebration and thanksgiving,
still doing injustice to one-half its population
by withholding the ballot from woman. She 
adjured the men and women of Maine to so
act that "when another hundred years shall
have rolled away, no similar record of weakness
and of crime shall mar the honor or sully
the fame of the American nation."


Oct 3. 1874
FRESH TESTIMONY FROM WYOMING.
The elections in Wyoming are just over,
and if it is true that "nothing succeeds like success,"
than the result in Wyoming, which is all
that the most eager friend of Woman Suffrage
could desire, ought to hasten a similar result
in all the other States and Territories.
  One such experiment, tested for five years,
answers a multitude of objections, and settles
supposed practical difficulties.
  The Laramie City Sentinel, in a leading editorial,
gives the following testimony to the
value of Woman Suffrage in Wyoming.
  At the approaching November election the
question of the adoption of Woman's Suffrage
is to be submitted to the people of Michigan.
The State of Michigan has always been considerably
in advance of the rest of the Union
in progress and general intelligence, and we
think, quite probably she will be the first to
enfranchize her women.
With us here in Wyoming the question is
settled. We have given it a tolerably fair
trial, and certainly subjected it to the most
severe tests it can ever be called upon to undergo
in any civilized country, and it has 
proved a success. In every position in which 
we have placed Woman, in office, in the jury
box, at the polls, she has discharged these
new and arduous duties with credit to herself
and usefulness to the community.
The innovation had to encounter here, in
the start, fully as violent opposition as it can
ever meet anywhere. Three years ago a partisan
effort was made to repeal it, and it
would have been done but for Governor Campbell's
veto. Those who, in the Legislature, 
were engaged in this scheme, have spent a
good deal of their time since in trying to clear
their political character from the stigma this
act brought upon them, and at the last Legislature,
not a member of either House could 
be found who would disgrace himself by introducing
a bill for the repeal of Woman Suffrage.
it will be found only in the ranks of
men engaged in those pursuits and occupations
which are always regarded as demoralizing
and detrimental to community, and who
fear their craft is endangered by this new exercise
of Woman's power and influence.
With us the whole subject is assuming an
entirely new phase. We no longer talk of
"Woman's Rights;" it is a question of "Man's
Needs." We are appalled at the corruption
of the political element and its shocking degeneracy 
under the exclusive management of 
men, and we feel our own inability to purify
it. And we want Woman's natural purity,
her natural hatred of wrong, her intuitive
love of right, to help us out.
We don't believe there is a calm, thinking
man in Wyoming who does not feel that Woman's
presence at the ballot box has worked
for us, in the matter of elections alone, the
greatest reform of the age. Our elections
used to be a general public row and riot which
would put to shame a Donnybrook fair. Now
they are as quiet, orderly and peaceable as
any other assemblage, no matter how heated
and excited may be the campaign
We believe the Divine assertion that "it is
not good for man to be alone," applies to all
the relations, and to the discharge of all the
duties of life, to the government of the nation
as well as to the government of the family.
And we are led to this belief from having
carefully and impartially watched the practical
results of Woman's influence in the political
elements of Wyoming Territory. And 
what we advocated in the first place, merely
for its novelty and for the attention it would 
attract to our new Territory, we now most
heartily endorse for its beneficent influence,
and the immeasureable benefits it has conferred
upon our community.
This testimony is confirmed very explicitly
in a letter from Judge Kingman.
The Congregationalist should copy the above,
to give its readers the other side.
The eighty-six Michigan papers in favor of
Woman Suffrage, cannot do a better service to
the question so soon to be voted on, than to publish
this fresh testimony to the value and safety
of Woman Suffrage.  L. S.
THE ANNUAL MEETING.
In answer to many inquiries from delegates,
and other friends, who purpose attending the
Annual Meeting of the American Woman
Suffrage Association in Detroit, we make
the following announcement.
The Convention will assemble in the Opera
House, Detroit, on Tuesday, Oct. 13, at 10 A.
M., and will continue in session Tuesday and
Wednesday, holding three sessions daily. The
mornings and afternoons will be devoted to
the business of the Association, including the
addresses of the President, Mrs. Howe, and
of the Chairman of the Executive Committee,
Lucy Stone, the reports of auxiliary State Societies,

The Annual Meeting Continued
the adoption of a platform of principles,
the election of officers for the coming
year, etc. Voting to be limited to delegates,
but all members of the American and its auxiliary
societies are invited to participate in the 
deliberations. The public is respectfully invited
to attend.
The evening sessions will be devoted to addresses
by numerous speakers of national reputation.
The headquarters of delegates will be
at the Biddle House, where they will be met
by a Committee of Reception appointed by
the Woman Suffrage Society of Detroit, who
will, as far as possible, provide accommodations
for the speakers. The addresses of this
Committee are as follows:
W. N. Hudson, 152 Larned Street.
Rev. Thomas Stalker, 418 Sixth Street
Rev. John Russell, 106 Spruce Street
Adam Elder, 87 Second Street.
J. H. Farewell, 28 West Park Place.
Mrs. E. A. Leggett, 169 Elizabeth Street
East.
Mrs. Richard Hawley, 379 Jefferson Ave.
Mrs. Geo. H. Penniman, 17 Croghan Street.
Mrs. L. B. Hosmer.
Mrs. E. G. Booth, cor. Woodward Ave. and
Henry Street.
Among the speakers expected from abroad,
in addition to our many eminent friends in
Michigan, are Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Hon.
John Whitehead, Mary A. Livermore, Gen.
A. C. Voris, Abba G. Woolson, Henry B.
Blackwell, Lucy Stone, Hon. J. B. Bradwell,
Mary F. Eastman, Bishop Gilbert Haven, D.
D., Margaret W. Campbell, Martha C. Callanan,
Margaret V. Longley, Rev. Phebe A.
Hanaford, Elizabeth K. Churchill, Mary F.
Thomas, M. D., Mrs. M. Elliott, Matilda J.
Hindman, Caroline A. Soule, J. W. Case and
others.
Negociations are being made to obtain reduced
fares from Boston to Detroit and return,
which will be announced next week. New
England delegates will leave Boston via Boston
& Albany R. R., Oct. 10, at 5 P. M.
A meeting of the Executive Committee of
the American Woman Suffrage Association
will be held at the Biddle House, Detroit, on
Monday evening, Oct. 12. A full attendance
is requested.
Oct 10  1874
THE ANNUAL MEETING.
Delegates to the Annual Meeting will leave
Boston for Detroit, via Boston and Albany
Railroad, on Saturday, Oct. 10, at 5 P. M. Headquarters
at the Biddle House, where a Committee 
of Reception will meet them on arrival.
The Annual Meeting of the American
Woman Suffrage Association, will assemble
in Detroit, Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 13
and 14, and will be an occasion of great importance.
A full attendance of the friends
of Suffrage from all parts of the country is
earnestly desired.
The evening sessions will be devoted to addresses
by numerous speakers of national reputation.
The headquarters of delegates will
be at the Biddle House, where they will be met
by a Committee of Reception appointed by
the Woman Suffrage Society of Detroit, who
will, as far as possible, provide accommodations
for the speakers.
Among the speakers expected from abroad,
in addition to many eminent friends in Michigan,
are Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Hon. John
Whitehead, Mary A. Livermore, Gen. A. C.
Voris, Abba G. Woolson, Henry B. Blackwell,
Lucy Stone, Hon. J. B. Bradwell, Mary F.
Eastman, Bishop Gilbert Haven, D. D., Margaret
W. Campbell, Martha C. Callanan, Margaret
V. Longley, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford,
Elizabeth K. Churchill, Mary F. Thomas, Caroline
A. Soule, J. W. Case and others.
Oct 24. 1874
(Oct 14. contains nothing)
ANNUAL MEETING
OF THE 
American Woman Suffrage
Association.
The Sixth Annual Meeting of the American 
Woman Suffrage Association assembled
at the Opera House, in Detroit, Tuesday
morning, Oct. 13, at half-past ten, A. M.
There was a fair attendance for a morning
meeting, some four or five hundred personsOct 3 1874
Oct 24 1874 continued
being present. The stage was occupied by
the officers and speakers of the Association,
and by the reporters.
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
Mrs. Lucy Stone, Chairman of the Executive
Committee, then presented the report of
that Committee, which is as follows:
The report of the Executive Committee of
this Association will take into account only
the general state of the cause and its progress
during the year which has passed since our
last meeting.
The State and local societies, auxiliary to
the American Woman Suffrage Association,
will report the work of their respective organizations.
Since the beginning of the Woman Movement
no single year has been so full of progress,
or has given evidence of so great change
of public sentiment on this question. The
statement of the facts deserve a volume rather
than these brief pages.
Among the events, which are milestones on
our way, is the Woman's Congress, which held
its session three days in New York, discussed
the gravest questions, and was treated with
uniform respect and courtesy by the press.
Thirty years ago such a congress would not
have been thought of. The mere announcement
that such a gathering had been proposed
would have been hailed with derision. Behold
the change!
This was followed by Tea parties, which
were held in Boston and elsewhere, to commemorate
the anniversary of the hundredth
year since the tea was thrown into Boston harbor
by brave men, who resisted unto death
the taxation which had no representation. At
some of these parties the occasion was used to
illustrate and enforce the idea that to tax women
and deny them representation was to act
over again the part of George III. That if
it was a crime to tax colonists who had no
vote, it is no less a crime to tax women who
have no vote. In Boston, Faneuil Hall, the
old cradle of liberty, was used as the one fitting
place in that city in which such celebration
could be held. It was there, a hundred
years before, that eloquent lips urged the rights
of the colonists. Now again the same hall was
crowded to its utmost limit, and the application
of the same principle was urged for women.
And again the roof rang with repeated
cheers from thousands of voices for the reiterated
sentiment that taxation without representation 
is tyranny in the case of women 
as in the case of men.
Thus, over "the cup that cheers but not inebriates."
the idea of political and legal equality 
for women was put a whole age onward.
In New York city two other Tea parties were
held, with the same end in view, which they
well and creditably served. In Philadelphia,
on the same day was also held a Tea party,
but its object was to honor the dead heroes
who had pledged life, fortune, and sacred
honor in defense of a principle which to-day
waits to be applied to 15,000,000 of women;
but they gave no sign of any intention to follow
the example or to imitate the courage of
the men whose memory alone they sought to
honor.
An unusual resistance to taxation has been
made during the past year by women, conspicuous
among whom are the Sisters Smith 
and Abby Kelly Foster. The Sisters Smith of
Glastonbury, Ct., are educated women, who
have reached the full age of three score and
ten years. They are women of wealth, who
have paid more money into the treasury for
taxes than any other tax-payers in their town.
Year by year they had felt a growing sense of
the injustice which gave them no voice either
in the amount of the tax they should pay or
in the use of the money when paid. They
therefore asked and obtained permission to
state their view of the case to the voters in
town meeting assembled. No man offered an
objection, or answered what they said. But
when the sisters refused to pay the taxes, levied
contrary to the theory and principles of
our Government, the collector seized seven of
their pet cows and sold them for a tax of
about $100. The whole transaction was so
conducted as to give them the greatest vexation
and annoyance. The newspapers chronicled
the shameful proceedings with comments
which created general sympathy for
these wronged women, and shed new light
upon the real position of women under this
Government. Thus good came out of evil.
The Sisters Smith appeared before the Legislature
to ask for an Amendment to the Constitution
of that State so that women and
men may hereafter exercise equal political
and legal rights. But the Connecticut Legislature
gave these venerable women "leave to
withdraw." At the same time Gen. Hawley,
of that State, was using every endeavor to
forward the Centennial celebration in honor of
a similar resistance to taxation made by men
a hundred years ago. Subsequently, the authorities
of Glastonbury, in the exercise of
their power to collect taxes, sold eleven acres
of land for taxes on personal property, which 
was contrary to law. The Sisters Smith, wiser
than those who executed the law, sued the
collector and recovered damages. But Connecticut
still holds its women as subjects all
the same. 
In Massachusetts  Abby Kelly Foster refused

Oct 24. 1874
Lucy Stone's Ann Report Continued
to pay taxes on the ground that she had
no representation. The name of Mrs. Foster
is honorably associated with one of the most
important periods of our history. In all the
long struggle for the freedom of the slaves
Mrs. Foster took part, holding back nothing.
She gave her youth, health, time, money, all
she had. When the slaves' shackles fell she
waited only to gather up her strength, then
she stood again for the rights of women. Massachusetts,
which holds Plymouth Rock, Concord,
Lexington and Bunker Hill, let the
house and land of Mrs. Foster be sold by the
sheriff. Collector William S. Barton sat in
his carriage to witness the shameful transaction,
and said that it had been done with his
entire approval. It should be said that the
man who bid off the property, blistered by
the scathing eloquence of Stephen Foster,
made haste to deliver to the city of Worcester
the deed of the property, of which he held
such unworthy possession. The city of Worcester
bristles with church spires, is rich in
manufactures, merchandise and money, but its
crime against this royal woman will tarnish
its fame forever. Of all the dwellers in
that city, the one whose name will be carried
down the ages with reverent tenderness is that
of Abby Kelly Foster. Other women, less
known but equally heroic, in Worcester and
elsewhere, also have suffered the spoiling of
their goods in defense of the same principle,
thus showing how widespread is that wholesome
discontent which culminates in revolution
and cures its cause.
The nomination of three women on the 
School Board of Boston, who were refused
their seats by the male members of the board,
created a discussion, which, though separate
and distinct from Woman Suffrage, has been
vastly helpful to it. The women were regularly
elected. The men who had voted for
them felt their rights infringed, while to the
great mass of people it seemed eminently fitting
that in all which concerns children and their 
education, women should have voice and power.
The ladies claimed their seats. The
board refused to recognize them. An appeal
was made to the Supreme Court. The court
decided that there was nothing in the Constitution
to prevent their serving, but that, as
the law made the board the judge of the qualifications
of its own members, its decision
was final. Thereupon the Legislature passed
a law which provided that no person shall be
disqualified from serving on School Board on
account of sex. Meantime the great court of
the people outside had taken up the question
and settled it by putting women on the School
Boards in Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania
and other States. In several they have
been made County Superintendents of Schools,
and in California they have been made eligible
to all educational offices. So again "the
foolishness and the wrath of man" have been
made a blessing.
The discussion on the Co-education of the
sexes, which has grown out of a paper read
before the New England Women's Club by
Dr. Edward H. Clarke, has been of great service
to our cause. It has brought out the
testimony of many men of great ability and
experience as teachers, like President Fairchild, 
of Oberlin; President Angell, of Michigan
University; President White, of Cornell,
in favor of Co-education, all testifying to its
wisdom and safety.
The great Granger's movement makes women
eligible to all offices in it, with the right
to vote; it even requires that at least three
offices in each Grange shall be filled by women.
The Temperance Crusade, which seemed to
spread spontaneously all over the country, in
whatever way it is viewed, shows an increased
sense of responsibility among women in regard
to questions of public interest which are
regulated or enforced by law.
The right of women to the pulpit has been
brought into special notice and favor by the
discussion which grew out of the fact that
Rev. Dr. Cuyler invited Miss Smiley to his
pulpit, and was afterwards censured by the
Brooklyn Presbytery for the act. The almost
universal expression of the press was in favor
of Miss Smiley and of the ministry of women.
For the second time Woman's Peace Festivals
have been held in various localities, thus giving
the feminine influence in favor of the time
when "swords shall be beaten into plowshares,
and spears into pruning hooks."
The Legislature of Mississippi have passed
a law, requiring the signature of a majority of
men over twenty-one years of age, and of
women over eighteen, to petitions for liquor
licenses in city, ward or township, before such
license can be granted. Thus, for the first
time in the far South, has there been a recognition
of Woman's right to a voice in making 
the laws.
Hon. B. F. Butler, at the last session of
Congress, introduced a bill into the House of
Representatives authorizing women otherwise
qualified, to practice as attorneys and counselors
at law in the several courts of the United
States. It was ordered to a third reading by
a vote of 95 to 65.
Additional property rights have been conferred
upon married women by several States,
among others by Iowa, Massachusetts, and
Illinois, recognizing as never before the individuality
of wives.
Woman Suffrage has been again discussed
in the Senate of the United States, upon a 
motion of Hon. A. A. Sargeant, of California,
to amend a bill for the Territorial organization
of Pembina, by adding the word "sex,"
and striking out the word "male," so that the
clause should read: "Provided that the Legislative
Assembly shall not at any time abridge
the right of Suffrage or to hold office on account
of sex, race or previous condition of
servitude of any resident in the Territory."
Arguments in favor of Woman Suffrage wereOct 24  1874
Lucy Stone Annual Report Contd
made by Senators Sargeant, of California;
Stewart, of Nevada; Morton, of Indiana;
Ferry, of Michigan; Carpenter, of Wisconsin;
and Anthony, of Rhode Island. Twenty-two
Republican Senators voted and paired in
favor of Woman Suffrage. Only eighteen
Republican Senators voted and paired against
it. But thirteen Democratic Senators voted
unanimously against it. Seven years ago,
when Woman Suffrage was first discussed in
the United States Senate, only seven Senators
voted for Woman Suffrage, and two of these
said they did so only to encumber the question
of negro suffrage by adding Woman Suffrage
to it. Thus, in seven years, our strength has
increased more than threefold, justifying Senator
Stewart's prediction that ten years hence
no Senator would be found opposed to Woman
Suffrage.
The Presbyterian General Assembly of St.
Louis have had under consideration the right
of women to preach, and have given a modified
expression in its favor by referring the
matter to the discretion of the ministers and
congregations interested.
Woman Suffrage is still maintained in Utah.
A renewed attempt to repeal it by arbitrary
Congressional interference was made last
summer by Senators Frelinghuysen and Logan.
A similar bill was defeated in the House,
and a substitute adopted which leaves to the
women of Utah their equal political rights.
The beneficial effect is already manifested in
improved temperance legislation at the instance
of 4000 voting women of Salt Lake City.
The women of Wyoming have again for the
fifth time exercised their right to vote, and
again the result has shown the wisdom and
safety of the measure. Gov. Campbell, Judge
Kingman, and the Laramie City Sentinel all
unite in bearing the fullest testimony to the
great benefit everywhere manifest in the Territory,
both in the increased good order at the 
polls and in the character of the candidates.
This substantial proof is an answer to all objections,
and sets an example of practical
political reform which is everywhere needed.
Michigan, taking the lead of all the States,
has submitted to the popular vote, next month,
a proposition to secure equal political rights to
women. The civilized world is watching the
result.
Iowa has followed Michigan, and has taken
the first step to amend its State Constitution
so that women may vote. The Republican
party of that State, at its recent Convention,
endorsed this action of the Legislature by a
special resolution in its platform.
The formation of Woman Suffrage Political
Clubs, has been a marked feature of the past
year. By their means, in many instances,
the friends of Woman Suffrage have been
elected to Legislatures, and its enemies have 
been defeated. These clubs are practical methods
of great value, and will be made still
more effective by being multiplied.
For the first time, this year, several large
religious bodies have declared themselves in
favor of Woman Suffrage. The Michigan
State Methodist Convention have passed a
resolution commending the action of the Legislature
in submitting Woman Suffrage, and 
recommended its acceptance by the people.
The Des Moines and Northwest Conferences
of Iowa have also given their sanction to Woman
Suffrage, as has also the Universalist Convention
of the same State.
The National Prohibitory Convention has
endorsed Woman Suffrage, and several State
Conventions of the same political party have
done the same.
Nearly every Northern and Western State
Legislature has had the question under discussion,
with better votes than in previous
years.
All the facts here recorded, with those that
will be reported by State and local societies,
are indications of a growing public sentiment
in favor of the equal rights of women. But
when we have counted up our gains it still remains
true that in every State of the Union,
women are absolutely deprived of political
power, subject to laws in the making of which
they have no voice, and are ranked politically
with the most worthless and degraded men.
Therefore, the great object for which our Association
is formed still remains to be accomplished.
During the afternoon Mrs. Lucy Stone
read the Constitution of the Association, and
during the reading of some of the reports
she and others circulated among the audience
to obtain members to the Association.
After the reading of the Report from California
the Association adjourned until half-past
seven o'clock.
FIRST EVENING SESSION.
In the evening an audience of about 1000
persons assembled at the Opera House to be
present at the "speaking meeting," Mrs.
Lucy Stone presiding. Mrs. Julia Ward 
Howe, of Boston, was the first speaker.
Mrs. Stone said that in every time of need,
wherever the womanly workers for Woman
go, they find men to whom their gratitude
flows as the rivers flow to the sea -- they are
the men who stand up to speak in Woman's
name in behalf of Woman's Rights. As one 
of these men she introduced Gen. Voris, of
Ohio, the champion of Equal Suffrage in the
Ohio Constitutional Convention.


