Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/400

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378
History of Woman Suffrage.

marked that if ladies would keep their bonnets tied down over their ears, they must not ask others to find lungs of sufficient power to penetrate the heavy pasteboard and millinery over them. She spoke briefly on the resolutions, and the steadily increasing interest in the subject of woman's rights.

Hannah Tracy Cutler gave a report of Illinois, Frances Dana Gage of Missouri, and Susan B. Anthony of New York.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, of Massachusetts, said he had a matter of business to present. Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis being too ill to attend the Convention, Mr. Higginson read a letter from her sister, Mary K. Spaulding, suggesting the establishment of a newspaper in the city of New York as "the national organ" of the Woman's Rights movement. He doubted the wisdom of such 2. step, and after setting forth the expense of a central organ and the great danger of its creating a schism, he offered the following resolutions:

Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention it is not expedient, at present, to establish a newspaper as The National Organ of the Woman's Rights Movement.

Resolved, That it is expedient to appoint a Committee who shall provide for the preparation and publication, in widely circulated journals, facts and arguments relating to the cause.

Mrs. Mott approved of the resolutions, and said they had arrived at a similar conclusion in the Syracuse Convention; she fully concurred in the views of Mr. Higginson.

William Lloyd Garrison replied, that if organization for any good cause be right, it was right for this. Every reform movement needs an organ of its own, And this cause needs a paper of the most radical character; that shall make no compromises with popular prejudices; far above the paralyzing influences of Church and State.

Mrs. Mott said she did not oppose organization, but was in favor of individual freedom and responsibility. The Liberator, Mr. Garrison's paper, has done far more good than The Anti-Slavery Standard, the organ of the Anti-Slavery movement.

Mr. Garrison said The Liberator was not simply an anti-slavery paper, but an advocate of general reform.

Remarks were made on this point by Elizabeth Paxton, Susan H. Cox, George P. Davis, and George Sunter, of Canada.

Lucy Stone advocated the resolutions; her experience in the anti-slavery cause had taught her a lesson of wisdom for this movement. We are rich in principle and enthusiasm, but not in silver and gold, and therefore should avoid taking on our shoulders a national organ. Widely circulated journals are now open to us, in which we can express our opinions with freedom and without expense. There is nothing so strong as individual purpose and freedom