Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/481

 Resolved, That the association send a deputation to Washington in behalf of its memorial to Congress to frame a statute prohibiting the disfranchisement of women in the Territories, and to co-operate with the National Woman Suffrage Association (at its January meeting) for a Sixteenth Amendment forbidding political distinctions on account of sex.

The great success of this convention was due in large measure to the excellent arrangements made by the friends in Minneapolis, especially Dr. Ripley and Mrs. Martha A. Dorsett.

The association sent two delegates, Henry B. Blackwell and the Rev. Anna H. Shaw, to Washington, to urge upon the House Committee the duty of Congress to establish equal suffrage in the Territories. They were given a respectful hearing.

1886.—The Eighteenth annual meeting was held in Topeka, Kan., October 26-28. The morning and afternoon sessions were held in Music Hall. Above the platform hung the beautiful banner of the Minnesota W. S. A., sent by Dr. Martha G. Ripley, and at its side was a package of 7,000 leaflets for distribution contributed by Mrs. Cornelia C. Hussey of New Jersey, which were gladly taken for use in different States. The evening meetings assembled in the Hall of the House of Representatives, seating 1,200 persons; the floor and both galleries were crowded with the best citizens of Topeka; all the desks were taken out, making room for more chairs, and even then hundreds of people were turned away. Both halls were given free.

All the preparations had been admirably made by Mrs. Juliet N. Martin, Miss Olive P. Bray, Mrs. S. A. Thurston and other Topeka women, who had a collation spread in Music Hall for the delegates on their arrival. The press gave full and cordial reports. Lucy Stone wrote in the Woman's Journal:

We found the editors of the four daily papers all suffragists. Among these was Major J. K. Hudson, who took his first lessons in equal rights on the Anti-Slavery Bugle in Ohio and, reared among "Friends," was ready to continue the good service he has all along rendered. Here, too, we found our old co-worker, William P. Tomlinson, who at one time published the Anti-Slavery Standard for Wendell Phillips and the American Anti-Slavery Society, and who a little later, in his young prime, devoted his time, his money and his strength to the publication of the Woman's Advocate in New York, of which he was proprietor and editor. He is now editor of the Topeka Daily Democrat. Mr. B. P. Baker, now editor