Oct 24  1874  Contd
THE MEETING AT DETROIT
The report of the Annual Meeting of the
American Woman Suffrage Association, held
at Detroit, on the 13th and 14th inst., will be
found in full in the present number of the 
Woman's Journal.
As in previous years, so this year, it was a
a gathering of earnest workers, women and
men from different States, who told of the
work done in their different localities, who 
counted up the gain of the last year, and who 
took fresh courage for the future.
The friends in Detroit have done everything
that could be done, to make to Convention
a success, as well as to give hospitable
entertainment to the delegates.
The Michigan State Society, though not
auxiliary, co-operated cordially with the
American Association. The fact that in two
weeks, the men of that State are to vote,
whether the women of Michigan shall also be
voters, added unusual interest to the occasion.
If the expenditure of time and money and
untiring service could carry the cause there,
the little band of faithful workers in Michigan
would find victory perching on their banner,
on the second of November next.
The cause received a large acquisition by
the election to the Presidency of Rev. Bishop
Gilbert Haven, whose character and abilities
will enable him to give valuable aid to the
movement. In accordance with our one term
rule, the name of Mrs. Howe appears among the
eight Vice-Presidents at large. Mr. W. N. Hudson,
to whose efficient help the American Woman
Suffrage Association has been three times
indebted at its Annual Meetings, and Mrs. Lizzie
B. Read, of Algona, former President of
the Iowa State Society, are made Recording
Secretaries. In other respects the list of officers
is substantially unchanged
The reports of the different State and local
societies will be read with interest and profit,
as they give the best possible view of the
present position of the Woman Suffrage movement
all over the country.
An earnest interest prevailed throughout.
In the best and highest sense, the Annual Meeting
was a success.  L. S.
Oct 31  1874
A WORD TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS.
Many of our subscribers are in arrears for
the Woman's Journal, who should pay for it
at once. We cannot escape the payment of
our bills, and to do this, we need what is justly
due us. Those who pay will find the date
on the wrapper, changed to correspond.
Those who want a receipted bill should send a
stamp to pay postage.  But in any case, we
shall be obliged to discontinue the Journal
to those who do not pay for it.  L. S.
THE FAMILY AND THE BALLOT
The Independent of last week, contained an
article by Rev. J. M. Buckley, against Woman
Suffrage, which we have transferred to
the third page of this paper.
The sum of Mr. Buckley's argument is
that the family will be destroyed if women
vote, since, according to Mr. Buckley, it can
only be maintained by the subjection of the
wife, who, if she acquire the governing qualities,
which she does not naturally possess,
will find "her position in the family intolerable
to her."
He says: Not only would the governing
spirit become a part of her character, which
would greatly interfere with her discharge of
the duties of home; but it would make her
position there an insupportable restraint. I
suppose that no argument is required to show
that to put men in exactly the position as respects
mode of exerting influence which women
occupy would be an insupportable restraint
to them; but it is not so to women,
unless afflicted with the aberration of wishing
political power, or from causes wholly apart
from this question. Man is naturally self-reliant --
a governor. Woman is naturally disposed
to acquiesce in the determining tendency
of the husband, or to control by attraction
rather than decision. Now imbue her with the
governing spirit of man, and she will become
as restive in her position as he would be if
placed in a similar one.
Hence the inference is, that she would flee
from it, and the family would go down.
Mr. Buckley's first mistake is in assuming
that the family can only be made to cohere,
when the will of the wife is subject to that of
the husband.
His second mistake is in assuming that
qualities which exist by reason of distinctions
of sex, can be educated out of existence.
A practical test always furnishes the best
in the determining tendency Oct 31  1874  contd
solution of a problem. In Wyoming Territory,
women have voted on the same terms as
men, during the last four or five years. The
uniform testimony of Gov. Campbell and
Judge Kingman of that territory affirms the
beneficial result. (See page 3 of the Woman's
Journal of last week.)
Again, Mr. Buckley says:
The vote is the expression of government.
Voting is governing. To vote intelligently
and properly is to think, feel and act in the
imperative mood. To govern in the State
would unfit Woman for her position in the
family, and make that position intolerable to
her.
But, says Gov. Campbell, "Women do vote
here, and the family is in no way interfered
with by it. While, in Connecticut, under
masculine domination, one wife in eight flees
from the family, according to Mr. Buckley.
The women of Wyoming are as womanly
as other woman, and show no sign of becoming
men, or even manish.
These substantial facts annihilate Mr. Buckley's
theory, and should give comfort to those
who take his view.
The proofs are all against his theory. L. S.
Nov  7  1874
WHAT HAS THE REPUBLIC DONE FOR ME?
At a grand Republican demonstration in
Worcester, Oct. 30th, Hon. Geo. F. Hoar, in
a speech of much power, recited the good
deeds of the Republican party, and for the
sake of those deeds he commended the party
to the support of all good men.
He praised the Republic as the pre-eminent
benefactor, and summoned every voter to do
his duty to it.
It was a stirring speech, which must have
had great influence in deciding the political
action of the vast audience which listened.
But there is another side to the deeds of the
Republican party, and another view of the
beneficent care of the Republic.
Mr. Hoar's praises of the Republic and of
his party, justly apply so far as men are concerned.
But from the day the Republic started
into being, ninety-eight years ago, until
this day, every one of its fundamental principles
has been, and is now, denied to women,
and the power of the Republic has, in no case,
been applied for their redress.
Each State, with fiendish ingenuity, has
written into its code of laws, bald, bare, injustice
and cruelty, against every man's mother, 
wife, sister, and daughter, and the power
of the Republic has never been used or offered
to prevent it.
Mr. Hoar said, "The revolution of the year
brings with it to the citizen the ever recurring
question: "What can I do for the Republic?
What can i do for the Republic which has
done everything for me?"
All women can truthfully make answer:
"The Republic announces as fundamental,
that 'governments derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed,' but no
governed woman has ever been allowed to
share the benefit of this principle. The woman
who dared even to try to avail herself of
it, was tried and fined as a criminal. "Taxation
without representation is tyranny," says
the Republic, but every woman is taxed, and
representation is withheld from her hand."
"The citizens of each State shall have all the
privileges and immunites of the citizens of the
several States," says the Republic. But the
women citizens are denied political rights,
which are freely given to all men except
those whose crimes or imcompetency render
unfit or unsafe to exercise political power.
At the very beginning of our existence as a
nation, every colony then in existence, and
each State since, spread over every wife all
the odious features of the English Common
Law, which took from every wife all right
to her person, and to any personal property
whatever. Even her clothes were not her
own. If she had a living child it punished
her for bringing this new life, by taking from
her all right to the use of any real estate she
might possess. It gave her earnings to her
husband. It denied her right to sue or to be
sued for any damage she might in any way
sustain. It blotted out her legal existence utterly.
It gave her child over absolutely to 
another, who might will or deed it away.
She might not even be its guardian. The law
gave her only the bare necessaries of life,
"food, clothing and medicine," just so much
as the public charity gives to the town paupers,
and no more.
This is what the law has done to me and to 
all married women, and the Republic has never
once interfered for our protection or defense.
Because it has not done this, I hate the Republic,

Nov 7. 1874
What Has the Republic Done for me? contd
and so would Mr. Hoar, if it had failed
to do for him, or for other men, what it has
failed to do for me and for other women.
Mr. Hoar gives the Republican Party the
meed of praise it deserves for the part it took
in securing freedom for the slaves, and for the
more than generous treatment it accorded to
the rebels when the war was over.
Mr. Hoar says:
Within six years from the close of the war
every State was in its place, every Senator's
chair was full, every district enjoyed its rightful
representation. No penalty, no fine, no
indemnity, was imposed or asked.
But not only was the State restored, the individual
rebel at once on its restoration regained
the full and complete exercise of all
the functions of citizenship. Some misapprehension
has existed on this point. But no
person in any seceded State has every been debarred
from voting since the restoration of
his State. Toombs, Davis and Semmes are at
large and voting the Democratic ticket. For
a time, under the 14th amendment, persons
who had gone into the rebellion after having
taken an oath of office to support the Constitution,
thus adding perjury to treason, were
debarred from holding office until their disabilities
were removed by Congress. But so
leniently has this restriction been enforced
that no instance has been known of a person
who has applied for the removal of his disabilities
who has been refused by Congress. And
now, with a few exceptions, all these disabilities
have been removed, and by a later act,
which has passed the House, and waits action
in the Senate, these exceptions have been
done away.
Stephens, the Vice-President of the rebel
confederacy, Lamar, the trusted friend and
comrade of Lee, sit in the American Congress,
secure of respectful attention, giving the lie to
the charges made by their Democratic associates
at the North, that there has been either
revenge or tyranny in the dealing of the generous
American people with their defeated
countrymen. I have heard from good authority
that more rebel than Union soldiers have
seats in the House.
But what did the Republican party, which
was thus lenient and kind to rebels, do for the
loyal women who had nursed our wounded
soldiers to health and strength, who had taken
from the dying boy in blue his last message
to loved ones at home, and who had worked
day and night, through the long years of the
way, to furnish sanitary supplies? What 
did it do for the women who, in unspeakable
anguish, with pale lips had whispered blessings
for brave sons, husbands and fathers,
whom they surrendered to the war, women
who to-day sit by solitary hearthstones, the
very bones of their loved ones cut up for
ornaments by rebel hands? What did the
Republican party do for these?
It said, "After your loyal service, we remand
you to a political position below the
late slaves whom we have enfranchised, below
the rebels and traitors whom we  have restored
to full and complete exercise of all the
functions of citizenship. We have punished
Jefferson Davis, for his leadership in the rebellion,
by taking away his vote. We have
degraded him to your level; you will remain
in the same rank with him, the political equals
of idiots, lunatics, felons, paupers, and Indians
not taxed."
This is what the Republican party has done
for loyal women.
Against entreaty and remonstrance, against
petitions by tens of thousands of women to 
Congress and to the State Legislatures, against
personal appeals to leading Republicans,
the word "male" was for the first time written
into the Constitution of the United States,
thus making political distinctions based on sex
alone. With unspeakable dismay and anguish,
women saw the shameful deed accomplished
by the very men, whose hands they had held
up through all the long years of the way.
Still hoping against hope, they applied to
the National Republican Convention at Philadelphia,
and that body, by the persistent fidelity
of one earnest Suffragist, was induced
to proffer "respectful attention" to the claims
of Woman. But that proffer was not followed
by a single act to secure any attention
whatever to the claims of Woman.
Later, the Massachusetts Republican Convention
adopted a resolution fully endorsing
Woman Suffrage. But when the Campaign
opened, save Hon. Henry Wilson, and George
B. Loring, to whom be thanks now and forever,
not a leading Republican, even with the
resolution in his platform, made the slightest
allusion to it.
Republican legislatures, year after year, have
heard the petitions of millions of women, only
to give them "leave to withdraw."
It is impossible not to hate the party which,
omnipotent in power, has shamelessly and
cruelly trampled on, and ignored the sacredNov 7. 1874
What Has the Republic Done for me? contd
rights of half the people, because they were
women.
To-day, when it is losing place and power,
fifteen millions of women, (whom it might
have made friends and allies, and who would
have kept it in power forever) hail its defeat
with unspeakable gratitude.
Because, as loyal women, it degraded them
below the worst rebels; because, though citizens,
it left them to be deprived of the great
rights of citizenship, with all the legal inequality
which grows out of such degradation.
The Republic waits for a party that will put
human rights above all other questions.
With this firm anchorage it could reach out
its hand to every interest of country, giving to
each its measure of care and help.
Where are the young men who are longing
for fields of worthy use, that they do not summon
such a party as this?
Where are the men who honor the Republic,
that they do not rise as one man, to save it
from the burning shame of its crime against
Woman?  L. S.
Nov 14. 1874
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
We have begun this week, to discontinue
the Woman's Journal to such of our subscribers
as have been again and again notified
of the amount due us, and who have neglected
to pay. They are in our debt all the same.
But we cannot send to those who do not pay.
Sometimes people write us, that they gave
the money to some person, whom we do not
know, and from whom we never received it;
and then they expect us to pocket the loss.
This is not right. It is better always to send
direct to this office.  L. S.
OUR CHILDREN AND THE SCHOOLS.
Any system of schools, or any school arrangement,
by which the health of the pupils
is constantly impaired, [ught] to be abolished
at once, or the plans so changed that health
and study can be made the rule and not the
exception.
In many of the high, and private schools
of this city, the schools commence at eight
and a half o'clock, and continue six hours,
with only one recess. The pupils are called
from their beds in the gray of the morning,
to dress, to get breakfast, and to be at the
school at that early hour. The dread of
being late and of the tardy mark, the long
distances which many have to go, and the
nervous hurry combined, make it impossible
for the child to eat an adequate breakfast.
The recess gives time for lunch, if the pupil
is not called to some lesson before it is 
over. But a lunch, which is always an unsatisfactory
affair, is doubly so when there has
only been half a breakfast, or even less than
that.
The school hours go on till two o'clock, the
pupil almost wholly unsustained by food, for
he has not up to this time of the day had a
single good meal. But two o'clock is not the
dinner hour for most families, and the pupil
either "takes something," just enough to stay
his hunger but also enough to spoil his appetite
for the family dinner, or he waits till the 
regular dinner, and then the tired and faint
feeling overcomes everything else, and he
does not want to eat.
This is literally true, so far as a multitude
of pupils are concerned.
No business or working man could thrive, if
he were subjected to such arrangements for
his meals. Neither can the children do it,
who in addition to their hard work as students,
have the great draught which goes with
growth.
One strong Scotch mother, whose children
must be at school from half past eight till two,
said to me, "They are in too much of a hurry
to get their breakfast, and they are too tired
to eat when they come home. It seems as
though the children in this country are not as

Nov 14  1874
Our Children & the Schools contd
hardy as they are in Scotland."
Another mother, who took her children
from the High School, last year, because she
"could not bear to see them getting thin and
weak and nervous," keeps them out this
year, "because the hours of school interfere
with all their meals."
I believe that if the mothers could be interrogated,
nine tenths of them would testify to the
same facts. Is it not a sin to subject our
children to a system which is sure to lay the
foundation of permanent weakness and ill-health?
The Grammar schools open at nine, and
continue till twelve, with one recess. Then
there are two hours for rest and dinner,
giving ample time for both, and another session
of two hours. Why could not the high
and private schools use the same hours? It
seems to me it would be a great gain, both to
teachers aud pupils.
There ought to be a conference of parents
and teachers, so that, by comparison of views,
by friendly suggestion and criticism, the
facts in the case may not only be found, but
some plan devised which shall give our children
abundant time for their food, for exercise,
and for so much study as is consistent
with these, and no more.
There is only one time for growing, and for
laying the foundation of good health. But
the whole of life is for learning.  L. S.
Nov 21. 1874
UNPAID SUBSCRIPTIONS.
All persons who are still in arrears for the
Woman's Journal, are requested to make immediate
payment.
UNPAID PLEDGES
All those who owe pledges or subscriptions
to the New England or Massachusetts Woman
Suffrage Associations, are requested to pay the
same to Samuel E. Sewall, No. 46 Washington
Street, Boston, or to this office, at their
earliest convenience.  L. S.
LET BOTH SIDES BE HEARD.
The article in last week's Woman's Journal
concerning "Our children, and the schools,"
has brought a statement for the other side of
the question, from one of the best teachers of
Boston, which we cheerfully publish.
We can only get at the best methods, when
the merit and demerit of existing ones are
fully known.
But it is certainly true that a very large
number  of intelligent mothers see their children
fail in strength and health during the
school terms. They know that they are up necessarily,
in the grey of the morning, that they
do not have time for adequate breakfast, and
that the nervous worry makes it impossible
for them to eat.
They throve, in the grammar school, where
were two sessions, and two hours for dinner.
They fail, in the high and private schools,
where is one long session.
The thing we need is conference between
teachers and parents, with real intent to find
what will best promote the whole welfare of
our children in the schools.  L. S.
HARVARD EXAMINATION FOR WOMEN.
Application is often made at this office, both
in person and by letter, in regard to "Harvard
Examinations for women."
To answer these inquiries we append herewith
all the facts in the case, as set forth by
the "Woman's Education Association of Boston."
It is undoubtedly an advantage to have the
diploma or certificate, which the successful
passing of their examination gives. All the
same, it is pitiful that Harvard College, rich
with the gathered wealth of 200 years, with
all that libraries, laboratories, apparatus and
teachers can give, endowed by the State with
the money gathered from the property of women
as well as of men, should say to women.
"You cannot be admitted to these advantages
to which all men are welcome; but it, outside,
and without these advantages, you can successfully
master our courses of study, pay us
$25 for examining you, and if you pass you
shall have the credit of it."
There is no need of comment. The fact is
its own severest comment.  L. S.

Nov 28. 1874
MARRIAGE PROTEST.
By one of those mistakes which will occur
in a newspaper office, the names of Leslie
Miller, and S. Maria Persons, were omitted
last week, from the marriage protest subscribed
to by them, and read at their wedding
by James Freeman Clarke.
This omission is the more to be regretted,
because such fidelty to principle and courage
to express it are rare, even among those who
regard our laws as unjust and unequal towards
the wife. L. S.
Dec 5. 1874
THE RESULT IN MICHIGAN.
The official vote on Woman Suffrage in
Michigan, is now made up. There were 40,077
votes in its favor, out of 58 per cent. of
the estimated voters. There were 135,954
against it. Thus it appears that the majority
against Suffrage was 95,877.
For the present, therefore, the question is
defeated. But a principle which has more
than forty thousand men enlisted in its favor,
and probably twice that number of women,
is sure to succeed.
The friends in Michigan and of the cause
elsewhere, have no cause to be discouraged.
The work done in that State, by newspaper
discussion, by lectures, and tracts, is sure to
bear fruit in the future.
"If the aloe waits an hundred years"
for its flower, surely we can wait its full
time for the slow blossoming of this crown
and perfection of Republican institutions.
It will come, and all the sooner for the canvass
in Michigan. That is our Bunker Hill. 
L. S.
Dec 12. 1874
PAUPER WIVES.
There are pauper women in many places
besides the poor house, who feel as keenly
the sense of pauperism as they would do if
they were actually supported by the public
charity.
They are not only the women, whose brutal
or drunken husbands spend their own earnings,
and those of the wife also. Nor are they
those only who, after constant toil and the
greatest economy, still find themselves short
of the necessaries of life.
There is an army of men, who are prosperous
and well-to-do, but their wives never
know the feeling of independence which prosperity
gives. The wives of such men often
do the work of their families, make butter
and cheese, wash and iron, and by the help
of a machine do all the sewing for the household;
yet they are not supposed to earn anything,
and to them a dollar is a luxury, never
had except when asked for, and not always
then.
There are other women who, by the help of
one person, all or part of the time, take the 
entire care and labor which their family requires,
yet who own nothing. The husbands
of such women often have money in the bank,
stocks which pay large interest, and business
which makes them independent. They are
free to go and come, and spend as they please.
If the care and labor of the wife were paid
for at its real money value, if it were paid for
as it would be if it were done by Bridget, the
wife too would have the means and be free
to go and come occasionally, and so find the
relief and comfort which change gives.
She would be free to spend unquestioned,
and thus escape the humiliating and depressing
sense of dependence and bondage, which
sooner of later settles into alienation of feeling
and a divided house.
It is quite likely that mend do not take this
view of it. Under the old Common Law a wife
was entitled to "food, clothing and medicine,"
and it has become customary to give her so
much, and to suppose she should be satisfied
with these.
I knew a woman, many years ago, who insisted
that her husband should pay her one

