Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/1016

 sang Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic and also America, and brilliant addresses were made by the Hon. John E. Booth, the Hon. Samuel W. Richards, Dr. Richard A. Hasbrouck, a famous orator formerly of Ohio, Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, Mrs. Zina D. H. Young and Mrs. Lucy A. Clark. Asa result of this gathering parlor meetings were held in various parts of the city, arousing much serious thought upon the question, as the Territory was now on the verge of Statehood.

On July 16 President Grover Cleveland signed the enabling act and the Woman’s Exponent chronicled the event with words of patriotic ardor, urging the women to stand by their guns and not allow the framers of the constitution to take any action whereby they might be defrauded of their sacred rights to equality. Miss Anthony’s message was quoted, “Let it be the best basis for a State ever engrossed on parchment ;” and never did the faith of its editor waver in the belief that this would be done.

From this time unremitting work was carried on by the women in all directions; every effort possible was made to secure a convention of men who would frame a constitution without sex distinction, and to provide that the woman suffrage article should be included in the document itself and not be submitted separately.

At the annual convention in October, 1894, a cordial resolution was unanimously adopted thanking the two political parties for having inserted in their platforms a plank approving suffrage for women.

The November election was most exciting. Women all over the Territory worked energetically to elect such delegates to the convention as would place equal suffrage in the constitution.

After the election, when the battle was in progress, women labored tactfully and industriously; they tried by every means to educate and convert the general public, circulated suffrage literature among neighbors and friends and in the most remote corners, for they knew well that even after the constitution was adopted by the convention it must be voted on by all the men of the Territory.

In January, 1895, the president, Mrs. Wells, went to Atlanta to the National Convention, accompanied by Mrs. Marilla M.