Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/512

488 And so, after spending the whole afternoon in hot discussion of the woman's rights question, the disgraceful affair terminated by refusing woman the right of uttering her sentiments on a subject in which she was deeply interested, and of pleading in behalf of the poor crushed victims of man's injustice and cruelty.

Rev. Luther Lee offered his church just before the adjournment, and Mr. May announced that Miss Anthony and Mrs. Bloomer would speak there in the evening. They had a crowded house, while the conservatives had scarce fifty people. The general feeling was hostile to the action of the Convention. This same battle on the temperance platform was fought over and over in various parts of the State, and the most deadly opposition uniformly came from the clergy, though a few noble men in that profession ever remained true to principle through all the conflicts of those days, in the antislavery, temperance, and woman's rights movements.

2em

— Permit me to say a few words to your readers, relative to the plan of action, recommended by the "Women's New York State Temperance Society." We have now three agents lecturing, who are endeavoring, by a novel application of woman's "marvelous gift of tongue" to rouse their sisters of Western New York, to render active service in aid of the Temperance cause. Woman has so long been accustomed to "non-intervention" with the business of law-making — so long considered it men's business to regulate the Liquor Traffic, that it is with much cautiousness that she receives the new doctrine which we preach; the doctrine that it is her right and her duty to speak out against the liquor traffic and all men and institutions that in any way sanction, sustain, or countenance it; and since she can not vote, to duly instruct her husband, father, or brother how she would have him vote, and if he longer continue to misrepresent her, take the right to march to the ballot-box, with firm, unwavering tread, and deposit a vote indicative of her highest ideas of practical temperance. For women longer to submit to be ruled by men and legislators who sanction license laws, is to act the part of slaves and cowards. Men are just beginning to see that they must carry this temperance question into polities, but can see no farther than to vote for a rum-drinking President, Vice-President, and Congressmen. If they can place temperance men in those offices which directly control the license system of our own State, they seem to think they need look to, nor care for, the habits and principles of the men who fill the National offices. And it is for woman now, in the present Presidential campaign, to say to her husband, father, or brother, if you vote for any candidate for any office whatever, who is not pledged to total abstinence and the Maine law, we shall hold you alike guilty with the rum-seller. He who loves not