Dec 12  1874
Pauper Wives continued
dollar a week. She had three children and no
servant. But that small demand was the
standing joke among other husbands, who regarded
that unfortunate husband, who paid a
dollar a week to his wife, as really henpecked.
If a husband, who holds the purse strings,
tight, from his wife, would put himself for a
single month in her position, so far as the limitation
in money matters is concerned, he
would learn a lesson of humiliation and shame,
of whose bitterness he had before no conception.
The dissatisfaction among wives on this
one point is wide spread. Men who mean
to be considered just, or even decent,
should see to it, that the cause of this dissatisfaction
is not allowed to remain as a root of
bitterness, to poison and spoil all the home
life.
It would help the matter, if every troubled
wife would frankly tell her husband the
wrong she suffers. It would at once put an
end to it, if husbands could be subject to
the necessity of asking their wives for money,
with which to attend lectures, conventions, or
supply their daily needs, and perhaps be questioned,
or flatly refused.  L.S.
Dec 19  1874
WOMEN NOT JUSTICES OF THE PEACE IN
MAINE.
Ten months ago, the Governor of Maine
and his Council requested the opinion of [th]
Supreme Judicial Court on the following questions:
First, under the Constitution and [law]
of this State, can a woman, if duly appointed
and qualified as a Justice of the Peace
legally perform all acts pertaining to such
office? Second, would it be competent for
the Legislature to authorize the appointment
of a married or unmarried woman to the office
of Justice of the Peace; or to administer oaths,
take acknowledgment of deeds or solemnize
marriages, so that the same shall be legal and
valid?
Answers to these inquiries have been received
by the Governor, with the opinion of
the Court, which was drawn by Chief Justice
Appleton.
Justices Cutting, Peters, Danforth and Virgin,
concur in the decision. Justices Walton,
Barrowes and Dickerson dissent.
We have not received the full text of the
opinion, but the decision is as follows:
"Having regard, then, to the rules of the
common law as to the rights of women, married
and unmarried, as then existing -- to the
history of the past -- to the universal and unbroken
practical construction given to the
Constitution of this State and to that of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, upon which
that of this State was modeled, we are led
to the inevitable conclusion that it was never
in the contemplation or intention of those
forming our Constitution that the offices thereby
created should be filled by those who could 
take no part in its original formation and to
whom no political power was entrusted for
the organization of the Government then about
to be established under its provisions, or for 
its continued existence and preservation when
established.  . . . . To the first question proposed,
we answer in the negative. To the 
second, we answer that it is competent for the 
Legislature to authorize the appointment of a 
married or unmarried woman to administer
oaths, take acknowledgment of deeds, or solemnize
marriages, so that the same shall be 
legal and valid."
Thus the Supreme Court of Maine, follows
in the evil footsteps of the same court in Massachusetts,
which decided that women never
had been Justices of the Peace, therefore they
never could be.
No woman need be discouraged or disheartened
by such a decision.
Slowly but surely, decisions of courts, laws,
and customs which are against equal rights for
all human beings, become obsolete.
The well reasoned and elaborate dissenting
opinion of Judge Dickerson, will be found
entire, in another column, and should not fail
to be read.
Thirty-seven years ago, the General Association
of Massachusetts Congregational ministers
issued a "pastoral letter" written by
Rev. Nehemiah Adams, in which the world
was warned of the "dangers which threaten
the female character with wide-spread and
permanent injury, when they (the women)
undertake to assume the place of public
teachers, whether to both sexes or only their
own; when they form societies for the purpose
of sitting in judgment and acting upon
the affairs of the church and State; when they
travel about from place to place as lecturers,
teachers, and guides to public sentiment;Dec 19  1874
Women not Justices of Peace in Maine contd
when they assemble in conventions to discuss
questions, pass resolutions, make speeches, and
vote on civil, political, moral and religious
matters.
But in Rev. Nehemiah Adams' church, within
two weeks, on the question of the resignation
of Rev. Mr. Parsons, the associate pastor,
there was a division of opinion.
Many female members of the parish were
present, nearly all strong friends of Mr. Parsons;
and much of the discussion hung on the
question whether their views should not have
due weight. Those who favor Mr. Parsons'
retention spoke in support of their views; and
finally an informal ballot was taken on a motion
to accept the resignation, both male and
female members voting.
That "Pastoral letter," only a generation
ago, sent the hearts of women quaking with
fear, but now in the very church of its author,
women do the things against which there was
such serious warnings. In the great world
outside of Dr. Adams' church, the question is
not even raised, whether women may or may
not do all the forbidden works in that famous
letter.
It is not many years ago that Francis Jackson,
one of the best citizens Boston ever had,
a clear headed-man, who knew precisely what
he wanted to do with his money, gave by his will
a certain amount for "Woman's Rights," but
the court decided that Woman's Rights was
"not a legal charity" and we lost the legacy.
To-day such a decision would be impossible.
It is scarcely a score of years, since printers
agreed in solemn league and covenant
never to work for any man who employed women
to print. To-day women are type-setters
everywhere.
Within the memory of middle aged persons,
women were limited to five or six occupations,
and were scourged with scorpion criticism, if
they went "out of their sphere" to find any
other. But the last census enumerates three
score and ten kinds of business, now free to
women.
Women are Justices of the Peace in Illinois
and in Wyoming Territory. They discharge
all the duties of the office faithfully and well.
These facts are an argument for, and defense
of the right of woman to these positions.
By a law which is beyond human manipulation,
the tools will sooner or later come to
the hands that can use them well, and no
question of sex will be ever thought of.
If any court can afford to make such an
historic record as that, just made by the Supreme
Court of Maine, women can well afford
to bide their time, for
"Through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process
of the suns!"
L. S.
Dec 26 1974
WHAT WE HAVE GAINED.
From the time, still fresh in the minds of
middle aged persons, when there were no remunerative
occupations open to women, when
there was no high school for girls, no college
that would admit women, when women
lecturers, lawyers, doctors, editors and ministers
were unknown, up to this time when all
these things and many others are free to women,
the gain seems marvelous. But the gain
in legal rights is even greater.
It is now thirty years since a married woman
could not own money, even when she had
earned it by hard work. She could not make
a will of any property she possessed. She
gave birth to a child, and the law said it was
not hers. She could not make a contract.
She could not make a valid deed of the land
she owned. She could not be guardian of
children, not even of her own. She had only
the pauper's right, viz: the right to be maintained.
All the hard work of her hands and 
all the income from her brain belonged to the
husband, who owned, and was supposed to
support her. To-day a wife can legally earn
and own, can buy and sell and will, can
make a valid deed, can be guardian of children,
and at the marriage ceremony is not necessarily
required to promise to obey.
In Wyoming and Utah Territories women
are voters. In Michigan more than forty
thousand men at the polls cast their vote for
Woman Suffrage. In many States women
are legally elected and do serve on the School
Board. Iowa has taken the first legal step to
secure Suffrage for women. Three judges of
the Supreme Court in Maine express the opinion
that women may legally serve as Justices 
of the Peace in that State. In Congress and

Dec 26.  1874
What We have Gained? 
in every Northern State Legislature, the equal
political rights of Woman are discussed.
Thus, from the smallest of all beginnings,
through three decades, has the good cause of
Woman's Rights grown into place and power.
Now it only waits to be crowned with Woman
Suffrage.
To this end societies exist in every northern
State, supplemented by county and town societies,
by political clubs, pledged to secure
the election to legislatures of such men as will
vote for the enfranchisement of women.
An army of women are leagued together in
solemn covenant, to secure their rights to a 
voice in making the laws which they are required
to obey. The time cannot be far away
when this will be accomplished.
As an incentive to activity, it should never
for a moment be forgotten that in the different
States the law makes women the political
equals of paupers, idiots, lunatics, felons; of
men guilty of bribery, forgery, illegal voting,
duelling, treason, and any other crime of weakness
which unfits men to be trusted with the
rights of citizenship.
This picture of gain and loss closes the year
1875. May the next one end with brighter
color.  L. S.
Jan 2.  1875
A PITIFUL CASE.
In the jail in Salem lies a young girl of sixteen,
awaiting her trial for murder. She was 
put to work in a boarding house by her stepmother,
and while there was seduced. Turned
out disgraced, her child was born without
a welcome anywhere. When it was two weeks
old she was directed by her step-mother to
take it to Boston to be cared for by public
charity.
The poor child, ill, bewildered, stunned, not
knowing where to go, threw the baby into the
dock. She then returned, waiting out-doors
all night, that her mother might suppose she
had staid in Boston.
But the dead babe was found, the mother
traced, and the sad story all confessed -- her
disgrace and discharge from the place where
she was employed, the poverty of her parents,
the desertion of the young father, and the desperate
act of drowning.
On Saturday last she was arrested, brought
before the police court on Monday, waived an
examination, and was then committed to Salem
jail to await her trial for murder by the Grand
Jury at the January term of the Superior
Court.
On the same Saturday, Joseph Nicholson,
19 years old, who was the father of the child,
was brought before the same court, pleaded
guilty, was fined $25 and costs, and allowed to
go at liberty.
In three years he will be a legal voter, with 
the right to help make the laws which are to
apply to cases such as his. This is the justice
which is meted out by a court and government
all masculine. Women say they have all the
rights they want, and would not vote if they
could; and men say they will protect us, and
that we need not trouble ourselves about the
government and laws.
Meantime, this child of sixteen years, said
to be of feeble intellect, is shut up in the one
room in the jail which is set apart for female
prisoners, with prostitutes for companions,
without medical care which she greatly needs,
awaiting her trial for murder.
At least one woman, with a merciful mother
heart, is trying to provide something for her
physical necessity. The mothers of Lynn and
of Salem should take the case in hand, as women
can, and should see to it that at least
proper physical care shall be given to her.
One cannot help praying that the death-angel,
kinder than men-made laws, could carry

Jan 2  1875
A Pitiful Case Contd
this weak, neglected child to the silent court
where injustice is impossible, and where cruelty
cannot enter. This case makes a new demand
for public sentiment, which shall hold
men to as strict a moral standard as it holds
women, which shall pursue with added blame
a man who selects a feeble minded child as
his victim, with the fell purpose of leaving her
to bear her shame alone.
If sentence of death is pronounced upon this
child, there would be a grim harmony
throughout, if the $25, paid by the father of
the babe, should be used to build the gallows,
and the seducer should be the executioner of
his victim.
When the ghastly spectacle was over, the
gallows, with a card in large black letters setting
for the facts, should be sent to the
Centennial Exhibition, where it should have a
conspicuous place, as showing one phase of
a masculine government, which resolutely refuses
to give half the people, who are women,
any voice in the laws they suffer under, or any 
jury trial by their peers.  L. S.
GERRIT SMITH
Gerrit Smith died in the city of New  York,
on Sunday, Dec. 27th. He had gone there to
spend the holidays with relatives, was remarkably
well, had passed a pleasant Christmas,
and had a good night's sleep, but on Saturday
morning, while dressing, his wife noticed
that he was very pale, and asked if he
were ill.  He replied "Weak, very weak," and
walked to the bed without assistance, lay
down, almost immediately became unconscious,
and remained in that state without apparent
pain, till about one o'clock on Sunday, when
he died.  The attack was apoplectic.
Thus has passed from the world one of its
rarest and best men.
Mr. Smith was educated at Hamilton College,
from which he graduated in 1818.
He inherited large wealth, which he shared
with a wise liberality among the poor and
needy.
He was a man of pronounced opinions. No
one ever needed to inquire his views on any
great question of the times.
In the anti-slavery struggle he was at first
a colonizationist, but soon joined heartily with
the abolitionists, working actively with the
political wing, but commanding always the
esteem and love of the more radical abolitionists.
His house was the sheltering roof for
fugitive slaves, for many of whom he provided
comfortable homes. He was a member of
Congress in 1852, and there, as everywhere,
he was outspoken for the freedom of the 
slaves.
Mr. Smith was an active friend of Temperance.
He was among the first to recognize the need
of dress reform for women. When, twenty
years ago, the bloomer costume appeared, Mr.
Smith urged its adoption, for health and cleanliness,
and because it gave a dress which did
not exclude women from profitable industries.
From the beginning of the Woman's Rights
movement more than a quarter of a century
ago, he was its friend, aiding it by tongue
and pen and purse.
He seemed instinctively to be in favor of
every claim for equal human rights.
His word was as good as his bond. It is
told of him, that in the financial crisis of
1837, he was near failing, in spite of his large
property, for lack of ready money to meet his
liabilities -- in the emergency he went to John
Jacob Astor, who was an old friend of his
father, and asked the loan of $250,000. He
promised a mortgage on real estate. Mr. Astor
loaned the money. Mr. Smith went home and
had the mortgages made, but the clerk neglected
to mail them. At the end of six weeks
Mr. Astor wrote to ask Mr. Smith if it was
not time he had the mortgages. During all
these weeks his only security was the personal
honor and integrity of Mr. Smith.
Such a man was Gerrit Smith. Loved and
trusted more than most, after nearly fourscore
years he leaves only friends.  L. S.

Jan 9.  1875
SHALL WE HAVE A POLITICAL PARTY?
After having tried such agencies as are
necessary to create public sentiment, such as
lectures, conventions, tracts, newspapers, during
a full quarter of a century, and after it
is manifest that intelligent people, almost
without exception, are ready to affirm, "It is
only a question of time, you are sure to succeed,"
etc.; the advocates of Suffrage for
women are now considering how they can combine
and utilize this public sentiment, so that
it will compel such political action as will result
in securing Suffrage for women.
Some of the truest friends of Suffrage in
Massachusetts have for two years urged the
formation of a political party with this single
issue. They do this, on the ground that we
have nothing to hope for from any existing
party, as has been abundantly proved. The
fair promises of the Republicans meant nothing.
The cool scorn of the Democrats had no
hope in it. Other parties are not strong
enough to be of essential service, even if they
would. 
What shall be done next?
Of course we are to continue the old instrumentalities
but more and more the conviction
deepens in my mind that, at least in Massachusetts,
the time has come when we mush
have a Woman Suffrage political party.
If we should get a Constitutional Amendment
submitted this winter, it would obviate
the necessity of a party, as the vote on the
Amendment would bring to the polls every
man who would act with a separate party.
We have fourteen Woman Suffrage political
clubs already organized. Each of these
would be a local center for active work. We
have an army of friends, ready to vote for
Suffrage when they have the opportunity.
Neither of the dominant political parties
has any special political issue.
Men desire and need some vital principle in
their politics. Party ties are very much loosened.
Behold! is not this our accepted time?
In Michigan we got more than forty thousand
votes. But in that State there has not been
one tenth as much labor of enlightenment expended
as in this.
If, without a party, so many men in Michigan
voted for Suffrage, how many votes have
we not a right to expect in Massachusetts,
which is so small that it could be thoroughly
canvassed in six months, and where so much
work has been done? The final settlement of
our question must be at the polls. The sooner
we know what political strength we have
the better, and the time is auspicious.  L. S.
MARTHA C. WRIGHT.
The friends of Woman Suffrage will hear
with sad surprise of the death of Martha C.
Wright. She was spending a few weeks with
her daughter, Mrs. Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Jr.,
in Boston Highlands, but expected to return
to her home in Auburn, N. Y., on the 28th of
December, to accompany her husband to Florida,
whither he had been ordered by his physician.
But on Sunday morning, Dec. 27th., she was
seized with a chill, and so severe was the attack
that at no time from the beginning was
she able to converse with her friends.
She grew rapidly worse, the disease assuming
the form of typhoid pneumonia. She died,
after much suffering, on Monday, Jan. 4th.
Her husband and daughter, Mrs. Osborne,
were sent for, and were constantly in attendance
during the days of her illness.
On Tuesday, the 5th of Jan., her remains
were taken to Auburn, N. Y., and the funeral
occurred on the afternoon of the next day.
Thus has passed away one of the noblest and
best of women. She was the constant friend
of the slaves, and one of the earliest advocates
fo Woman Suffrage. She was firm and decided
in her opinions, and clear in her support 
of them. The friends of every good cause,
by the death of this estimable woman, have
lost a dignified, earnest and indefatigable co-worker.
Mrs. Wright was the sister of Lucretia Mott.
L. S.
Jan 16, 1875

TEACHER'S SALARIES IN MASSACHUSETTS.
We publish this week an article entitled,
"Pauper Teachers of Natick," which gives
painful evidence of the inadequate compen-
sation too often given to women teachers in
the New England States. The following letter
in the Worcester Spy refers to the same 
subject:
To the Editor of the Spy; - Will you allow me
space in your columns to request the chair-
man of our retiring School Board to commu-
nicate to the public some of the reasons which
influenced that body to vote to three male
teachers in our high school, salaries amounting
in the aggregate, to $7,700, while at the same
time, they voted to the seven female teachers
salaries amount, in the aggregate, to only
$6,200? Are the labors of the men employed
in this school so much more sever, or more
protracted, than those of the women, as, in the
judgment of the School Board, to warrant
this enormous inequality of compensation, or
is the difference to be found in the quality of
their teaching? Surely, unexplained, these
figures seem incompatible with that nice sense
of justice and honor which ought ever to char-
acterize the action of a body of men to whom
is intrusted the dearest interests of our city.
JUSTICE.
In the above facts will probably be found
the reason why Miss Ella, Foster, the daughter
of Stephen and Abby Foster, has resigned her
place as teacher in the Worcester High
School, for a position in a Cincinnati school at
a salary of $1,200 for a school year of nine 
months.
Miss Foster was educated at Vassar and
Cornell, and is a teacher of such excellence,
that Worcester could illy afford to withhold
sufficient inducement for her to remain there.
A Michigan letter in the Christian Register
says, of Ann Arbor University, "a handsome
proportion of our lady students are from New
England. Massachusetts and Boston are well
represented here."
Thus our daughters are driven West for the
education which New England colleges refuse,
and then their salaries as teachers are so de-
graded that they must return to the West for
adequate remuneration.         L. S.

THE WORLD MOVES.
The Commonwealth helps to measure the rate
of progress we make, by publishing the fact
of the votes of women, actually asked and gi-
en, though informally, in the church of Rev. 
Nehemian Adams, of this city.
It is only thirty-seven years since Mr. Adamsn,
in his famous "Pastoral Letter," warned the
world against the speaking, even, of women
in public, and now, in his own church, women
vote.                         L. S.

LECTURES ON ZOOLOGY
Miss Graceanna Lewis, of Media, Pa., a
member of the Academy of Natural Sciences
of Philadelphia, and a thoroughly educated
Quaker woman, is now prepared to resuem
her instructions in Natural History, and will
give lectures to schools, to colleges, or to par-
lor classes of ladies and gentlemen. These lec-
tures are amply and elegantly illustrated by 
diagrams, lithographs, engravings and draw-
ings, procured with great care for the especial
purpose, and also by original charts, which
have required many years of labor to prepare.
These lectures are recommended by many
eminent scientists as in all respects worthy
the confidence and encouragement of persons
disposed to study Natural History and espec-
ally Ornithology; among others by John Cas-
sin, Vice-President of the Academy of Natu-
ral Sciences, Philadelphia, and author of
"Birds of California and Texas;" by T. C.
Porter, Professor of Natural History in La
fayette College, Easton, Pa.; and by Prof.
Baird, of Smithsonian Institution, Washing-
ton, D. C.
We wish that arrangements might be made
to extend an invitation to Miss Lewis, to de-
liver these interesting lectures in Boston, un-
der the auspices of the New England Women's
Club.                         L. S.

