Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/89

 tended press notice said: "Never was there a more masterly exposition of a theme, never a more earnest or cogent argument. A distinguished Justice of the Supreme Court who was present remarked to the writer: 'I have heard many men but not one who can compare with Mrs. Catt in eloquence and logical power.' So the entire audience felt and at the close of her magnificent discourse she was the recipient of an ovation that came spontaneously from their hearts. The scene presented in the Athenæum was indeed a remarkable one." 'The address was not written and no essential part of it can be reproduced from fragmentary news paper reports.

A discordant note in the harmony was struck by the "Times Democrat," which, in a long editorial, Woman Suffrage and the South, assailed the association because of its attitude on the race question. The board of officers immediately prepared a signed statement which said in part:

The association as such has no view on this subject. Like every other national association it is made up of persons of all shades of opinion on the race question and on all other questions except those relating to its particular object. The northern and western members hold the views on the race question that are customary in their sections; the southern members hold the views that are customary in the South. The doctrine of State's rights is recognized in the national body and each auxiliary State association arranges its own affairs in accordance with its own ideas and in harmony with the customs of its own section. Individual members in addresses made outside of the National Association are of course free to express their views on all sorts of extraneous questions but they speak for themselves as individuals and not for the association.

The National American Woman Suffrage Association is seeking to do away with the requirement of a sex qualification for suffrage. What other qualifications shall be asked for it leaves to each State. The southern women most active in it have always in their own State emphasized the fact that granting suffrage to women who can read and write and who pay taxes would insure white supremacy without resorting to any methods of doubtful constitutionality. The Louisiana association asks for the ballot for educated and taxpaying women only and its officers believe that in this lies "the only permanent and honorable solution of the race question."

The suffrage associations of the northern and western States ask for the ballot for all women, though Maine and several other States have lately asked for it with an educational or tax qualification. To advise southern women to beware of lending "sympathy or support" to the National Association because its auxiliary so-