Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/133

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NATIONAL SUFFRAGE CONVENTION OF 1886.
75

that they should have the ballot for their protection while women, pressed by the same necessities, should be denied it?

I may perhaps put it that man is composed of brain and heart and woman of heart and brain. We must have the brain of man and the heart of woman employed in the higher developments to come. There can be no great scheme that does not require to be conceived by our brains, quickened by our hearts and carried into execution by our skilled hands. The activities which are considered the especial sphere of woman need more brain; the realm of State developed by the brain of man needs more heart. Home and State have been too long divided. Man must not neglect the interests of home, woman must care for the State. Our public interests and private hopes need all the subtle forces of brain and heart.

An interesting feature of these national conventions was the State reports, which contained not only valuable specific information, but often felicitous little arguments quite equal to those of the more formal addresses. Such reports were received in 1886 from thirty different States. A large number of interesting letters also were read, among them one from George W. Childs, inclosing check; John W. Hutchinson, Belva A. Lockwood, the Hon. J. A. Pickler, Madame Demorest, Dr. Mary F. Thomas, Lucinda B. Chandler, the Rev. Olympia Brown, Mary E. Haggart, Armenia S. White, Emma C. Bascom, Almeda B. Gray and many others.

A letter from Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton urged that the question of woman suffrage should now be carried into the churches and church conventions for their approval, and that more enlightened teaching from the pulpit in regard to women should be insisted upon. The letter was accompanied by a resolution to this effect, both expressed in very strong language. They were read first in executive session. The following extracts are taken from the stenographic report of the meeting:

Mrs. Helen M. Gougar (Ind.) moved that the resolution be laid upon the table, saying: "A resolution something like this came into the last convention, and it has done more to cripple my work and that of other suffragists than anything which has happened in the whole history of the woman suffrage movement. When you look this country over you find the slums are opposed to us, while some of the best leaders and advocates of woman suffrage are among the Christian people. A bishop of the Roman Catholic Church stood through my meeting in Peoria not long since. We can not afford to antagonize the churches. Some of us are orthodox, and some of us