not free. Listen, then, when a woman tells you that her freedom is but nominal without it. And when you ask what women are going to do with it, ask yourselves what you want it for and what you are going to do with it. There never was a class of people able to take care of the rights of another class....
Mrs. Lucy Stone next addressed the meeting briefly: If you have a man, said she, who is a fool or a felon, you put him over the line alongside of your mother. Every man of you before he sleeps should go on his knees to his mother, and beg her pardon, and you should tell her you are ashamed of yourselves.
The Rev. Washington Gladden, one of the editors of the Independent, rose to answer Mrs. Grew's question—why the Tribune does not inquire about these ignorant men who are abusing the franchise? He could inform her. It is because they can not afford to. They are all politicians there. They want votes. They can not afford to tell the truth about these ignorant and vicious voters. He proceeded to give a sad picture of the political world at present and to show how little conscience, culture, or common honesty finds its way to the ballot-box. He didn't think the ballot had done anything for the education of the ignorant foreigner who had come to this country; he doubted whether it would do anything for the education of woman. He didn't wish to be classed with the opposers to woman suffrage, and yet he didn't see his way clear to espouse it as others on the platform did. He believed in impartial suffrage—impartial for men and women, but not universal. He would have men and women fitted for the suffrage before they exercised it.
Grace Greenwood gave a sketch of society in Washington.
Mrs. Livermore, referring to Mr. Gladden's remarks, said there was nothing so painful to her as the lack of faith in republicanism among cultivated American gentlemen. Political atheism seemed to be rife among them. What wonder that political corruption exists to such an extent, when the clergymen, the doctors, professors of colleges, members of churches, the educated and cultivated, refuse to exercise the rights of citizenship by going to the polls to vote—when intelligence and morality are to so great a degree eliminated from public affairs? At a late Presidential election in Massachusetts it was ascertained that but 54 per cent. of the legal voters actually went to the polls. Among the 46 per cent. who staid away were the clergymen, the physicians, and the professional men. There was a fearful political apathy among the educated classes in reference to the discharge of their political duties. If educated and good men, as a body, would interest themselves in the primary meetings and the caucuses, politics would be improved, even before women got the suffrage.
It was proposed that the Convention should adjourn by singing the doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." The great audience rose and joined as with one voice in singing the grand centuries-old doxology, and then adjourned, many urging that the Convention should hold over another day.
In the autumn of 1871 the American Woman Suffrage Association held conventions at Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. The annual meeting in Philadelphia was held in National Hall, and presided over