Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/593

542 Grand Opera House, and the attendance exceeded the most extravagant hopes of those who had called it. If any came to scoff, they remained to participate with pride in this remarkable convention, which is yet frequently referred to as the largest and most impressive meeting ever held in the Hoosier capital. The call had invited those who could not attend the meeting to manifest their sympathy by sending postal-cards to the corresponding secretary. These were received in such numbers for several days that Mrs. Adkinson and the half-dozen clerks appointed to assist her in counting them, unable to bring in a full report, announced at the close of the evening session, that having reached 5,000, they desisted from further enumeration.

No effort was spared to make the demonstration truly representative of the suffrage interest throughout the State. All the sessions were presided over by Mrs. Sewall, who called the roll by congressional districts, some one of whose representatives responded. The ease and dignity with which women, many of whom had never spoken before any audience save their own neighbors gathered in Sunday-school or prayer-meeting, reported the status of their respective communities on the suffrage question, was matter of astonishment as well as of admiration. So exceptional in all regards was the conduct of the meeting that the papers united in expressing surprise at the strength of the suffrage sentiment in the State as indicated by the mass-convention.

This meeting of May 19, 1882, struck the key on which the friends in the State spoke during the summer and fall of that year. Large numbers of societies were organized and numerous meetings held, the immediate object being to secure the election of a legislature that should vote to submit the amendment passed by the General Assembly of 1881 to the decision of what is mis-named "a popular vote." The degree to which this action influenced the politicians of the State cannot be accurately known, but we are compelled to believe that it was one of the causes which induced the Republicans in convention assembled to declare for the "submission of the pending amendments." The Republican State convention was held August 8, 1882, and the first plank in the platform reads thus:

Resolved, First—That reposing trust in the people as the fountain of power, we demand that the pending amendments to the constitution shall be agreed to and submitted by the next legislature to the voters of the State for their decision thereon. These amendments were not partisan in their origin, and are not so in character, and should not be made so in voting upon them. Recognizing the fact that the people are divided in sentiment in regard to the propriety of their adoption or rejection, and cherishing the right of private judgment, we favor the submission of these amendments at a special election, so that there may be an intelligent decision thereon, uninfluenced by partisan issues.

At the mass-meeting of May 19, Mrs. P. T. Merritt of Indianapolis, Mrs. M. E. M. Price of Kokomo, and Mrs. J. C. Ridpath of Greencastle were