GOV. GASTON'S MESSAGE
All classes of citizens look eagerly for the 
Governor's message, and each person reads
with special attention those parts which most
nearly affect his business or personal interests.
Women, who are in sore need, by reason of
the usurption of their most sacred rights
looked over the successive topics of the mes-
sage, one after the other, down to the very

Jan 16,1875 cont'
Gov. Gaston's Message" Cont'
last, only to find that there was not the slight-
est allusion to the great wrongs they suffer,
nor to the need of a defense of the principle
of representative government, which is violat-
ed in the case of every woman.
The only suggestion the Governor had to
make for women was in regard to their im-
prisionment. But in regard to affairs in
Louisiana, the Governor invites the special
attention of the Legislature to this "matter of
grave concern to all the people of all the
States, more especially in a case where the
possible effect may be to subvert the popular
will and impose upon a people rulers whom
they have not selected."
In Massachusetts, by the last census, there
are 753,572 women. They constituted a major-
ity of the whole people of 49,793.
They have always had "rulers imposed upon
them whom they have not selected." s it
any worse that a fraction of men in Louisiana
may, possibly, by force of arms, be "subject-
ed to rulers whom they have not chosen,"
than that all the women of this old Common-
wealth are actually subjected to rulers whom
they have not chosen? Is the Governor's
omission to mention this usurption of the rights
of all the women in Massachusetts due to the 
fact that he is himself one of the usurpers?
The slaveholders of Virginia wet their eyes
with tears, and emptied their pockets for the
Greek slaves, four thousand miles away, but
the wail of the long coffle gangs of their own
slaves they never heard, not even when John
Randolph opened the very doors, in front of
which Virginia slaves clanked their chains.
Three women, as worthy as the best men in
the State, were appointed by the Executive
Committee of the Massachusetts Woman Suf-
frage Society to call on Governor Gaston, and
remind him of the utter disfranchisement of
all the women of this Commonwealth, and to
ask that he would, in his forthcoming message,
suggest steps for their relief.
They did so. The Governor was polite, but
in his message he forgot to mention that the 
women of this State have no representation,
but are excluded from their right of Suffrage,
in common with men whose crimes have con-
signed them to the State prison without hope
of pardon.
The only woman's right he remembered to
mention, was her right to be imprisoned prop-
erly.
This, too, from our first Democratic gover-
nor, and this too, after petitions to the Legis-
ture, through more than a score of years, have
reminded every voter in the State of the polit-
cal wrong done to Woman, so many petitions,
that if there were joined together, in one long
roll, it would extend from Faneuil Hall to the 
dock where the tea went into Boston Harbor,
and from there to the top of Bunker Hill mon-
ument. So many petitioners, that if they 
stood shoulder to shoulder, they would liter-
ally reach miles in length.
But all this counted for nothing with Go-
ernor Gaston. The message however did, in 
fitting phrase and well, mention the man who,
a hundred years ago, sought at the point of
the bayonet the very same right for which
women have petitioned almost three score
years. The Governor says "This centennial
anniversary will be of incalculable benefit, if
it shall recall to our minds that primitive time
when high office was held as a great and sa-
cred trust." I agree with the Governor in
this view, sure that there is need enough of
every such lesson that can be learned by a re-
call of that earlier time.
The message continues: "This celebration 
will be one in which all parts of the country
can cordially unite. The memory of this
grand event can awaken no emotions except
those of pride."
It ought to awaken the deepest shame. Fifteen
millions of women are disfranchised by this
government as the colonists were by the Brit-
ish government, with the added wrong and in-
sult of being compelled to share their disfran-
chisement with unpardoned convicts in the
State Prison and with idiots and lunatics out
of it. For the rulers in such a government to
pride themselves on the resistance which dead
heroes made to tyranny, just such as they
themselves are imposing on half the people,
is as if thieves should sing the praises of hon-
est men or murderers prate of the sacredness
of human life. The heroism of men a hundred
years ago has only reproach for the men of to-Jan 16  1875
Gov. Gaston's Message contd
day.
Gov. Gaston invites the attention of the
Legislature to the centennial celebration, with
a view, no doubt, of suggesting to that body to
vote an appropriation for the celebration.
Should this be done, it is proper to say, with
all meekness, that the property of women
should be free from any tax to raise any part
of this sum.
Men make history as well as celebrate it.
Neither men, nor parties, nor states can afford
to make the historic record, that when
they celebrated their own escape from a power,
which taxed, while it gave them no representation,
they raised any portion of the money
to pay the bills from the property of those
whom they themselves taxed, and yet to whom
they denied representation.  L. S.
Jan. 23.  1875
ANNUAL MEETING MASSACHUSETTS
WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION.
The Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Woman
Suffrage Association will be held in Wesleyan
Hall, Boston, on Tuesday, the 26th inst.,
commencing at 10.30 A. M., and continuing through
the day and evening.
The following speakers will address the meeting,
unless unavoidably prevented: James Freeman
Clarke, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, Hon. Judge Pitman,
Julia Ward Howe, Henry B. Blackwell, Lucy Stone,
Samuel May, Mary F. Eastman, Stephen S. Foster,
M. Almy Aldrich, Hulda B. Loud, F. Y. Washburn,
Rev. Ellen G. Gustin, Thomas J. Lothrop, Frederick
A. Hinckley, S. W. Bush, E. D. Winslow, Rev. Mariana
T. Folsom and others.
Woman Suffrage Clubs and local societies are
invited to send representatives and to participate in
the discussions.
All friends of Suffrage throughout the State are
especially invited to attend this meeting, and help
devise plans of action for the coming year.
JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, Pres.
JULIA WARD HOWE, Ch'm. Ex. Com.
STATE LEGISLATURES AND THE CENTENNIAL
It is more than probable that the State Legislatures
will, during the present session, vote
appropriations of money to the Centennial
celebration.
Of course it is impossible to prevent this;
but something may be saved to truth and consistency,
if those who see the incongruity and
sin in the case, will express their sense of the
wrong.
What are the facts? A hundred years ago
our ancestors, brave men, took their lives in
their hands, and went out to wrest themselves
from the power of a government which gave
them no share in it, which taxed and governed
them without their consent, in spite of petition,
remonstrance and entreaty. After seven
years of bloody battle, they conquered.
A hundred years have come and gone, and
today the government of these United States
gives women no share in it. It taxes and
governs them without their consent, in spite
of petitions, remonstrance and entreaty, offered
not through seven years, but through four
times seven.
The crime which this government commits
is not done in a corner, but is a barefaced
usurpation of the political rights of fifteen millions
of women. And now these men, who are
acting over again the part of George III, are
about to celebrate, not the king whose example
they follow, but the brave men who refused
to submit to the king, men whose
shoe's latchet these oppressors of women are
not worthy to unloose.
To make their celebration a success, they
have already, with unspeakable impudence,
solicited women whose rights they usurp, to
go about and collect money, to bring eclat to
the occasion and to pay their bills.
The present fear is, that the Legislatures of
the respective States will make appropriations
for the Centennial. In that case the
government will present the astonishing spectacle
of collecting money from women whom
it taxes, and to whom it steadily refuses any 
representation, in order to enable it to swell
more loudly the praises of men who would

Jan 23. 1874 contd
State Legislatures & the Cen contd.
not be taxed while they had no representation.
History will be made again, but of a very
different kind from that which was made a
hundred years ago -- history which, a century
hence, no one will celebrate.
If State appropriations are anywhere made,
or taxes in any way levied for the Centennial,
then petitions should be circulated and
signed as numerously as possible by men and
women, asking that the property of women
may not be taken for such a purpose. But if
it should not be exempted, it is possible that
the attempt to collect such a tax would rouse
again the spirit of '76, and the long forgotten
lesson be again learned, that "taxation and
representation are inseparable;" and thus, out
of the evil and shame, would come this great
good, the knowledge of the meaning of a representative
government.  L. S.
ANNUAL MEETING
OF THE
Massachusetts Woman Suffrage
Association.
The Annual Meeting assembled at Wesleyan
Hall, Boston, on Tuesday morning, Jan.
26, at 10.30 o'clock. A large and intelligent
audience were present.
On motion of Henry B. Blackwell, a Committee
on Finance was nominated by the
chairman, as follows: Lucy Stone, of Boston;
Mrs. Maria F. Walling, of Cambridge, Mrs.
Nancy G. Gilman, of Arlington, and Miss Abby
W. May.
While the Business Committee were out,
Lucy Stone said:
REMARKS OF LUCY STONE.
We are always sure to find the friends of 
our cause at the morning session of our annual
meeting, though it is sometimes true that
persons are here for the first time, who do not
know the face of any speaker on the platform,
and have never heard a single argument in
favor of Woman Suffrage. But assuming that
you understand the question, it is wisdom for
us this morning to consider what added thing
we can do, or what measure we can adopt, that
will help this great beneficent movement. It
is certain that among intelligent people there
is only one opinion, and that is "It is sure to
come. It is only a question of time." This
being so, how can we hasten the time?
When the question came to vote in Michigan,
there was an army of men, morethan
40,000, who voted for it. Now we, in this
State, need to take some step which will make
manifest at the polls, the strength we really 
have. I think the time has come to do this.
The Republicans have mocked us with words.
The Democrats have admitted the truth of our
principles, but declared it inexpedient to apply
them.
The Labor Reformers endorsed us, but were
not strong enough to give much help. The 
Prohibitionists were not the party who dared.
But there is a very large number of men,
who are ready to vote on our side whenever
they can have the opportunity. I want they
should have it. Existing parties will never
care a straw for us until they know that we
count against them at the polls. In my judgment
it is best to organize the voting force we 
have. If it is not a majority the first year or
the second, it will grow with each rising sun,
and all the sooner will be a majority because
it is organized.
In order to give power to such an effort, we
must have money, to send the really excellent
speakers we have, into all the towns that lie
off from the railroads, where little has been
heard on the subject, to distribute the Woman's
Journal and tracts in every locality.
We have come very near to the Fourth of
July, 1876. The shame of Massachusetts will
be felt, if, at that time, her more than 700,000
women are held, as the colonists were, a hundred
years ago, "taxed without representation
and governed without consent." Before that
time there ought to be an organized political
force, straining every nerve for honor, as
well as for justice.
But now Mr. Sewall is here with the Treasurer's
report, I will stop; only asking the Finance
Committee to go round with the books
of membership, so that all present may either
renew, or become for the first time members.
Donations and pledges also can be made in 
the same books. The price of membership is
one dollar a year, and this entitles the member
to vote at all meetings of the society.
Let us contribute for this great work to the
extent of our ability; see what we can do without,
this year, by which we can save money
for this cause.
When Mrs. Stone called for her committee,
one member was absent, whereupon a venerable
woman rose and offered to serve, remarking
an she did so, that, "one volunteer is worth
a hundred who are drafted," and she [persev]
[ingly] went round with books at the [su]
[ive] sessions.Jan 16 1875
Gov. Gaston's Message cont'

day.
Gov. Gaston invites the attention of the
Legislature to the centennial celebration, with
a view, no doubt, of suggesting to that body to
vote an appropriation for the celebration.
Should this be done, it is proper to say, with
all meekness, that the property of women
should be free from any tax to raise any part
of this sum.
Men make history as well as celebrate it.
Neither men, nor parties, nor states can af-
ford to make the historic record, that when
they celebrated their own escape from a pow-
er, which taxed, while it gave them no repre-
sentation, they raised any portion of the mon-
ey to pay the bills from the property of those
whom they themselves taxed, and yet to whom
they denied representation.               L S.

Jan 23, 1875

ANNUAL MEETING MASSACHUSETTS
WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION.
The Annual Meeting of the MASSACHUSETTS WO-
MAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION will be held in WES-
LEYAN HALL, Boston, on Tuesday, the 26th inst.,
commencing at 10:30 A. M., and continuing through
the day and evening.
The following speakers will address the meeting,
unless unavoidable prevented: James Freeman
Clarke, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, Hon. Judge Pitman,
Julia Ward Howe, Henry B. Blackwell, Lucy Stone,
Samuel May, Mary F. Eastman, Stephen S. Foster,
M. Almy Aldrich, Hulda B. Loud, F. Y. Washburn,
Rev. Ellen G. Gustin, Thomas J. Lothrop, Frederick
A. Hinckley, S. W. Bush, E. D. Winslow, Rev. Ma-
riana T. Folsom and others.
Woman Suffrage Clubs and local societies are in-
vited to send representatives and to participate in 
the discussion. 
All friends of Suffrage throughout the State are
respectfully invited to attend this meeting, and help
devise plans of action for the coming year.
JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, PRES.
JULIA WARD HOWE. CH'M. EX. COM.

STATE LEGISLATURES AND THE CENTEN-
NIAL.
It is more than probable that the State Leg-
islatures will, during the present session, vote
appropriations of money to the Centennial
celebration.
Of course it is impossible to prevent thisl
but something may be save to truth and con-
sistency, if those who see the inconguity and
sin the case, will express their sense of the wrong
What are the facts? A hundred years ago
our ancestors, brave men, took their lives in
their hands, and went out to wrest themselves 
from the power of a government which gave
them no share in it, which taxed and governed
them without their consent, in spite of petition,
remonstrance and entreaty. After seve
years of bloody battle, they conquered.
A hundred years have come and gone, and
today the government of these United States
gives women no share in it. It taxes and
governs them without their consent, in spite
of petitions, remonstrance and entreaty, offer-
ed not through seven years, but through four
times seven.
The crime which this government commits
is not done in a corner, but is a barefaced
usurpation of the political rights of fifteen mil-
lions of women. And now these men, who are
acting over again the part of George III, are
about to celebrate, not the king whose exam-
ple they follow, but the brave men who re-
fused to submit to the king, men whose
shoe's latchet these oppressors of women are
not worthy to unloose.
To make their celebration a success, they
have already, with unspeakable impudence,
solicited women whose rights they usurp, to
go about and collect money, to bring eclat to
the occasion and to pay their bills.
The present fear is, that the Legislatures of
the respective States will make appropria-
tions for the Centennial. In that case the
government will present the astonishing spec-
tacle of collecting money from women whom
it taxes, and to whom it steadily refuses any
representation, in order to enable it to swell
more loudly the praises of men who would

Jan 23 1875 cont'
State Legislatures + the Cent.

not be taxed while they had no representation.
History will be made again, but of a very 
different kind from that which was made a 
hundred years ago - history which, a century
hence, no one will celebrate.
If State appropriations are anywhere made,
or taxes in any way levied for the Centen-
nial, then petitions should be circulated and
signed as numerously as possible by men and
women, asking that the property of women
may not be taken for such a purpose. But if
it should not be exempted, it is possible that
the attempt to collect such a tax would rouse
again the spirit of '76, and the long forgotten
lesson be again learned, that "taxation and
representation are inseparable;" and thus, out
of the evil and shame, would come this great
good, the knowledge of the meaning of a re-
resentative government.               L. S.

Jan 30 1875
ANNUAL MEETING
OF THE
MASSACHUSETTS WOMAN SUFFRAGE
ASSOCIATION.
The Annual Meeting assembled at Wes-
leyan Hall, Boston, on Tuesday morning, Jan
26, at 10.30 o'clock. A large and intelligent
audience were present.
X X X X X X X X X X 
On motion of Henry B. Blackwell, a Com-
mittee on Finance was nominated by the
chairman, as follows: Lucy Stone, of Boston;
Mrs. Maria F. Walling, of Cambridge; Mrs.
Nancy G. Gilman, of Arlington, and Miss Ab-
by W. May X X X X X X
While the Business Committee were out,
LUCY STONE:
REMARKS OF LUCY STONE.
We are always sure to find the friends of
our cause at the morning session of our annual
meeting, though it is sometimes true that
persons are here for the first time, who do not
know the face of any speaker on the platform,
and have never heard a single argument in
favor of Woman Suffrage. But assuming that
you understand the question, it is wisdom for
us this morning to consider what adde'l thing
we can do, or what measure we can adopt, that
will help this great beneficent movement. It
is certain that among intelligent people there
is only one opinion, and that is "It is sure to
come. It is only a question of time." This
being so, how can we hasten the time?
When the question came to vote in Michi-
gan, there was an army of men, more than
40,000, who voted for it. Now we, in this
State, need to take some step which will make
manifest at the pools, the strength we really
have. I think the time has come to do this.
The Republicans have mocked us with words
The Democrats have admitted the truth of our
principles, but declared it inexpedient to ap-
ply them.
The Labor Reformers endorsed us, but were 
not strong enough to give much help. The
Prohibitionists were not the party who dared.
But there is a very large number of men,
who are ready to vote on our side whenever
they can have the opportunity. I want they
should have it. Existing parties will never
care a straw for us until they know that we
count against them at the polls. In my judg-
ment it is best to organize he voting force we
have. If it is not a majority the first year or
the second, it will grow with each rising sun,
and all the sooner will be a majority because
it is organized.
In order to give power to such an effort, we
must have money, to send the really excellent
speakers we have, into all the towns that lie
off from the railroads, where little has been
heard on the subject, to distribute the WO-
MAN'S JOURNAL and tracts in every locality.
We have come very near tot he Fourth of
July 1876. The shame of Massachusetts will
be felt, if, at that time, her more than 700.000
women are held; as the colonists were, a hun-
dred years ago, "taxed without representation
and governed without consent." Before that 
time there ought to be an organized politi-
cal force, straining every nerve for honor, as
well as for justice.
But not Mr. Sewall is here with the Treasur-
er's report, I will stop; only asking the Fi-
nance Committee to go round with the books
of membership, so that all present may either
renew, or become for the first time members. 
Donations and pledges also can be made in
the same books. The price of membership is
one dollar a year, and this entitles the mem-
ber to vote at all meetings of the society.
Let us contribute for this great work to the
extent of our ability; see what we can do with-
out, this year, by which we can save money
for this cause.
When Mrs. Stone called for her committee,
one member was absent, whereupon a venera-
ble woman rose and offered to serve, remark-
ing an she did so, that, "one volunteer is worth
a hundred who are drafted," and she persever-
ingly went round with books at the success-
ive sessions.Annual Meeting Mass W S A contd
Jan 30. 1875
Afternoon Session
ADDRESS OF HON. SAMUEL E. SEWALL.
Mr. Sewall made a short address, to show
what the legislature of 1874 had done for women
in Massachusetts.
Mrs. Stone inquired the present state of
the law in regard to the right of a wife to sell
her real estate?
Mr. Sewall said that husband and wife
stand on the same ground in regard to the
sale of real estate, each being required to have
the consent of the other.
"But," asked Mrs. Stone, "is it not true, Mr.
Sewall, that the husband's right of courtesy
covers the use of the whole of his wife's real
estate as long as he lives? And that the dower
of the wife is only the use of one-third of
that of her husband, which only accrues to her 
after his death?"
In reply Mr. Sewall said that since 1855 no
husband had the use of the real estate of his
wife till after her death, but that it did cover
the use of the whole, while the wife's dower
only covers the use of a third.
Mr. Clarke made a brief statement illustrating
the points named by Mr. Sewall.
On motion of Mrs. Lucy Stone the resolutions
were accepted for discussion, to be
voted upon seriatim.
The first and second resolutions were read
and adopted without debate. Upon the third
resolution Lucy Stone spoke as follows:
Lucy Stone said: This resolution should 
have the unanimous vote of this annual meeting.
Resolved, That, in behalf of the women of Massachusetts,
we respectfully request our Legislature not
to appropriate one dollar of the public money collected
in party from the property of disfranchised
women, for the Centennial celebration, inasmuch as
all women are denied the very rights which the men
propose to celebrate.
By the last census there were in this State
753,572 women and girls. These women are
all taxed and governed just as the colonists
were, a hundred years ago. Now whether it
is a hundred years or a hundred hundred, these
men, who rule women as the British government
did our ancestors, are not the men to celebrate
the dead heroes whose courage they
cannot imitate.
For such men to collect money from women
for such a purpose is to add insult to injury, is
a crime and shame, the memory of which no
lapse of time can efface. It is a deed which
nobody will ever celebrate.
The Centennial committee begins by asking
women to go about to collect money, and if I
am rightly informed, they refused these very
women a right to vote in regard to its appropriation;
though the women I am glad to say,
did defend and gain their right from this committee.
Those who hold us in such bondage, and
compel us to pay for the eclat of the Centennial,
treat us as the Philistines did Sampson.
They put out his eyes, and then compelled
him to make sport for them. But Sampson
felt for the pillars of the roof that covered his 
tormentors, and bowed himself with all his
might, and buried him and them in a common
ruin. But, for our tormentors and ourselves, it
is not the pillars, but the very foundation of
the edifice itself that is tumbling out, because
of the part women are made to hold in this
oligarchy of sex. I hope the resolution will pass.
The third resolution was then read again, by
request, and unanimously adopted.
The fourth resolution passed without debate.
Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney spoke in support
of the fifth resolution, contrasting the prompt
resentment shown by men for the real or imaginary
infringement of their own rights, with
the cool indifference shown towards the deprivation
of these very rights in the case of women.
Lucy Stone said:
Mr. President; in speaking to this resolution,
I do not wish either to affirm or deny any thing
as to the merits of the Louisiana question.
But this is the point I wish to make on it. If
the meeting in Faneuil Hall was called in the
interest of justice, and to guard and protect
political and civil rights which it supposed
were invaded, then for the same reason the
men who called that meeting are under an obligation
no less imperative to use the same eager
earnestness to secure the political and
civil rights, which are, without doubt, absolutely
denied to more than 700,000 women in
this State.
The mothers and daughters of Massachusetts
men ought not to be compelled to ask for
the championship which is volunteered to
men a thousand miles away.
I hope the resolution will pass.
Evening Session
Mr. Frederic A. Hinkley then spoke
on "The Real Meaning of the Woman's 
Rights Movement."
I am not unaware, Mr. President, that in
what I am about to say, I shall seem to reflect
somewhat upon the course of loved and 
honored leaders in this movement; but I cannot

