Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/770

Rh ing the year 1882, by Mrs. Lucy Stone, from the office of The Woman's Journal, to all newspapers that would publish it. Many Kansas editors availed themselves of this generous offer, greatly to the advantage of their patrons and themselves.

But to return to the Lincoln Woman Suffrage Association. The first year our membership increased to twenty-seven; the second, to forty, including six gentlemen. We did not invite gentlemen to join the first year; owing to the character and attitude of the opposition, we preferred to demonstrate our ability to conduct the affairs of the society without masculine assistance. During our six years' existence we have enrolled eighty members, eighteen of whom are gentlemen. Of this number, forty-five women and fourteen men still reside in Lincoln county. We have held, on an average, one parlor meeting a month and ten public meetings.

In 1880, Mesdames Emily J. Biggs, Mary Crawford, Bertha H. Ellsworth and myself were assigned places on the programme for the Fourth of July celebration, after solicitation by a committee from our society. To me was assigned the reading of the Declaration of Independence, and I embraced the opportunity of interspersing a few remarks not found in that honored document, to the delight of our friends and the disgust of our foes. The other ladies all made original, excellent and well-timed addresses. In 1881 we got up the Fourth of July celebration ourselves, and gave the men half the programme without their asking for it. In 1883 we had a "Foremothers' Day" celebration, and confined the programme to our own society. In September, 1882, the society sent the writer as delegate to the annual meeting of the National Woman Suffrage Association, held at Omaha, Nebraska; and in March, 1884, we sent Bertha H. Ellsworth to the Washington convention in the same capacity. Our society has taken an active part in the annual school district elections in Lincoln Centre. In the last five elections we have been twice defeated and three times successful. Our defeats we claimed as victories, inasmuch as we forced our opponents to bring out all their friends to outvote us. Fifty per cent. of all the votes cast at the last three elections were by women. Only twelve women in the town failed to vote in 1884. This increase is general all over the State; and, although we have only once tried in Lincoln Centre to elect a woman, and then failed, yet very