Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/312

 

The suffrage association held its Twenty-eighth annual convention in the Church of Our Father, Washington, D. C, Jan. 23-28, 1896. In her opening remarks the president, Miss Susan B. Anthony, said:

The thought that brought us here twenty-eight years ago was that, if the Federal Constitution could be invoked to protect black men in the right to vote, the same great authority could be invoked to protect women. The question has been urged upon ever} 7 Congress since 1869. We asked at first for a Sixteenth Amendment enfranchising women; then for suffrage under the Fourteenth Amendment; then, when the Supreme Court had decided that against us, we returned to the Sixteenth Amendment and have pressed it ever since. The same thing has been done in this Fifty-fourth Congress which has been done in every Congress for a decade, namely, the introducing of a bill providing for the new amendment. .

You will notice that the seats of the delegation from Utah are marked by a large United States flag bearing three stars, a big one and two smaller ones. The big star is for Wyoming, because it stood alone for a quarter of a century as the only place where women had full suffrage. Colorado comes next, because it is the first State where a majority of the men voted to grant women equal rights. Then comes Utah, because its men in convention assembled — in spite of the bad example of Congress, which took the right away from its women nine years ago  — those men, having seen the good effects of woman suffrage for years, voted by an overwhelming majority to leave out the little word "male" from the suffrage clause of their new State Constitution, and their action was ratified by the electors. Next year, if I am here, I hope to rejoice with you over woman suffrage in California and Idaho.

Some one whispered to Miss Anthony that the convention had not been opened with prayer, and she answered without the slightest confusion: "Now, friends, you all know I am a Quaker. We give thanks in silence. I do not think the heart of any one here has been fuller of silent thankfulness than mine, but I should not have remembered to have the meeting formally opened with