Annual Meeting Mass W S A
Frederick Hinkley Continued
forget that the honest critic is often the
best friend, and that, after all, we can recognize, 
in the long run, but one leader, to whom
all love and honor should be rendered, viz.,
the Spirit of Truth 
[t] four great subjects
must be considered. The Working woman,
Prostitution, Marriage, Politics. Why is it
that so many women and girls "work from
early morn till late at eve" for less than
enough to board themselves decently? Why
does the labor of Woman, simply because it
is the labor of woman, go on half-pay and
loss of good repute at that? Why does that
infamous statue, upheld by a corrupt public
opinion, which arrests the prostitute woman
and allows the prostitute man to go free, continue
to disgrace our civilization and insult
womankind? Why is it that in so many 
homes Woman occupies a position of semi-serfdom,
having surrendered the ownership of
her person, and with it the right to say when
she will become a mother and under what conditions
the new life shall be brought into the
world? Why does the ballot which at one
time in this State, seemed within Woman's
easy grasp, seem so far off still?
The one answer to these questions which
overshadows all others is this -- there has not
been that earnest, uncompromising agitation
of the fundamentals of the movement, which
is absolutely essential to carry them to the
hearts and lives of the people. The management
of this cause should be such that all
whom its triumph will most intimately affect,
shall see its worth and be drawn to it. There
are the workingwomen, I cast no reflections,
I simply state a bald fact when I say, they
have been repelled rather than drawn to this
movement by the way in which it has been
conducted in Massachusetts. When have we
been summoned to listen to a treatise on the
rights of poor girls, tempted to their fall to
prevent starvation? Why have we been so
ominously silent on the great question of
marriage and divorce? Why has not this platform
rung with the utterance of the truth concerning
such vital issues as these? Does anything
go nearer to the very heart of Woman's
position than some of the principles herein
involved? Stuart Mill told the truth the other
side of the water. Are not we brave enough
to tell the truth here? We have dealt thus
far and in a somewhat questionable way,
simply with Woman's right to the ballot. It's
a great right, under democratic institutions, a
natural, inalienable right. Standing, as you
have made it, by itself, there should be no
hesitation about granting it. The United
States Government is a tyranny so long as it
declines to grant it. But most people want to
know what the ballot means, the workingwoman
wants to know, the prostitute wants to 
know, the subjected wife wants to know. The
real significance of the ballot to practical people
is in its power as a means for securing and
protecting individual liberty. It is not an end
in itself. It is, as Mr. Sumner said, the columbiad
which shall make the citizen possessing 
it a full armed monitor. We have made
but little, if any attempt to show the relation
between suffrage and the abolition of woman's
subjection, in work, in society, in the home.
On the contrary the workingwoman has been
ignored, prostitution passed lightly over, and
marriage not only not held up for candid investigation,
but directly and repeatedly declared
to be a separate question with which
Suffrage has nothing to do.
Mrs. Lucy Stone said:
Mr. President. After such a criticism and
speech as that to which we have just listened,
it seems impossible that the meeting should
close without some reply.
In the very early days of this movement,
when it had few friends and no money, when
I used to take my hand-bills, with a paper
of tacks and a stone, to nail them up, because there
was no one else to do it, and no other way,
when Mr. Hinckley was in his cradle, it was
called a Woman's Rights Movement.  Its
main urgency was for better work, better
wages, better education, and more equal laws
for women. At that time there were three occupations
open to women, which they could 
pursue without apprehension or censure, viz."
housework, sewing and teaching.
But the last census gives seventy-one occupations
free to women, and this result, in my
judgment, has been brought about more by
this Woman's movement than by all other
causes put together. The wages have been
made better, the laws are better, and the means
of education are greatly increased. We are
all working women. and spend more hours in
real daily toil than most women.
For myself, in the process of my education
I earned my books, tuition, food and clothing.
Week after week I lived on beans and potatoes,
spending only fifty cents, because I had
only so much to spend. All that any woman
knows of what it is to be a working woman,
I know.
No working woman has ever been repelled
from this platform, and her cause has received
only help from our movement. In process of
time it became evident that the political disfranchisement
of Woman was the root of the
evil from which she suffered. We saw that 
with the ballot in her hand, she would have a
hundred fold more power to help herself, in 
every way, than she could without it, that the
possession of political equality was the foundation
of all other rights, that the ballot was
the "keystone of the arch."
Then we organized anew, under the name
of the Woman Suffrage Association, and from
that day to this we have kept strictly to our
platform excluding all other questions, in the
full belief, that in this way we were doingJan 30, 1875 cont'
Annual Meeting Mass WSA Cont

the very best thing to enable women to help
themselves in all directions. Now, when Mr. 
Hinckly charges that we have wronged the
cause by not discussing the labor question,
the marriage question, ect., it seems to me jsut
as if when a family have moved into a new
house, and the first is being built, some one
insists upon having bread and meat and pota-
toes, without considering that the fire is abso-
lutely essential to the preparation of these good
things.
With the ballot in her hand, it will be the 
fault of woman herself, if she does not win
and hold every right. So I believe, and so
believing I shall continue to pull at the great
tap root of the disfranchisement of woman
till it is out. If we say the same things all the
time, it is because the wrongs to be redressed
are the same all the time. The law continues
to hold us the political companions of the 
meanest and worst men, with idiots, lunatics,
felons; and until it ceases to do this, we cannot
cease to remind them of it. It is not our fault
but our duty. If Mr. Hinckley thinks that
more help lies with a broader platform, he is
young, in the prime of his life, let him organ-
ize a new movement in accordance with his
idea, and no one will be gladder than I shall
be, if it bring more and better help for wo-
man.
But when it is charged that we have coquet-
ted and traded with politicians, there is not, to 
the best of my knowledge and belief, a shadow
of foundation for it. From the day that the
Woman's Movement was started until this day,
no important step has been taken of which I
have not had full knowledge. When, in exec-
utive committee we voted to ask each of the 
four political parties to make the application
of the principles of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence to women a part of their platform,
we did it solely in the interest of justice, and
with nothing that could be even tortured into
an attempt at trading.
When the Republicans put our plank in 
their platform, we accepted it with all good
faith, and went out to help them carry it.
They disappointed us. But they made it im-
possible for them ever again to deceive us.
When I repeat facts of which I know, I have
a right to be believed, and I utterly deny this
charge of Mr. Hinckley.

THE ANNUAL MEETING
The Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts
Woman Suffrage Association was held in Wes-
leyan Hall, as advertised, and was one of our
best meetings.
The morning session, which was devoted main-
ly to business, was well attended, and made rich
by the valuable annual report of Mrs. Howe,
and by a statement of the changes in the
laws of this State as they concern women, by 
Samuel E. Sewall. In the afternoon, the hall
was crowded in every part; even the step to
the platform served as a seat when there was 
no longer standing room.
In the evening the hall was full but not
crowded. There was no lack of interest from
first to last. There was a decided expression
in favor of some form of political organization,
which should unite all our friends who can 
vote, in such a way that their power shall be
felt in politics. It was unanimously agreed
that no money ought to be appropriated by
our Legislature for the Centennial, inasmuch
as it would be made up, in part, by taxes
collected from women who are still disfran-
chised. 
It was a good meeting, and will be sure to
[[blanked out]] the cause along. A full report will be
[[blanked out]] and elsewhere in this paper.    L. S.

February 6 1875
WILLS
The New England Hospital for Women and
Children has received $25,000 by the will of
Mrs. Josiah Vose, lately deceased in this city.
This is one of the first indications of the
turning of the tide, which has hitherto so uni-
verally sent bequests made by women away
from their own sex.
There is scarcely a college which excludes
women that has not received many thousands
of dollars in this way. Scholarships are found-
ed, libraries donated, and money given by wo-
men to help young men in their studies.
Churches, which would never admit a woman
to the pulpit, nor even allow her to vote on any
matter which concerned the church, are made
rich by the wills of women.
Hospitals, which rudely shut their doors in
the face of every female student, receive be-
quests all the same from women. Yet while the

February 6 1875
"Wills" continued
present order holds, it is the woman who needs
help. The woman who is teaching to earn
money to educate herself, receives only a frac-
tion of the salary which a man does, who
teaches no better. If she work at any kind
of handicraft, the same, or nearly the same
difference exists. But food, fuel, books, tui-
tion and clothing are not sold at less price to
a woman.
With the growth of the Woman movement,
attention will more and more be called to the
facts in the case, and liberal women will cease
to make bequests to institutions which ex-
clude their own sex.
If the Woman Suffrage Association had
adequate means, so that it could send the lec-
turers who wait to be sent, to circulate docu-
ments, tracts, petitions and the WOMAN'S
JOURNAL, which would give the much needed
information on the question, it would not be
three years before every New England State
and many Northern and Western States would
have put the ballot into the hand of Woman.
It is quite worthy of the consideration of
women of wealth, who mean to make gener-
ous disposition of their property, whether
they can do better with it than to help women
to help themselves. The possession of the
ballot is the surest way to do this.
Whoever, therefore, aids the great movement
for the enfranchisement of Woman, is mak-
ing the surest benefaction for her good. Mrs.
Vose has set an example worthy to be followed
by other women who have fortunes to leave.
By her will, after the death of her daughter,
she gives to the Massachusetts General Hos-
pital, $30,000, for free beds; to the McLean
Insane Asylum, $30,000, for the poor; to the
Association for the Relief of Aged and Indi-
gent Females, $30,000, one-fourth of the in-
come to provide tea and delicacies; to the
Home for Aged Men, $30,000, under similar
conditions; to the Children's Mission to the
Children of the Destitute, $20,000; to the Bos-
ton Port and Seaman's Aid Society, $10,000;
to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
$25,000, for free scholarships; to the Boston
Asylum and Farm for Indigent Boys, $15,000;
to the Industrial Aid Society for the Preven-
tion of Pauperism, $10,000; Benevolent Fra-
ternity of Churches (Unitarian,) $10,000; Fe-
male Orphan Asylum, $15,000; New England
[[cut off]], Children, $25,000;
[[top line cut off]]
Perkins' Institute and Massachusetts Asylum
for the Blind, $10,000; Temporary Home for
the Destitute, $15,000; Warren Street Chapel,
$10,000; Boston Provident Association, $10,-
000; Boston Children's Friend Society, $20,-
000; Museum of Fine Arts, $25,000; Boston 
Young Men's (Unitarian) Christian Union,
$10,000; Massachusetts Charitable Eye and 
Ear Infirmary, $15,000; Massachusetts Socie-
ty for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
$10,000; Home for Aged Colored Women, 
$5000. The rest of the estate is to be divided
equally between the Institute of Technology
and the Museum of Fine Arts.
After making ample provision for her only
child, Mrs. Ann White Dickinson, wife of
George Dickinson, Esq., of Boston, and after
giving generously to her collateral kindred,
numbering more than forty persons, and be-
queating $10,000 to each of her friends, Wil-
liam C. Murdoch, Esq., and the Hon. Seth
Turner, she gives to trustees for the purpose
of endowing institutions of charity and edu-
cation in this Commonwealth, or, if them deem
it best, they may found such an institution, 
governing themselves therein somewhat as her
daughter may indicate. William G. Murdoch
and Seth Turner are named trustees and exe-
cutors, and are exempted from giving sureties
on their official bonds.
It is rare to find a will, which so wisely and
abundantly gives aid in the worthiest places.
L. S.

PRISON FOR WOMEN AND SUFFRAGE
To the Editors of the Boston Daily Advertiser: -
In your paper of the 28th instant Mary W.
Poor disclaims "all connection between the
movement which secured a separate prison for
female convicts and that which seeks to se-
cure for women the right to vote," and com-
plains of the resolution adopted at the recent
annual meeting of the Massachusetts Woman
Suffrage Association which reckons the sepa-
rate prison under the management of women
among the gains of the last year.
By that resolution the Suffragists did not
intend to detract one iota from the laurels of
any one, but to say that in every gain made
for woman, which is due to the growth of pub-
lic sentiment in favor of her equal rights, we
see the result and recompense of our labors.
We gladly used the columns of the WO-
MAN'S JOURNAL to aid the separate prison for 
women.  We signed and by request circulat-
ed petitions for it. But it was not our dis-
tinctive work, any more than was that done
by the friends of women on the school com-Feb 6, 1875
Prison for Women + Suffrage cont'

mittee, though every Suffragist is in favor of
it, and heartily co-operated in it. It is not
easy to see how women can be in their proper
sphere as lobyists, and yet out of their sphere
as voters. Respectfully,           LUCY STONE
Boston, Jan. 29, 1875.

February 13, 1875
LOOK TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVES.
The time is near at hand when the Legisla-
ture of this State will take action on the ques-
tion, whether men shall continue to rule wo-
men without their consent.
We could, without douct, secure a much
larger vote, if those who believe in Suffrage
for Woman would unity in a letter to their
Representative and Senator, expressive of 
their own opinion and desire in the matter.
Such a letter, short, clear and forcible, would
go far to influence the vote of legislators who
are not quite decided, and to strengthen those
who are. It should be written at once, that
we may have the benefit of every possible
helping influence.
For a quarter of a century the women of
this Commonwealth have petitioned for the
right to help make the laws which they must
obey. Very often they have simply received
"leave to withdraw," or "inexpedient to legis-
late." But these have been followed by ameli-
orations in the statutes, as if in apology for
withholding our rights.
Thrice we have had a bill reported for an
amendment to the Constitution so that Woman
may vote. But each time it has been defeat-
ed.
So again this winter, the petitioners ask for
an amendment, and for a law also to enable
women to vote in municipal elections, as the
women of England do.
Both these measures should be carried this 
winter, first on the ground of their absolute
justice, and second that Massachusetts may be
saved the historic discredit of joining in the
Centennial celebration while her law-makers
continue to exercise over all women the same
hard power, but worse and more minute in its
application, as that which the government of
Great Britain exercised over the colonists a
hundred years ago.
Let Representatives and Senators, then be
admonished and encouraged by letters from
their constituents, so that we may secure jus-
tice, and the State save its historic credit.

Feb 20, 1875
TO OUR LEGISLATORS.
We print to-day a condensed report of the 
arguments advanced by the petitioners last
week at the Woman Suffrage Hearing. We
do so with an earnest desire to secure a candid
consideration of the subject upon its merits by
the Legislature of Massachusetts, and for the
purpose of enabling every member to examine
the basis of our claim. We respectfully ask
every Senator and Representative to read
these arguments carefully, to consider the sub-
ject of Equal Rights for women in all its bear-
ings, and to ask himself this single question.
"If I were a woman how should I desire the
men who claim to be my representatives to
act in my stead? Should I choose to be taxed
without representation and governed without
consent? Should I choose to be deprived of
the guardianship of my own children? Should
I be willing to owe to the despotic will of wo-
men alone all my personal rights, all my pro-
perty rights, my right to labor ten hours, more
or less, my right to hold office, my right to
guard my own dearest interests and those of
my children? And if not, how can I honestly
refuse to concede to one half of my fellow-
citizens the exercise of the same rights which
I myself enjoy, solely because they are wo-
men?"
Gentlemen, the women of Massachusetts
are not aliens, they are not children, they are
not ignorant, they are not lunatics, felons or
fools. They are your own sisters, wives,
mothers and daughters, members of your
churches, inmates of your families, citizens 
of your country. They were educated in the

Feb 20, 1875
To Our Legislators contin'

same schools, they read the same newspapers,
they speak the same language. But they look
at the world from a difference point of view,
they represent the domestic interests. They
are vitally concerned in education, economy,
temperance, purity and peace. They ask for
Suffrage for their own protection and self-re-
spect, for the intellectual and moral culture,
as a means of promoting the good order and
well-being of State and nation. If God has
made Woman to be the help-meet of Man,
why should you prevent her from fulfilling her
mission by helping to make the legislation purer
and more humane, helping to select the wisest
and best men to make and administer the
laws?
At any rate we ask you to try the experi-
ment in our local and town affairs. Give the 
women of Massachusetts municipal suffrage - 
political privileges which our sisters in Great
Britain, in Holland, and in Austria already
enjoy. The women of Wyoming Territory have
voted for five years, and you are assured by
United States Justice Kingman, and by Gov-
ernor Campbell in his recent message, that
the influence of Woman Suffrage on the pub-
lic affairs of that Territory, has proved "an
unqualified success."
If you believe that a majority of our citizens 
are opposed to our petition, why not give them
an opportunity to say so? Enact the numicipal
suffrage law, and if it prove injurious, it can
be repealed. Submit a Constitutional Amend-
ment to the qualified voters of the State; if a 
majority are opposed to it they will vote it
down. We do not fear the issue. All we ask
of you is to do as you would be done by, and
to make our case your own.
LUCY STONE,
JULIA WARD HOWE,
MARY A. LIVERMORE.

THIRD ANNUAL MEETING - MAINE WO-
MAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION.
The Main Woman Suffrage Association
held its third annual meeting at Augusta on
Friday the 12th inst., in the hall of the House
of Representatives, the use of which had been
courteously extended to the Association.
The hall and galleries were crowded in ev-
ery part with an intelligent audience, whose
close attention through all the sessions showed
and earnest interest in the cause
xxxxxxxx
After the remarks of Judge Kingsbury, oth-
ers spoke, and addresses were made by H. B.
Blackwell, Miss Eastman and Lucy Stone,
showing the right and need of women, and the
duty of law-makers to establish justice for
them.
It was especially urged that the Centennial
Celebration would be only a mockery, if the
Fourth of July 1876 finds this government
still doing to women what the British gov-
ernment did to the colonists a hundred years
ago.
In the evening, the hall was again well filled,
xxxxxxxx
After the adoption of the resolutions, Mrs.
Abba G. Woolson, in an earnest and forcible
speech claimed the right of women to vote,
as the final application of the theory of the
consent of the governed; that a government
of the people, by the people and for the peo-
ple, must include women. A husband, fa-
ther, or brother cannot represent wife, sister,
or daughter. She had personally noticed the
good effects of the ballot conferred upon the
women in Wyoming, and should be glad to
have her native State of Maine lead in this
matter, and give an illustration of the true re-
public.
Miss Haynes, who had been, the day before,
ordained over the Universalist Church in Hall-
owell, followed with a speech of remarkable 
wit and brilliancy, to which no report can do 
justice. We hope she will furnish it to the
WOMAN'S JOURNAL, for the good of our read-
ers.
Brief addresses by Lucy Stone and H. B.
Blackwell closed the meeting, which was one
of the best which Maine has had. But the 
discussion continued on the cars for miles,
and one legislator assured the Suffragists that
"he should not want his wife to vote one way,
and he another; that until a majority of wo-
men ask for it he should not think them en-
titled to it; and that all the women he met did not
care to vote, and he liked them for it." But 
the end is not yet.               L. S.Feb  20. 1875 contd.
THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE HEARING.
Last Wednesday week the Joint Special
Committee on Woman Suffrage appointed by
the Massachusetts Legislature, gave a public
hearing to the petitioners, at the State House
in Boston, in Representatives Hall, at 10 A. M.
The body of the house and the galleries were
crowded with an intelligent audience, largely
composed of ladies.
ARGUMENT OF LUCY STONE.
If it were possible to know the exact objections
to Woman's Suffrage which are in the
minds of any members of this committee, or
of the members of the Legislature who are to
vote on it, our duty here would be simplified,
and, by question and answer, the case could
be made plain and clear.
It is a very simple matter. Have all persons
of mature age, of sound mind, and who
are unconvicted of crime, a right to a voice
in making the laws they have to obey, or have
only men this right? It would seem that the
very statement carries its own inevitable answer.
Or stated thus: have all persons of mature
age, of sound mind, who are unconvicted of
crime, and who pay taxes, a right to a
voice in the amount of tax they shall pay, and 
in the use of the tax when paid, or have only
men this right? Again it would seemthat
there could be but one answer.
Nevertheless, in this Commonwealth, and
in all the States, men have assumed the sole
right to make laws, and to levy and collect
taxes.
This is done in direct violation of the fundamental
principle of a Republican government,
of the self-evident truths of the Declaration
of Independence, and of the Massachusetts
Bill of Rights.
Women have appealed in vain to the sense
of justice and to the sense of shame in our
lawmakers. We are still held, as conquerors
hold their subjects. We are still hemmed in,
and hedged about by laws which are imposed
only upon wicked or worthless men.
We therefore come again, in behalf of the
women of the State, to ask for justice, and
for the application of the principles of a representative
government.
It is a hundred years since these principles
were announced, a hundred years since the
beacon fires, blazing on this very spot, summoned
the farmer from his field, the merchant
from his wares, and the lawyer from
his office, to contend on the field of battle for
the very principle which we to-day demand
shall be applied to women. After seven years
of strife, and loss and suffering which no
words can measure, they conquered. Every
Fourth of July since, has commemorated their
great achievement, and now, there is to be a
grand Centennial celebration in especial honor
of it.
But that which those dead heroes gained, is
precisely what women ask today.
The power that George III. exercised over
the Colonists is precisely that which the Government
of this State exercises over women.
If it was a sin by the British Government
a hundred years ago, is it any less a sin now?
If the resistance of our revolutionary ancestors
was so worthy, will it not be just as 
worthy if you imitate their example?
History is made, as well as celebrated. The
golden opportunity waits for you to establish
justice for women, that so you may gather
the love and gratitude of men and women 
forever.
But if you leave us to go as we came, or if
you make appropriations of money for the
Centennial, which are gathered in any part
from the property of women who are "taxed
without representation and governed without
consent," there will be no time, near or remote,
when with reverent gratitude men will
gather from all parts of this wide continent
to honor you.
Abby Kelly Foster refused to pay her taxes
for the same reason, and in the same spirit,
that the revolutionary fathers did; but in a
woman's way. The city of Worcester sold
her house and home, worth thousands of dollars,
to pay a tax of less than a hundred dollars.
The city of Worcester holds the deed,
and Massachusetts, loud in its praise of dead
heroes, holds its grip on her and on all 
women, as George III. did on the Colonists.
What right has such a State to a share in 
the Centennial? Massachusetts starts up
with an eager enquiry whether the citizens of
Louisiana may "be subjected to rulers whom
they have not selected." But here, more than
seven hundred thousand women are governed
by rulers whom they have not selected; and
Governor Gaston in his message takes no note
of this great class of wronged citizens, except
to propose that we should be imprisoned property.
We are making history. If the record a
century ago was full of credit, the very opposite
record up to this hour, must be crowded
with discredit.
Gentlemen of the Committee, the power is
in your hand to make it otherwise. You
are only ten men, but seven hundred thousand
women in this State wait to see whether you
will take the first steps necessary to secure fo
them the same rights which each man of you
enjoys without trouble or hindrance from
any one. The golden rule requires it; the
theory of our Government requires it, and
your own historic credit requires it.
"Time makes ancient good uncouth.
They must upward still and onward
Who would keep abreast of Truth."

