Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/529

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Horace Greeley Scourges the D.D's.
503

at this meeting, ladies were especially invited to vote, as though they had a heart in it, and were urged also to give their money to aid these very men by whom every soul of us had been insulted. I am sorry to say some gave. But taught such lessons, by such masters, woman will one day be wiser. Yours, for humanity, without distinction of sex,

Lucy Stone.

After the Brick Church meeting was over, some of the actors being ashamed of themselves, the Rev. John Marsh tried to defend himself and his coadjutors, but Mr. Greeley very summarily brushed his sophistry aside, and placed all the actors in that disgraceful farce in their true colors.

The New York Daily Tribune, Wednesday, May 18, 1858.

THE WORLD'S TEMPERANCE CONVENTION.

To the Editor of the New York Tribune:

Sir: — Your "Inquirer,"it appears to me, is bent on throwing firebrands into the temperance ranks, and the worst kind of firebrands, those of vile sectarianism. Will you permit me to answer and remark upon a few of his inquiries?

1. "Are there to be two World's Conventions?"

Answer. That will be, I suppose, as people please. There may be a dozen; and I know not that any harm will be done.

2. Did Mayor Barstow occasion the schism in the temperance ranks, by refusing to recognize the feminine element in the movement?"

Ans. No. The schism, such as there was, was caused by a proposal of Rev. Mr. Higginson, and a persistence in it, that a representative of the Women's State Society should be added to the Business Committee of one from each State; and this after the Committee was full. With as good reason, it was said, might one be pressed from the Men's State Society or State Alliance. Mr. Higginson pertinaciously pressed the matter; and because he could not have his own way and rule the Convention, he refused to serve on the Committee; and hence arose all the disturbance and the schism.

3. "Did Dr. Hewitt rule out from office Mr. Barnum on the ground that he (Mr. Barnum) was an infidel?"

Ans. No. I am confident he used no such phraseology; and "Inquirer"? has no more right to ask such a question, than he has to ask if Dr. Hewitt did not rule him out on the ground that Mr. Barnum was a horse thief. The very question amounts to an assertion (as is announced in the next inquiry; that he did say it; which, if he did not, is calumny. Dr. H. did object to Mr. Barnum, as he had a perfect right to do, as one of the Appointing Committee. It was desirable to find the best men to get up to the World's Convention. I proposed Mr. Barnum as one, knowing his amazing efficiency. Dr. H. objected, on the ground that he (Barnum) was a very exceptionable man in his part of Connecticut, and would do injury to the Convention; and, as harmony was desirable, and unexceptionable men should be put upon the Committee, his name was withdrawn. It was agreed that what was said in Committee should not go abroad.

4. "Does Mr. Barnum's infidelity consist in his attending another church in Bridgeport from Dr. Hewitt's?"

Here appears the cloven foot of sectarianism. One sect is to be held up as persecuted. Here the writer assumes that Dr. Hewitt did say that Mr. B. was an infidel; and, assuming it and knowing it, why does he hypocritically ask whether Dr. H. did say it?

5. "Is it true that Dr. H. refused his pulpit for a temperance lecture by Rev. E. H. Chapin, on the ground that he was a Universalist?"

Sectarianism again! What has all this to do with the meeting at the Brick Chapel? Why is it brought here but to kindle up sectarian fires? A pastor of a church has every-