Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/773

 vention of 1887. Petitions were circulated for Municipal and Presidential Suffrage and a constitutional amendment; also for police matrons, the raising of the age of protection for girls, improvements in the property rights of married women, a bill enabling husbands and wives to make legal contracts with each other, and one making women eligible to all offices from which they are not debarred by the constitution. In March the association gave $1,000 to the constitutional amendment campaign in Rhode Island, and a number of the officers contributed their services.

Mrs. Howe presided at the May Festival, and among the speakers were Mrs. Helen M. Gougar of Indiana, Mrs. J. Ellen Foster of Iowa, the Revs. Henry Blanchard of Maine and Frederick A. Hinckley of Rhode Island. Mr. Garrison read an original poem rejoicing over the granting of Municipal Suffrage in Kansas. At the New England Convention which followed, these speakers were reinforced by the Rev. Jenkyn Lloyd Jones of Chicago. On October 19 the State Association gave a reception to Miss Frances E. Willard, president of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, at the Hotel Brunswick.

In December a great bazar was held in Boston for the joint benefit of the American Suffrage Association and various States which took part. The gross receipts were nearly $8,000. This year the association moved into larger offices at No. 3 Park street; held fifty-one public meetings and four county conventions and organized twenty-one new leagues. The Woman's Journal was sent for three months to all the members of the Legislature; 378,000 pages of suffrage literature were sold and many thousands more given away.

During the annual meeting in February, 1888, a reception was given to Mrs. Rebecca Moore, of England, at which John W. Hutchinson sang and many bright speeches were made. At the twentieth anniversary of the New England association, in May, Lucy Stone presided. Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant and Mrs. Alice Scatcherd of England, and Baroness Gripenberg and Miss Alli Trygg of Finland, were among the speakers. Others were Miss Clara Barton, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker of Connecticut,