Feb 27. 1875
MIDDLESEX COUNTY WOMAN SUFFRAGE
CONVENTION.
A Woman Suffrage Convention for Middlesex
County will be held in Malden on Wednesday afternoon
and evening, March 10, at 2.30 and 7.30 P. M.
Delegates from Suffrage Associations in all parts
of Middlesex County will be in attendance. Hon.
Samuel E. Sewall, Mrs. Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell,
Rev. Mr. Scott, and other well-known speakers
will be present. Friends and opponents of Woman
Suffrage are respectfully invited to attend, and to
secure a general attendance of all classes of our citizens.
In behalf of Ex. Com. of Woman Suffrage Society
of Malden.  HARRIET H. ROBINSON, Ch'm.
THE SISTERS SMITH.
By a letter from these heroic women, in
another column, it will be seen that, for the
present, they have lost their case in the court.
It will be remembered that in the Justice's
Court, in their own town, their claim was sustained.
But on an appeal being made to the 
Court of Common Pleas by Collector Andrews,
the Justice's decision is reversed and 
the Collector is sustained.
By the law of Connecticut it appears that
real estate cannot legally be sold for taxes, so
long as there is personal property enough to
pay the tax.
The house of the sisters Smith is full of furniture,
beds, bedding, pictures, mirrors, tables,
chairs, etc., enough to pay many taxes of
$50, which was the amount involved.
The Collector called on the sisters last spring
and asked "What they had to turn out?" to
which Miss Julia replied that "They should
do nothing to aid him in what they thought
was so wrong. That they had been advised
to conceal their best furniture and pictures,
but that they had never done anything underhanded
and should not follow this advice.
They had supposed they owned their property,
but, since they found the town owned ti, he
could do as he thought best."
But instead of taking furniture or cows, by
which last he had been made so famous, the
Collector advertised fifteen acres of their best
land, worth at least $2000, for sale at auction.
The time arrived. The sisters, were as
they supposed, promptly on the spot. One
witness testified that they were "on the lot as
soon as the Collector was." Another, that he
thought the collector "a little ahead   Be
that as it may, with indecent haste, which
gave neither the sisters not their friends time
to bid, nor even an opportunity to hear a bid
made, the collector announced the land as sold
for just the amount of taxes and costs.
The whole transaction is so evidently illegal
that it will no doubt be so decided in the Supreme
Court, to which the sisters have appealed.
Meantime the world looks on to see who, in
Connecticut, will rally to the side of these
venerable women. They are standing for the
principle of representative government. They
are fighting over again the battles of the Revolution.
Yale College is there, with its President and
professors. The State is full of ministers and 
lawyers. If they are prepared to unite with
Gov. Hawley in making Connecticut contribute
her full share to the Centennial celebration,
which is to be held in honor of the dead
heroes who, a hundred years ago, stood for
the same principle which the sisters Smith are
now defending, what are they prepared to
do for these living heroes, to help them in their
effort to sustain the law and to maintain a representative
government?
The personal honor of every man of influence
in that State is concerned in the decision
of this case.
Between this time and the September term
of the court, the pulpit and the press should so
sound the claims of justice and of representative
government that the court will feel a moral
stress to reverse the late decision. But if
it should fail to do this, so clear a violation
both of law and of personal rights, would justify
interposition of the Federal authority, far
more than the case in Louisiana, about which
wise men differ.
Here there is no room for difference.
In open violation of the law which requires
that personal property shall be taken for taxes
as long as there is any, Collector Andrews sold
two thousand dollars worth of land for  a tax
of fifty dollars, while there was a large amount
of personal property. He did it in shameful
disregard of all the proprieties of a public sale,
having his buyer ready, and so hurrying that
even those most interested did not know that
the sale had begun when they were told that
their land was sold.
If such high-handed violation of law is per-Feb 27. 1875
mitted, the property of no one in Connecticut
is safe. The right to take a penny in this
way implies the right to take a pound.
It is not the Sisters Smith alone who are
concerned. A great principle is at stake.
Sacred rights of person and of property are
involved. Let Connecticut see to it that
both are preserved.  L. S. 
March 6. 1875
WOMEN DON'T WANT TO VOTE?
Ever since Adam found it convenient to lay
the blame of a certain transaction, in which
he had a large share, upon Eve, there has been
a long line of his male descendants, who have
followed his example at every possible opportunity.
This is particularly brought to mind just
now by the fact that it is becoming very
common for men who speak on the Suffrage
question, to iterate and reiterate,  that "It is
the fault of the women themselves" that men
withhold the ballot from them. That "women
don't want to vote." That "The great mass
of women care nothing about it." That
"When women want their rights they will
have them." "If they want their rights let
them ask for them."
Such expressions as these are heard on every
hand, till one might suppose that men stand
holding the usurped rights of woman, all
ready and eager to restore them, if women
will only come and ask them to do so.
It is possible that some women might think,
in such a case, that very noble men who
find themselves in possession of what they 
have no right to hold, and who know the
owners, would not wait to be asked, but would
make haste to restore and urge all other men
to do the same, and with such persistent fidelity
that no man could remain in possession of
the goods without loss of self-respect, and of
the respect of others also.
But the noblest men can never exist, so
long as all mothers are so degraded politically
that only criminals and the most worthless
men hold the same rank. Moreover, so
long as women are compelled to pay money
by state appropriations, for institutions of
learning which they are forbidden to enter,
so long as they are members of
churches in which they can neither preach
nor pray nor vote, so long as the man and
woman teacher stand side by side, doing the
same work equally well, while the salary of
the woman is only a fraction of that of the
man, so long as wives must promise obedience
to fallible husbands, so long will the cramped
and shackled hands of the mother be unable
to mould great men and women.
Mrs. Partington was right when she said
"We are all poor critters." This being so,
would it not be better to leave off saying,
"You are to blame, and you are to blame,"
"It is your fault, and it's your fault," while
we all try to right the wrongs of women?
Perhaps the facts will help us both to be
more patient, and to buckle on afresh the armor
of warfare against a common enemy.
A hundred years ago,, when the government
was young and had only begun to feel its
footing firm, women found themselves disfranchised
in the grip of the law. In effect,
the law said to itself "Wherever I find the
head of a wife, mother or widow, I will hit it
hard. The wife shall have no personal property,
no use of her real estate, no right to
sell it, no right to will it, no right to anything
she can earn. She shall have no right
to herself even. So it put all her rights beyond
her own reach, into the hand of another.
It went tracking the washerwoman to find
the dollar her hard toil had earned, to give it
to her husband to whom it legally belonged.
It sought the publisher, to gather from him
the thousands which had been coined by the
brain of the wife, to put them into the hand
that had nothing to do with them except to
keep possession.
It took the young mother, and before any
eyes had seen her babe, gave to another the
right to deed and will it entirely away from
her.
It peered into the nursery, where the small 
children were, and took from the mother all
legal right to the guardianship of the little
ones.
It mocked the grief of the woman, whose
husband, smitten by death, had left her a widow,
by rudely sending men to search beds,
bed-rooms, closets, cupboards, to sell the property
and the house, and to scatter the children.
There was no single thing that concerned
woman in her most sacred relations, on which
the law did not lay violent hands.
Nearly three quarters of a century had
rolled round, when here and there, rose up
women to whom life seemed to have no value
if it must be held under such circumstances.

March 6. 1875 [contued]
Women Dont Want to Vote
and who earnestly claimed "equal rights for
Woman."
The demand was scarcely made, when
there beat down upon them, like a hail storm
in a winter night, "You want to unsex yourselves:"
"You are out of your sphere:"
"The Bible is against you:" "You are strong-minded
women:" "You are unhappy wives:"
"You are discontented old maids," &c., &c., &c.
Is it strange that, before such championship,
women who had been trained to be wives,
were silent, nor dared to ask for any rights,
least of all for Suffrage? When a power,
which had so bruised and hurt, did not offer
to give up or to surrender an iota of its legal
right to rule with such a rod, is it strange,
if only a few women, compared with the whole,
cried out, "Give us our rights. Let us make
laws for ourselves?" And if, after years of
asking by the few, this same power has only
given them "leave to withdraw," is it strange
if a great multitude of women still keep silent
and give no sign that can offend the ruling
power, while it is so evident that it does not 
wish to be asked, nor intend to give?
It does not help the matter, when editorials,
like that which we have transferred from the 
Boston Advertiser this week, greet the unworthy
action of the Massachusetts Legislature
on this question.
It is only another lion in the way, when
men high in power assail the advocates of
Suffrage, as I was lately assailed by an irate
judge who had attended the sittings of a very
excellent Convention. He had not an argument
to offer, so with eyes full of fury, he
said over and over, "You want to make men
of yourselves, that's what you want."
The car full of younger women, whose life
was before them and who had their way to 
make, would naturally infer that, in their
uphill road, it was best not to provoke such influences
as these.
Thus it is evident that there are many reasons
which seal the lips and palsy the hands
of women, which are not indifference to or
lack of desire for their rights.
This being so, the charge that "It is the
fault of the women that they are governed
without their consent" should cease to be
made.
Men and women have inherited a code of
laws which are extremely unjust to woman,
laws, whose existence makes the application
of the principle of representative government
impossible, laws which are a disgrace
to the civilization of the age.
These laws deny to women political power.
They bestow it upon men. Men therefore are
in a position to use both political and moral
power, to destroy the existing injustice, and
the personal honor of every man is involved
in the use he makes of his position, to settle
the claim of woman to the ballot.
Woman can use moral and intellectual power,
and are bound to do this by every consideration
of their own and of their children's
welfare, and of the national well-being.
If there are any or many women who for
fear, or for lack of courage, or by the absence
of clear insight, cannot take their own
part, all the more let men, from their high
vantage ground, champion their mothers and
sisters, as their great need requires. There
are men who are doing this, and they are of
the best and noblest too. Their words of
cheer, and their stout persistent affirmation of
woman's equal rights, have already given
voice and courage to any army of women. It
is no doubt true, that if all women asked for
their rights they would get them. It is equally
true that if all men desired or were even
willing that women should have their rights
they would have them. The work therefore
is, for each man and woman to make as many
others willing as possible,and not to cry, "It
is your fault, or your fault."  L. S.
March 13  1875
CRANBERRIES VS. WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
The question of Woman Suffrage in Massachusetts
has often had bad treatment by the
Legislature, as indeed it has in all the State
Legislatures. But this year, the treatment has
been more shabby than usual.
A joint special committee of eleven, after
hearing the arguments of the petitioners, unanimously
reported a Woman Suffrage Constitutional
Amendment to the House.
The bill was voted down without debate.
It must not be forgotten that there were
more than 6000 petitioners, that they had
brought their claim year after year, full twenty-five
years, that it was offered in the interest
of more than half the citizens of the State,
March 13 1875 contd
"Cranberries & Woman Suffrage" contd
who are taxed, imprisoned, fined, hung, and
legislated for in every way, with no voice whatever
about it.
Samuel May, of Leicester, who is our 
staunch friend, moved a reconsideration, but
the House was in no mood to act upon motion
of any friend of Suffrage, and refused to reconsider.
When, however, Moses Kimball,
who is opposed to the equal rights of Woman,
and who steadily votes against it, but who is
in favor of free discussion, seconded the demand
of Mr. May, a reconsideration was secured.
But the time for discussion was limited
to thirty minutes, as "they could not waste
time upon it."
This half hour was used equally by the
friends and enemies of the measure, and it was
voted down without a count. Thus, in the
House of Representatives of the Great and
General Court of Massachusetts, the unrepresented
class, the women who are a majority
of the whole people, who pay taxes on $200,000,000.
get so much representation and protection
as can be crowded into thirty minutes,
one half of which is used to oppose even so 
much as this.
In the Senate Woman Suffrage was treated
with still more contempt. Both last year and
this, that body refused to debate the question,
and voted it down without advancing a single
argument against it.
The names of the members of both Houses
with their votes on this question are printed
in the Woman's Journal of Feb. 27. It will
be the fault of the Suffragists themselves if
those who voted "no" ever again have the 
opportunity to do so.
Wherever the history of this great movement
for a representative government, for
civil and political equality, is ready, there shall
their shameful denial of the very fundamental
principle of Republican government be
told for a memorial of them.
Shortly after the curt dismissal of the Woman
question, there came up another as to
what should be the legal size of a barrel of
cranberries. This, in the judgment of the 
House, was an important matter; a barrel of
cranberries on an average is worth at wholesale
from six to eight dollars. Time would 
not be "wasted" in this discussion. It was a
subject entirely within the comprehension of
our law-makers. They discussed it practically,
whether a flour barrel would be the proper
measure, or whether one hundred quarts
would be nearer right? There was no hurry.
They took their time to it, and in the legislative
proceedings published in the daily papers
you will find the result.
In the same daily papers of two years ago,
will be found a discussion by the House of
Representatives as to what should be the legal
weight of a dozen of eggs. They also had
plenty of time for that. But they turned Woman's
claim for justice out of doors.
Following close on the discussion about
cranberries, came another about badges or
uniforms for those who have charge of our
prisons. This too, was practical and within
the comprehension of the members, and they
discussed it fully; time was not wasted, and the
result is recorded for the great public in the
daily papers.
Thus our Legislature consumes time and
money in discussing the things that "perish
with the using," while they spurn the claim
of more than half the people for equal rights.
Gov. Gaston, who in his message remembered
to forget that women have any rights which
he is bound to respect, will head the civic procession,
which five weeks hence will march
around the battle fields of Concord, where, a
hundred years ago, true, brave men periled all
they had, even life itself, in defense of the
principle which Governor Gaston did not think
worth mentioning.
The Legislature which thought thirty minutes
quite enough time to waste on it, is invited
to form part of the procession which will
gather there, to honor the memory of men
who had a very different estimate of the value
of human rights. The men who at Concord
and at Lexington, fired the first gun and shed
the first blood in defense of the very principle
whose application women demand to-day,
devoted seven years to it, years crowded with
toil, peril and poverty. The frozen snows of
winter were red with the bloody foot prints of
men who marched without shoes. Their scanty
rations were almost too small to measure.
Cold and hunger, wounds and death itself,
were the great price which they freely gave
for the greater boon of justice.
The radiance of their great deeds comes

March 13 1875 contind
"Cranberries and W. Suffrage" contd
down to us through a hundred years, and
"Through the shrunk channel of a great descent."
Such a Governor and such a Legislature are teh
men who are to parade on those hallowed fields!
Oh men in power, ministers, lawyers, physicians,
literary men, business men, where are
you that you sit in quiet possession of your
rights, and let these golden hours go by? Do
you not know that the very apathy which considers
half an hour quite time enough to waste
on the sacred rights of citizenship for half the
people, weakens the tenure by which you hold
your own?
There are sixteen precious months between
this time and the Fourth of July 1876. You
can, if you will, make that day forever grand
and memorable by another Declaration of
Independence for women. The Centennial celebration
can add to its splendor the transcendent 
glory of this great deed done, the application
of the principles of the Declaration of Independence
irrespective of race or sex.
The personal honor of every man, as well
as the national honor is involved in seeing
that this is done.
"Now, by our father's ashes! where's the spirit
Of the true hearted and the unshackled gone?
Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit
Their names alone?
Sons of the best of fathers! will ye falter
With all they left ye, peril'd and at stake?
Ho! once again on Freedoms's holy altar
The fire awake!
Prayer-strengthened for the trial, come together,
Put on the harness for the moral fight,
And with the blessing of your Heavenly Father
Maintain the Right.
L. S.
March 20  1875
Nothing of LS
March 27.  1875
MAN'S TURN TO SPEAK
One of the best helps and opponent of Woman
Suffrage can render our cause, is to 
write out fairly and squarely the objections, as
they appear to his mind. This has been done
with much animation by a gentleman who
thinks it is now "Man's turn to speak."
Having spoken, and having got his objections
all before him in "black and white," we hope
they will refute themselves in his estimation.
Certainly, if women who are opposed to Woman
Suffrage can be induced to read them,
more converts to Equal Rights will thereby be
made than by any grave attempt to refute
them.  L. S.
COMBINE THE FORCES.
There seems to be a cordial agreement
among the friends of Suffrage that it is fully
time to combine the really large, effective
force we have, for direct political results.
By a careful study of the votes in several
Legislatures, it is clear that a change in a few
votes, comparatively speaking, would carry
our question to the voters of respective states,
where our Legislators have been unwilling
to trust it, and would enact laws giving women
Presidential and Municipal Suffrage.
It is not improbable that in Massachusetts
and Rhode Island, with such a campaign as
we could make we should carry Woman Suffrage,
if we could get it submitted to the popular
vote.
In Massachusetts a special committee of
the Legislature has more than once submitted
a bill for the amendment of the Constitution,
so that women may vote, but each time it has
failed to be carried. What we need, now, is
to send men to the Legislature, who will co-operate
with us.
A combined effort to this end has already
been planned, and, so far, it has met with encouraging
results.
Below are given letters bearing on this
point, which have been received, this week,
from gentlemen whose ability and position
make their opinion of especial value.
If seems to me that the best thing to do,
here in Massachusetts, and in Rhode Island,
is to concentrate our efforts largely on this
single point of securing the election of men
who will dare to submit Woman Suffrage to
the popular vote.  L. S.
March 27, 1875 cont'

WHERE TO STOP OVER NIGHT.
EDITORS OF WOMAN'S JOURNAL: - Can you
tell me if there are any nice and respectable
lodging houses in your city, where a woman
could go to obtain lodgings for a single night,
or more?
It frequently happens, that ladies go from
here to Boston on business and find one day
scarcely sufficient for all they wish to do, and
they would many times like to remain in the
city over night, but being unaccompanied by
gentlemen, dislike to go to a hotel.
I will ask you to answer this in the columns
of the WOMAN'S JOURNAL, as I am certain that
if you can give me the information I seek, it
will be of interest to many of your readers in 
this vicinity. A CONSTANT READER
Rockport, March 23, 1875.
To which we reply, that Mr. Russell Mars-
ton, of 27 Brattle St., whose business card will
be found in another column, has rooms which
are always exquisitely neat and well warmed,
at a dollar a day. He has a restaurant con-
nected, where there is always an abundance of
good food, neatly and well served, at moderate 
prices.

