address the meetings. Communications and contributions should be addressed to the Corresponding Secretary.
Charlotte B. Wilbour, Corresponding Secretary,
151 East 51st Street, New York.The Convention was eventually held in Apollo Hall, the owners of Irving Hall annulling their contract when they learned that colored people were not only to be admitted to the audience, but welcomed to the platform as speakers. The Rev. Phebe Hanaford opened the meeting with prayer, Mrs. Charlotte Wilbour read the call, and announced the various committees, Miss Anthony reported the work done during the past year; excellent addresses were made by the many able speakers present, and strong resolutions were discussed and adopted.
It was during this convention that a proposition was made, that as the American Association had chosen Henry Ward Beecher for President, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony should resign their offices for a season, and place some popular man at the head of the National Society. They readily assented, hoping thereby to heal the division so distracting to friends in every State, and unite all the forces in a grand Union Association. Theodore Tilton, editor of the Independent, was chosen for the position. He and Mr. Beecher exchanged amicable letters, and a meeting of pacification[1] was held 'at the Fifth Avenue hotel where both sides were fairly represented. Complimentary greetings were exchanged, but nothing was gained.
The one wise step in this episode was the meeting of the National Woman Suffrage Association in Washington, January, 1871, as usual under its long-tried leaders, as if no mistaken policy had been suggested or considered. Emerson says the power of the human mind is shown in its ability to recover after a blunder. The Association showed its real strength in taking up again and carrying forward its grand National work.
THE SECOND DECADE CELEBRATION.
At half past ten o'clock Friday morning October 19, 1870, the twentieth anniversary convention assembled in Apollo Hall, New
- ↑ The Fifth Avenue Conference proposition was presented to the members of the National Association, duly discussed, and go far as one of the parties could do, accepted; that is, the National Society pledged itself to be merged into a Union Association, provided the American would make the same surrender at its first Anniversary. But as this overture for peace was rejected, the mission of the Union Society ended, leaving the National free to reassert itself and go forward with it a catholic platform and persistent demands for "National protection for United States citizens," while the American devoted itself primarily to State legislation.