April 3, 1875
CONCORD AND LEXINGTON
As the Centennial celebration of the battles
of Lexington and Concord is soon to be held,
and as these battles were fought to resist tax-
ation which had no representation, it is worth
while to see how the descendants of those old
heroes have practised their virtues.
By the remarkable and invaluable pamphlet
just published by William I. Bowditch, enti-
tled, "Taxation of Women in Massachusetts,"
it appears that more than one eleventh of the
entire tax of the State is paid by women,
whom this government treats as the British 
government treated the colonists, and this too,
in spite of remonstrance, entreaty, and peti-
tion, urged through nearly thirty years.
He gives figures carefully gathered,
from the assessors in 161 towns, and others
taken from the report made to the House of
Representatives by the tax commissioner, in
1871, (and/crossed out) showing what a large political force
these tax-paying women could have exercised,
if they had been allowed. X X X
Those who make the celebrations at Lexing-
ton and Concord, need the lessons taught so
forcibly by Mr. Bowditch's pamphlet, to help
them complete the education, the first pages 
of which were furnished a hundred ago.
L. S.

THE PRISON FOR WOMEN
The bill to repeal the act of last year, es-
tablishing a reformatory prison for women,
came up by a special assignment, last Monday,
in the Massachusetts Senate.  X X X X
We congratulate the friends of Equal Rights
for women upon the defeat of this effort to 
repeal an act which is demanded by every con-
sideration of justice and expediency.  L. S.

April 10 1875.

TRUTH FOR THE PEOPLE
The March number of this new monthly
journal, published in Detroit, Mich., has just
reached us. This is its third number. It has
taken for its motto "Society is a chain of ob-
ligations." Let Truth be the links.
Mrs. M. J. E. Miller is editor and business
manager. Mrs. F. W. Gillette, of Rochester,
Mich., is now added as corresponding editor.
We cordially wish success to the editors and 
to the paper which makes the clear announce-
ment, that
It will advocate the universal right of citi-
zenship. It will show the Woman's position in
connection with the best interests of the State,
and is pledged to urge forward those reforms
calculated to raise her, morally and politicall.
They say:
 As it is not the object of the publishers to
make money, but to spread the truth in ever
town, village and hamlet, we are prepared to
offer inducements to every true friend of re-
form, which will prove our sincerity, namely:
we will send two papers for one subscrip-
tion of $1.00, post-paid outside of Detroit,
and will mail the extra copy to any address
sent. To our friends in Detroit we make the 
same offer, with the exception of ten cents
extra for postage. The new postal law does
not effect monthly publications sent to city
addresses. One cent stamp must be affixed
to each copy.
Now, if the friends in Michigan will that
this paper is well supported, and at once send
in their name as subscribers, they can have
a permanent organ in their own capital, which
may be the means of carrying the vote for
Woman Suffrage when it next comes up in 
that State.                   L. S.

April 10 1875

RESIGNATION OF GENERAL SPINNER
The retirement of General Spinner from the 
office of U. S. Treasurer, after fourteen years
of most vigorous and efficient service, is a 
national misfortune. This withdrawal is said
to have grown out of his determination to have
the control of the appointments of his em-
ployes. In this he was clearly right, since the 
responsibility rested on him. He was under
bonds to the amount of one million dollars,
and believed that he ought to have the nomi-
nation of his subordinates. The clerical
bureaucracy, which has grown up around the 
secretary's office during a few years past, has
always sought to control the Treasurer's bu-
reau.
In an era of official corruption, General Spin-
ner's integrity has been absolutely above sus-
picion. He has literally been the "watchdog
of the Treasury." During most of the years
in which he has been treasurer, he has slept
in the treasury building, in the north wing,
opened for occupancy in 1866. His sleeping
room was a small apartment leading from this
office, which was on the first floor in the north-
east corner. He went out for his meals, but
it is stated that for ten or twelve years he
never accepted an invitation to dinner, and
seldom paid a social call of any kind.
To Gen. Spinner belongs the credit of first
employing women in the departments. A few
had been taken on at the post-office, but were
not retained. When the greenbacks were is-
sued counters were necessary. The first
were paid only $500 per year. Under Gen.
Spinner's advice this was raised to $700 and
then $900. He has steadily insisted that wom-
men are entitled to the same pay for the same
work, as men receive. Attempts have been
frequently made to reduce pay and to dismiss
the ladies, but all these have been steadily
combatted. No better friend to women who
have to toil for bread can be found. Gen.
Spinner has been an excellent public servant,
and deserves well of the republic.
Gen. Spinner is an old man - close on to
eighty years, yet sturdy and vigorous still.
He is just above the middle hight, broad of
shoulder and strong of limb. His visage, as
homely and gnarled as a boll might be on an
old tree, is familiar to all. His retirement will 
make an abiding void. He is on the whole,
perhaps, the most original man in the public
service, and his brusque ways, blunt speech,
old and quaint appearance, and his great
kindliness of heart, as well as his univerally
accepted fidelity to his trust, have made him
one of the most esteemed of citizens.   L. S.

CONVENTION AT MELROSE
THE MIDDLESEX COUNTY WOMAN SUFFRAGE
ASSOCIATION will hold their second Convention in 
MELROSE, on Wednesday, April 21, afternoon and
evening. It is expected that MRS. LIVERMORE,
BISHOP HAVEN, HON. SAMUEL E. SEWALL, MRS.
HOWE, MRS. STONE, and other favorite speakers
will be present. The SMITH SISTERS are invited,
and it is hoped they will be present to tell the story
of their wrongs. Melrose is on the Boston & Maine
R. R., and is easy of access, trains running almost
every hour to and from Boston. Ample provision
will be made to entertain guests, and all are cordially
invited. Further particulars next week.
MRS. H. H. ROBINSON, President

CENTENNIALS
Before another fortnight has elapsed, the
Centennial celebration of the battles of Lex-
ington and Concord will have been held. The
great achievement which made the 19th of
April forever memorable will have been re-
cited. The meed of honor which such deeds
command will have been rendered. Song
and speech and toast and martial music will
have been heard, where, a hundred years ago,
were heard the rifle shots, and the hurrying
feet of men who shed their blood and gave
their lives for the principle that "Governments
derive their just power from the consent of
the governed."
Now, when the century gathers up its
years, another set of men rise up to recite the
praise of the brave dead. Naturally we ask
what have the men of to-day done, to make 
them worthy to celebrate the heroes of "76?"
What have they done that will be honored, or
even be told at all?
The deadly strife of a hundred years ago
was waged against those who imposed and
took taxes without asking leave of the wronged
men who were so taxed.
But Lexington and Concord, to-day, for
this very celebration, impose and take taxes
from the wronged women of these towns with-
out leave asked. Men who have no money of
their own to be taxed, or to give, vote that
Louisa M. Alcott shall be taxed a large sum
to help them make a parade in commemoration
of deeds which they do not imitate. In the
town of Concord one fifth of all the taxes is
paid by women. The town has voted to ex-April 10 1875
("Centennials" continued)
pend ten thousand dollars upon this celebra-
tion. In other words the men of Concord have
taken from the women of Concord two thou-
sand dollars without their consent, and have
spent it in celebrating the principle that "taxa-
tion without representation is tyranny."
Their example toward the women is exactly
that of George III. towards the men for whom
the 19th of April is forever sacred. They in-
vite Governor Gaston, who refused so much
as to mention in his message the fact that the
State of Massachusetts, in the matter of taxes,
treats the women of the State just as the 
Colonists were treated a hundred years ago.
Not one of all the towns or cities invited to
unite on the 19th with Lexington and Concord,
have ever, in any way, offered to help women
secure for themselves representation with their
taxation.
The Legislature of Massachusetts votes
down the petition of the women and the mem-
bers who sustain it. From the Governor down,
or up, the ruling power in Massachusetts now
exercises and always has exercised over the
women the same tyranny which the British
Government exercised over the colonists. It
has added insult to injury by classing women
with idiots and criminals. Even the Great
Republic, after the war, punished Jefferson
Davis by giving him a political rank with wo-
men. What has such a government or such
a set of men to do with a celebration like that
of Lexington and Concord?
"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as other see us!"
Half of the people, the women are held as
subjects by this government, just as the Brit-
ish Government held the colonists. If it was
wrong then, is it right now? If those old op-
pressors a hundred years ago were rightly
called tyrants, are these who do the same 
thing to-day any less so?
George William Curtis has a right to be
heard at Concord, and so have Whittier and
Mrs. Howe, at Lexington. They have always
stood for equal human rights. But the public
men who have seen the moral warfare for the
rights of women, and have spoken no word to
help - who have seen the home of Abby Kelly
Foster and the property of the Sisters Smith
sold at public auction for the same principle
for which men died at Lexington and Concord,
and have given not even a sign of sympathy
with or interest in the mater - these are the
true descendants of George III., and have no
right to participate in any honors offered to
the brave men who lie dead in Concord and
Lexington. They belong to the Tories of that
old time. They may offer speech or song,
they may form part of the procession, but
they are one in spirit with the British a hun-
dred years ago.
Is is not as much a crime and sin to traple
on the rights of 15,000,000 of women now,
as it was to do the same thing to a much
smaller number of men a century ago? Was 
it worse to tax men without their consent then, 
than it is to tax women now? Was it worse
to govern men without their consent then, than
it is to do the same to women now?
No! the sin and crime and shame are the 
same, and will be see esteemed one hundred
years hence. The only persons who can con-
sistently take part in these celebrations are
they who are striving to secure for women
the application of the principle, for the main-
tenance of which the battles of Lexington and
Concord were fought.                L. S.

April 17,1875

PURE IMPERTINENCE.
The New York Leader, of a recent date,
gives the following report of the shabby
treatment of our valued friend and co-worker,
MRS. ADA C. BOWLES, by the committee which
was asked to renew her license to preach.
MRS. BOWLES is a good wife, mother and house-
keeper, and knows very well how to manage
her home affairs without outside advice, or
leave asked of any one.
X X X X X X X X X X X
The Universalist of this city makes conven-
iently silent, and makes no allusion to the
matter.
We entirely agree with the comments of the
Leader and Gospel Banner, and would only
suggest to MRS. BOWLES to apply for license
to the Unitarians of Pennsylvania, who would
no doubt gladly accept the services of one so
competent and so faithful.           L. S.

April 17 1875 continued

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PARLIAMENT.
In the British House of Commons, a large
portion of the 7th inst. was spent in debate
on the bill introduced by MR. FAWCETT, to 
enable unmarried women and widows to vote
for members of Parliament.
Messrs. CHAPLIN, LEATHAM and SMOLLETT
made speeches in opposition to the measure.
Mr. SMOLLETT said "The agitation emanated
from turbulent women in America. The bill,
if passed, would enfranchise women who
gained their livelihood by immorality."
The House, upon a division, refused to order
the bill to its second reading, by a vote of 152
to 187. Mr. DISRAELI voted for the bill.
We congratulate our friends in England on
a vote so large that a change of only eighteen 
votes would have carried the bill and estab-
lished Woman Suffrage in Great Britain.
The British House of Commons devoted
nearly a day to the discussion of Woman Suf-
frage.
The House of Representatives in Massachu-
setts thought thirty minutes "quite enough
time to waste on it." Perhaps those represen-
tatives will make it up by spending a day at
Concord and Lexington where, a hundred
years ago, men died for the principles which
they themselves have so summarily voted
down.
We shall look with interest for the English
mail that will bring full reports of the debate,
which we shall, as soon as possible, lay before
our readers.                   L. S. 

DORCHESTER SUFFRAGE CLUB.
A social meeting of the Woman Suffrage
Club, of Dorchester, (Ward 16, Boston,) was
held at the residence of WM. F. TEMPLE, Esq.,
in Neponset, last Wednesday evening. More
than forty members of the club and invited 
guests were in attendance. An interesting
conversational discussion of Woman Suffrage
was prefaced by remarks from Mrs. JULIA
WARD HOWE, Mrs. LUCY STONE and others,
during which it was state hat 594 women in 
that ward pay taxes amounting $78,706 an-
nually.
Miss ELLEN FRENCH read a quaint and
amusing letter just received from a little girl
in Nebraska, acknowledging receipt of a dress
sent to her by the "Grasshopper Commit-
tee," and after music and refreshments the
party adjourned, to meet soon in another part
of the ward.

April 24. 1875

MRS. C. M. SEVERANCE.
Our valued friend and co-worker, Mrs. Sev-
erance, will soon go to California, where she
expects to reside for a few years.
In view of her removal, the Executive Com-
mittee of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage
Society, at their last meeting, passed a resolu-
tion, commending Mrs. Severance to the fel-
lowship and good will of the Suffragists in
California, to whom she will be a valuable
aid. The New England Woman's Club will
to-day give her a farewell lunch. The ad-
dress of Mrs. Severance will be Santa Bar-
bara; she will carry with her the cordial sym-
pathy of many friends.
the readers of the WOMAN'S JOURNAL will 
hear from her occasionally.          L. S.

WHERE WERE THE LIVING HEROES?
The Centennial celebrations of Lexington
and Concord brought the sons and daughters
of Massachusetts from the four quarters of
the globe, to share in that grand occasion.
Most of them, no doubt, found all that they
expected to find.
There were the places sacred to the memo-
ry of great deeds. There were the relics of
the olden time. There was the minute man, in
bronze, to stand beautiful forever, as an ex-
ample of fidelity to principle, and of prompt
discharge to duty, even at the cost of life it-
self. There were the statues of Hancock and
Adams, whose very names hold a spell which
wins men to duty. There were the flags of
many nations, by hundreds grouped in friend-
ly folds, or flying free with the breeze. There
was the gray stone shaft, to mark the spot
where the enemy fell. There were martial mu-
sic, and countless companies of soldiers march-
ing in fine and friendly lines. There were
speech and song and toast and dance; speech-April 24 1875
"Where were the Living Heroes? continued
es that told, with surpassing grace and beauty,
of high courage, and great deeds done a hun-
dred years ago; speeches, whose wonderful
word painting brought vividly in view the
midnight ride, the hurrying feet, the hot en-
counter, the triumphant death, and the great
heritage that is left.
But in neither the speeches spoken nor the
songs sung, nor in all that great display, was
there anywhere the slightest allusion to the fact
that Massachusetts and all the Sates now do
to the women just the same identical wrong
which Great Britain did to men whose brave
resistance was that day celebrated. Nowhere
were those listening crowds told that they too
might earn the lasting gratitude of mankind
by securing for the women the application of
the principles, for the sake of which the rev-
olutionary heroes died. They were not told
that, by a simple vote, they could secure for
women, what a war of seven years made sure 
for themselves.
There was not even a suggestion that more
than half the people, the women, were not in
possession of the blessings so dearly earned a
hundred years ago.
To me, standing there, denied the same
rights which the British denied to the Colo-
nists, unable to forget it, remembering it all
the more on that sacred spot, the great need
of the hour seemed all unmet, and its crown-
ing glory lost.
The occasion which comes only once in a cen-
tury, and which, by every sacred memory,
should have summoned men far and near to
carry out and settle on peaceful fields the strife
begun in blood and war, has passed. All that
was worthy and beautiful and true, and there
was much that was so, is history now. But
so too is the fact, that half the people are
still taxed without representation and govern-
ed without their consent, - and no one remem-
bered to mention it.
"Earth! render back from out they breast,
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thernopylae."
L. S.

THE MELROSE CONVENTION.
The Convention in Melrose was a full and
complete success.
The afternoon session was well-attended,
mostly by ladies, who gave earnest and sym-
pathetic attention to the arguments and ap-
peals from the platform.
MRS. ROBINSON, President of the Associa-
tion, opened the meeting by a short and per-
tinent address.
REV. MRS. BRUCE followed, who, among
other excellent things, said that she witnessed
the first voting by the women of England, and
stood for hours to watch the steady coming
and going of women, who for the first time
exercised the rights of electors. Nothing
could have been more orderly or could have
received more respectful attention from the
great crowd, which had gathered to see how it
would look to see a woman vote.
LUCY STONE, WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
and the sisters SMITH were the other speakers
of the afternoon.
Each of these in their own special way con-
tributed largely to the enlightenment and
convincement of the audience.
The sisters SMITH, in their quaint and ef-
fective way, showed how really the town of
Glastonbury and the State of Connecticut treat
them exactly as George the Third and the 
British Parliament treated the colonists, whose
heroic resistance had been celebrated by a 
grand Centennial at Concord and Lexington
two days before, and that too, by the very
people,  who, in their treatment of all women
in all the states, follow in the very footprints
of the tyrants of a century ago.
At the evening session the large, handsome
town hall was crowded full, even to the gal-
leries, with an audience who were there to
listen, and who gave good heed to the words
spoken.
The Rev. Mr. WILSON, Chairman of the 
Business Committee, read a capital letter from
Mr. JOHN BEST, who represented that town
in the Legislature this winter, and who voted
for the enfranchisement of Woman.
Hon. SAM. E. SEWALL was the first speaker
of the evening. His acquaintance with the 
changes made for the better in the laws of

April 24 1875
The Melrose Convention continued
the State as they concern women, gave es-
pecial interest to his speech.
LUCY STONE, who had to leave for the cars,
followed in a brief but earnest speech, in which
she implored the men and women present, by
the memory of the historic dead, to demand 
for women the application of the principles
for which those brave men died.
Miss EASTMAN, in a clear and convincing
argument, gave practical demonstration of the
ability and womanliness of women who claim
their rights.
Mrs. LIVERMORE, as usual carried her audi-
ence with her.
New names were added to the society, new
subscribers obtained for the WOMAN'S JOUR-
NAL, tracts sold, and still there was a large call,
after the supply was out, for the valuable
pamphlet of WILLIAM I. BOWDITCH, on the
"Taxation of women in Massachusetts."
Under the management of the efficient offi-
cers of the society, Middlesex bids fair to be-
come the banner county of the State.
Its next meeting will be held at CONCORD,
where the men, at a late town meeting, after
the manner of George III, taxed the disfran-
chized women to whom they stoutly deny rep-
resentation, thus compelling their subjects to
help celebrate the triumph of a principle in
the application of which women are not per-
mitted to share. The monument at Concord,
which marks the spot where the English ty-
rants fell, has two sides of its pedestal un-
hewn. Some day they will be made smooth,
and upon them will be inscribed the names of
the men, who in Concord town meeting, tram-
pled down the rights of the women of that
town, in order to get money to help celebrate
the memory of the men, who, a hundred years
ago, resisted unto death a similar aggression
L. S.

May 1, 1875
NEW ENGLAND SUBSCRIPTION FES-
TIVAL.
THE NEW ENGLAND SUBSCRIPTION FESTIVAL
will be held in Lower Horticultural Hall, Boston, on
Wednesday evening, May 26, at 7:30 P. M. Col. T.
WENTWORTH HIGGINSON will preside. Music, re-
freshments, brief addresses, and a social re-union
of the friends of the movement are expected. At
this festival it is hoped that sufficient contributions
will be made to enable the Suffrage Associations to
institute a general and systematic series of Suffrage
Meetings throughout New England. Further par-
ticulars will be given next week.

ANNUAL MEETING NEW ENGLAND WO-
MAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION.
The Seventh Annual Meeting of the NEW ENG-
LAND WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION will be held
on Monday, May 24, at 7.30 P. M., in the TRE-
MONT TEMPLE, Boston, and will continue its ses-
sions, at same place, on Tuesday, May 25, morning,
afternoon and evening. These meetings, being held
in Anniversary Week, a general attendance from all
parts of New England is expected. The occasion
will be one of unusual interest, on account of the 
Centennial celebrations, which this Convention
needs to rebuke. The State Societies of Maine,
New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island and Connecticut are respectfully invited to
send numerous delegations and to make reports of
their proceedings. All members of Local Societies
and Woman Suffrage Clubs will be cordially wel-
come. Distinguished speakers will be present, whose
names will be announced hereafter, and the public
are respectfully invited to attend.
JULIA WARD HOWE, PRESIDENT.
LUCY STONE, CHAIRMAN EX. COM.

THE LADIES CENTENNIAL COMMISSION.
A committee of forty-five Boston ladies was
organized, this week, to co-operate with the
Centennial Commission of Philadelphia, the
object being to raise money to further the
purposes of the Centennial celebration, and
to give women a share in the splendor of that
Centennial.
But there is another view to be taken by
women of that occasion.
When any class of persons are compelled
to submit to humiliating conditions, by a pow-
er which they can neither break nor control,
they are subjects of commiseration. But
when they voluntarily give themselves to work
for the aggrandizement of the very power
which degrades them, they are only objects
of contempt. 
The different States of this Union have
covered their statute books with laws unjustMay 1. 1845 continued
"The Ladies Centennial Commission"

and degrading to Woman. They have inter-
fered between every married mother and her
child, and have denied her any legal right or
claim to it, even to so small an extent as to be
its guardian. They have interfered between
every wife and her right to her personal prop-
erty and to the use of her real estate, or even
to what she could earn by daily toll, outside
of her home.
They have mocked at the widow in her sore
sorrow, invading her premises as those of no
widower are ever invaded, scattering her
property, and establishing the use of a pitiful
third as her legal share of the accumulated
earnings of a life time.
After a whole quarter of a Century of re-
monstrance, petition, entreaty and appeal,
after having been again and again repulsed
from the State House, even when we asked
for a legal right to our babes, the laws in
most of the States have been modified more
or less in the above named particulars.
But, except in the single State of Kansas,
where the Constitutional Convention set the
example of more equal laws for women, no
legislative body has in a graceful and man-
ly way enacted just and equal laws for wo-
men. They have loosened the cruel grip of
the law on women only when the pressure
of public sentiment compelled it.
Women have meekly and thankfully ac-
cepted such relief as they could get.
But the different States from Maine to Mex-
ico, to-day, by statute laws group the most
worthless and wicked men with women, as
their political equals.
Paupers, Indians not taxed, men guilty of 
bribery, of dueling, of fraudulent voting or
felony, idiots, lunatics - and women - are
legally classed together by the several States
as persons not fit to have a vote. This means
that these classes are composed of persons
either not safe to trust or not competent to
exercise the rights of electors, not entitled to
a voice in the laws they are required to obey.
But now it is a hundred years since the an-
nouncement of the great self-evident truth
that "governments derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed." During
that time the nation has stretched itself from
ocean to ocean, it has multiplied its popu-
lation many millions, its material wealth
and resources are almost boundless, it has
become a first-class power among the nations,
and now it proposes to make a grand exhibi-
tion of its wealth, of its manufactures, of its
varied industries, of its progress in the arts
and sciences, and of its endless resources.
It has chosen the 4th of July, 1876, on
which to begin this exhibition, because that
day is the one hundredth anniversary of our
National Independence.
With unspeakable impudence, women are
urged to raise money for this celebration, and
by all the means which women can use, to
contribute to its success.
The boys whom we have nursed at our
breasts and rocked in their cradles and rear-
ed to be men, allow the unjust laws against us
to remain, a disgrace to them and to the stat-
ute book.
At the same time, with honied words wo-
men are urged to help raise the means neces-
sary for a grand Centennial. "We can do
nothing without the women." "Nobody can
raise money like women," &c., &c.
Women have endured their legal and polit-
ical inequality because they were compelled
to do so.
But there is no law to compel them to bring 
special contributions to honor a government
which gives them only legal and political
degradation, which says to every adult wo-
man, "Politically you shall be held to the 
same level with men who are guilty of infa-
mous crimes such as treason, felony, bribery
 and murder, and with those who are idiotic
or lunatic. There shall be a set of laws for
you, and they shall be different from an
worse than the laws made for men. Even
the same crime shall have a heavier penalty
when committed by a woman than when com-
mitted by a man."
Since there is no law to compel women to
aid or contribute to the Centennial, a proper
self respect should hold back the hand of ev-
ery woman from participation in it. This
government is unjust, cruel and mean to wo-
men. Why should we honor it, or contribute
anything to crown its hundred years, every
single one of which has been used by every
State to impose conditions of subjugation and
humiliation upon women?
If that which is done to women were done

May 1 1875
The Ladies Centennial Commission Continued
to men they would be making war instead of
a Centennial.
Shall women volunteer to glorify the power
that smites them?
We have suffered fines, imprisonment, tax-
ation and death from this government, yet
no woman ever had a jury trial of her peers,
or any voice in making the law under which
she was hung.Shall we volunteer to gather
money to enable it to make a show of great-
ness and of power, which in the case of wo-
men it so shamefully abuses?
"Let this cup pass from us."
We have drunk to the very dregs from the
cup of loss and sorrow which the law presses
to the lips of women, but we were forced to
do it. 
Let us not prove ourselves unworthy of rev-
olutionary mothers by showing any more ap-
proval than they did, of a government which
"taxes without representation," and "governs
without consent."          L. S.

May 8. 1875

THE ANNUAL MEETING
The friends of Suffrage from all parts of 
New England, should come up to the Annual
Meeting, which will be held in Tremont Tem-
ple, beginning Monday evening, May 24. The 
Centennial Celebrations which have been,
and will be held, give an opportunity which
comes only once in a hundred years, and which
can never come to us again, to enforce and il-
lustrate the claim of women to equal rights
with men.
Women are to-day being taxed as unjustly
as our ancestors were, and there is as much
need to resistance by us, as by them. Women
are spoiled of their property for attemping
to maintain their rights, under the old tyrant's
plea urged a hundred years ago. The power
of the one was broken, and so will that of the
other be, and all the sooner, if we come to-
gether for counsel and for work.           L. S.

A TRIBUTE TO MRS. SEVERANCE.
A Complimentary Reception was given
April 24, 1875, to Mrs. Caroline M. Sever-
ance, at the rooms of the New England Wo-
men's Club, No. 3 Tremont Place, Boston.
X X X X X X X 
Tears stood in many eyes, and the feeling of
the hour grew painful, until the clear, soft
voice of Lucy Stone, came from a far corner
and cheered every hearer. "We should re-
joice," she said, "that our dear friend can
get away from this dreadful climate, and re-
joice also, that we, out of our riches and
abundance of good women and active work-
ers, can send one so superior, as a mission-
ary to California."
X X X X X X X 
Mrs. Stone asked if a reminiscence would
be in order, saying that when she was on her
feet before, she was like the boy who whistled
in the dark to keep his courage up. She
then related the story of her first meeting
with the friends from whom we were so soon
to part. "It was years ago," she said, "when
a fair young woman with a beautiful face,
came into a public meeting in behalf of Wo-
man, and read a series of excellent resolutions.
She had a family of little children then, was
a devoted wife and mother, but found time to
work for others. I shall never forget it," said
the speaker, "and the face I then saw, was 
the one you have here to-day, order, but still
sweet and gracious."

LOWER MILLS AND MILTON
A Woman Suffrage Meeting will be held
this evening, Saturday May 8, at 7.30 o'clock,
at Lower Mills, Ward 16, Boston, in Ameri-
can Hall, under the auspices of the Dorches-
ter Woman Suffrage Club. Charles H. Cod-
man, Esq., of Neponset, will preside, and ad-
dresses will be made by Lucy Stone and Hen-
ry B. Blackwell, on the "justice, expediency,
and necessity of Woman Suffrage." The cit-
zens of Lower Mills and Milton are respect-
fully invited to attend.May 8. 1875  Continued
MRS. ELIZABETH TILTON.
The case of this unfortunate women, wronged
first by her husband and then by the law,
is just now brought conspicuously before the
public by her pathetic but ineffectual appeal to
Judge Neilson to be heard in her own behalf.
It was as follows:
MRS. TILTON'S APPEAL.
Brooklyn, May 3, 1875.
To Judge Neilson: -- I ask the privilege from
you for a few words in my own behalf. I
feel very deeply the injustice of my position
in the law and before the court now sitting;
and while I have understood and respected
from the beginning Mr. Evarts's principle in
the matter, yet, since your last decision, I have
been so sensible of the power of my enemies
that my soul cries out before you and the
gentlemen of the jury that they beware how
by a divided verdict they consign to my children
a false and irredeemable stain upon their
mother. For five years pastI have been the
victim of circumstances most cruel and unfortunate,
struggling from time to time only
for a place to live honorably and truthfully.
Relieved for some months from a will by
whose power unconsciously I criminated myself
again and again, I declare solemnly before
you, without fear of man and by faith in
God, that I am innocent of the crime charged
against me. I would like to tell my whole
sad story; truthfully, to acknowledge the
frequent falsehoods wrung from me by compulsion,
though at the same time unwilling to
reveal the secret of my married life, which
only the vital importance of my position makes
necessary. I assume the entire responsibility
of this request, unknown to friend or counsel
of either side, and await your honor's honorable
decision.  With great respect,
Elizabeth R. Tilton.
THE JUDGE'S REPLY.
Chambers of City Court of Brooklyn, N. Y.,
Brooklyn, May 4, 1875.
Mrs. Tilton: -- I am directed by Chief Judge
Neilson to return your letter, as it cannot be
read in court; also to state that in civil cases
counsel have the right to refrain from calling
a particular witness, however competent, and
that neither the court nor the client can interfere
with the exercise of that right. The judge
also instructs me to say that the question
whether you could be a witness stands on
quite another ground from that considered
when your husband was called and sworn.
He was a competent witness to testify against
a third person (the defendant), and, while the
policy of the law was to some extent involved,
there was no express statute in the way; but
the statute of May 10, 1867, expressly declares
a wife to be incompetent as a witness for or
against the husband. Yours respectfully,
Geo. W. Knaebel,
Clerk of City Court, &c.
Judge Neilson is limited by the statute, and
cannot be blamed for his obedience to it.
Nevertheless it is apparent that the case is a
very hard one, and, whatever the law may be,
Mrs. Tilton is treated most unjustly. First a
husband drags the good name of his wife in
the mire, charging the grossest crimes upon
the mother of his children. Then he appears
in Court doing his utmost to prove his accusations
against her. The wronged wife asks
"the privilege of a few words in her own behalf,"
but the Court refuses her request, because
the statute, made by men, declares a
wife to be incompetent as a witness for or
against her husband.
The jury, who ought to know all the facts,
are thus not permitted to hear this testimony,
so important, as an aid to a true verdict.
But there is a larger jury outside of the
court-room, and to these Mrs. Tilton's testimony
and appeal should be offered. Those
who have known her well have known her as
a tender and faithful mother, a devoted wife
and a good woman. They have never for a 
moment doubted her entire innocence of the
charges made against her. She has been in
and out before them for twenty years, and,
until this sorry scandal, no lisp was every made
against her good name. Naturally they stand
by her now with unshaken faith and love.
But the great world, which reads the trial, has
not seen her quiet womanly life, and does not
feel the force of the testimony, which a personal
knowledge of her would be sure to give
in her favor.
Therefore let Mrs. Tilton make the statement 
in her own behalf, which was not permitted
by the Court, and let her trust it to the
newspaper press of the country. She will be
heard as widely as the trial is reported, and
that divine power which always is in and
goes with the truth, will be felt and admitted
by the great multitude, whose verdict will have
more weight than that of any jury.
Again I say Courage, Mrs. Tilton! The
simple truth is stronger than any thing, and,
sooner or later, is sure to win.  L. S.

May 15  1875 [?]
NOT MISSIONARY BUT CO-WORKER.
The graphic pen of our correspondent K.
T. W., in her account of the farewell Reception
to our friend, Mrs. Caroline M. Severance,
makes me send her to California as "a missionary."
Our good co-workers on the Pacific
coast will be glad to co-operate with Mrs.
Severance, and that is what I said she would
do.   L. S.
LOST OPPORTUNITIES
When three women in the city of Worcester,
who are intelligent and educated, and who
had rendered valuable service to the country
in its times of greatest need, refused to pay
taxes on the ground that to tax sane adult
persons who are unconvicted of crime, and
also to deny them representation, is a violation
of the fundamental principle of the government
of the State and of the United States,
the city of Worcester held the open chance
of settling, on a peaceful field, the application
to women of the principle for which men bled
and died on Bunker Hill.
There are enough men of influence in that
city who believe that this principle ought to
be applied to women, and who, if they had
summoned the State to listen, as it has listened,
to their argument and appeal, could have
brought justice into the statute and have
saved the historic credit of this old commonwealth
and their own credit also. The great
opportunity came, and it was lost.
Massachusetts celebrated Concord and Lexington,
and then, after the example of George
III, sold the property and usurped the rights
of women, who, in the name of justice sought
to defend the great principle of "the consent
of the governed."
All that is history. And now the Battle of
Bunker Hill is to be celebrated and the city
of Worcester is again (as will be seen by a letter
in another column) about to take by force
the property of the same women, who are fighting
a Bunker Hill battle for the very rights
which were contended for there, a hundred
years ago.
Again there is an open chance for men who
respect justice and who believe in a representative
government, to save their own historic
credit and that of the State also, and, what is
far more, to build a sure foundation for future
prosperity. Are there no men in power, wise
enough, good enough and strong enough to
save this opportunity from being lost? We
are making history. A principle, which was
true a hundred years ago, is true to-day. If
it was worth the great price paid for its defense
then is it wisdom to trample on it now?
When the sisters Smith asked to be heard
in the Town House, which they had paid more
money to build than had any other person, and
were refused, when their cows were seized
and sold and their land taken for taxes, the
selectmen, the assessors and the collector of
Glastonbury, and the State of Connecticut,
held the open chance of affirming, of defending
and of establishing the principle of equal
rights for women. But they lost it. And, to-day,
Connecticut exhibits the spectacle of
raising money for the Centennial, while it has
in the court a suit brought by the sisters Smith
for the defense of the principle that "taxation
without representation is tyranny" So do they,
"From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral
lamps away,
To light up the martyr faggots round the prophets
of to-day."
Day by day Massachusetts and Connecticut,
busy with honors for the dead past, make history
which no coming time can ever honor.
They had the opportunity and they lost it.
L. S.
May 22.  1875
TAXING AND PROTECTING WOMEN.
In another column of this paper is an article
form a correspondent in Worcester, in defence
of the action of that city, and of Glastonbury,
Conn., in selling the property of Abby
Kelly Foster and of the sisters Smith, for
taxes, while they are at the same time denied
any voice in the amount of the tax or of the
use to which it shall be applied, or in making
the laws.
He says, "Her property should pay its share
of the expenses of organized society, as all
other property is made to do."
Mrs. Foster says she is willing to pay her
share of the expenses of organized society as
all other persons are made to do.
But women, as a class, are excluded from
any part in the governmental organization of
society. Men of all classes are admitted to it.

May 22  1875
"Taxing & Protecting [Woma]
The male minor only waits to reach years of
discretion. At 21, he is a voter. The foreigner
has only to conform to naturalization
laws, and he is a voter. All men, rich and
poor, who are not imbecile or criminal, have
only these easy conditions of admission to the
body politic, and to their full influence in making,
unmaking, or altering the conditions of
"organized society." Mrs. Foster says "When
I am free, as men are, to help make and unmake,
or alter the conditions of "organized
society," I will cheerfully bear my share of
its expenses.
In the meantime, as her exclusion from any
part or lot in the law-making power is solely
because she is a woman, and she cannot abdicate
her womanhood, or escape from it,
she takes the only means of resistance left,
and says to the tyrants who oppress her, "Taxation
without representation is tyranny," using
the very words which they themselves proclaim
as the fundamental principle of their
"organized society."
But she is met with the statement that
"there is not property qualification. That is
a relic of feudal barbarism, which has long
since passed away."
But the sex qualification is more odious and
unjust than a property qualification, because
property can be acquired, but woman can
never cease to be woman, and it is a present
proof of republican barbarism, and will as
surely be so considered in the future as the
old property qualification of the past now is.
Mrs. Foster, who gave more than thirty
years of her life to secure the personal rights
of slaves who had no property, cannot fairly
be charged with putting property above personal
rights. There are no advocates of Woman
Suffrage who do this.
It is no doubt true that the present order
could  not be instituted again, that with the
present light in regard to the equal human
rights of women, if the government were to
be organized anew, it would include women on
the same terms as men. There is not probably
in these United States any large number
of men, who would to-day say, "A government
is to be made, now let men have the entire
making of it, let women have no share in
making the laws which shall apply to them as
wives, mothers and widows, to their personal
and property rights, but we will make all the
laws that concern them in every way, and
then tax them for the support and maintenance
of these laws." But this is the real
present practice.
If it is so outgrown that it could not be inaugurated
again, instead of trying to defend
the Old because it exists, is it not better to
try to help build the New, "a government of
the people, by the people and for the people,"
remembering that women are people?
By resisting the payment of taxes just as
they do, Mrs. Foster and the sisters Smith
show the same spirit which John Hancock and
Samuel Adams did a hundred years ago. If
those are to be praised, these surely are not to
be blamed. That more women do not follow
their example is no argument against it.
Since the world was made there has been
only here and there one who could give all
that he had to follow a great principle. Among
a subjugated class is not the best place in
which to look for heroes.  L. S.
THE FITCHBURG CONVENTION.
The City Hall of Fitchburg was granted
free of expense to the friends of Woman Suffrage
for the use of their Convention, which
was held on Tuesday last, and the hospitality
of the citizens freely extended, as well to
those who came from adjoining towns, as to
those who had been invited to address the
Convention.
The audience in the afternoon was almost
entirely composed of women, whose manifest
interest was an answer, at least in this case,
to the oft repeated objection, that women do
not care anything about Suffrage.
In the evening several hundreds gathered,
very well filling the large hall. One hundred
and eight names were given to a pledge for
organizing a Woman Suffrage Club in Fitchburg.
The action of the Senator and Representatives 
of the Fifth Worcester Senatorial
District (which comprises Fitchburg) in reference
to the Woman's Suffrage question was
stated. In the Legislature, last winter, Senator
Snow of Fitchburg, (Democrat), and Representative
Holden of Westminister, (Bepublican),
voted against Woman Suffrage, while
Representatives Hall of Leominster, (Dem.)
and Coolidge of Westminister, (Dem.), honored
themselves and their district by voting
Editorial by Lucy Stone in Woman's Journal.
May 17, 1884.  Page [160]
"She went away sorrowful," Miss Alice E. Freeman, the accomplished
president of Wellesley College, lately related the following
incident: A young woman came by appointment to the college for a
private interview with Miss Freeman. She desired a college
education. To that end, she had worked and saved seventy dollars.
Her desire to consult Miss Freeman had been to ascertain how far she
might venture with that sum at Wellesley. But when she found it
was only a drop [xx] to the amount she would need, she went away
sorrowful because she had not great possessions. ... Undoubtedly
this is the case with many women. But there are colleges where a
woman with seventy dollars, and good health, can make her way
complete the full course, hold a good rank, and win her degree. ...
But perhaps the best arrangement for women of limited means is
made at Oberlin. There is a large building conveniently adapted for
the purpose, where young women students have rooms and board themselves.
They do their own washing, ironing and cooking, thus saving
all but the first cost of the food. There is a matron who is the good
housemother, and under her sheltering wing these students have a sense
of homelikeness, while they study and work.
One woman went to Oberlin with just seventy dollars. If her money
was scanty, her health and courage were abundant. She cooked, washed,
and ironed for herself, and worked at odds and ends, by which she got
a little money. She taught classes in the preparatory department in
term time, and country schools during vacations. She took full college
course, graduated with honor and good health, got her degree,
and now has a life all the more useful for her experience in college.
Her food had not cost her more than fifty cents per week. It consisted
of potatoes, rice, beans, milk, eggs, saltfish of various kinds, and
bread, which she knew how to make. She had always the sauce of a good
appetite, Her clothes were simple, and did duty as long as possible.
. . . .  . .
L. S.