today of her children, vested her with the absolute power of disposition and control over her property, inherited or acquired, freed it from the claims of her husband's creditors, and clothed her with ample legal remedies even against her husband. Perhaps Nebraska alone of all the States, by its court of last resort, has upheld the power of the wife to make contracts with her husband and enforce them against him in her own name by the appropriate legal remedies. This surely is progress. Beyond this there lies but one field to win or fortress to reduce. Then surely the worn soldier in the long campaign crowned with the garlands of victory may rest from the battle.
Not many years ago, coming from Wisconsin, I think, a girl presented herself in the Illinois courts for admission to the bar, and after a rigid and unsparing examination she was admitted with public compliment. She took an office in the great city of Chicago and in the short remnant of an uncertain life so wrought in her profession as to attain an average professional income, and win the undivided respect and esteem of her professional associates. And when from a far country, whither she had gone in hope to escape a fell disease, her lifeless corpse was brought back for sepulture, many of the foremost lawyers of Chicago gathered about her bier and bore emphatic testimony to her virtues as a woman and her attainments as a lawyer. To me no greater work has been done by any American woman. When Alta Hulett unobtrusively, silently but indomitably pressed her way to the front of the legal profession, and established herself there, she vindicated the right of her sex to contend for the highest prizes of life, and left her countrywomen a legacy which will ultimately blazon her name imperishably in the history of the advancement of women; and every American woman who, like her, goes to the front of any honorable occupation, employment or profession, and stays there, becomes her coädjutor in work and a sharer in her reward.
Laden with the trophies of thirty years of conflict, of progress, of measurable success, the vice-president of the National Woman Suffrage Association and her associates present themselves to Nebraska and ask a hearing upon the final issue, "Shall this work be crowned by granting to women in this State the highest privilege of the citizen—suffrage?" On behalf of the people of a State whose legislature has granted everything else to women—whose devotion to free speech, untrammeled discussion and an independent press has been conspicuous in its constitutional and legislative history—I welcome them to this city and State, and bespeak for them a patient, candid, respectful, appreciative hearing.
Miss Anthony replied briefly to Mr. Poppleton's eloquent address and returned the thanks of the convention for the courtesy with which its members had been received by the citizens of Omaha.[1]She then read a letter from the president of the convention:
- ↑ Their many courtesies are well summed up by Miss Foster in a letter to Our Herald:—Dear Herald: As your readers will know from the report of the executive meetings, it was decided to have a headquarters for National Woman Suffrage Association speakers at Omaha. When your editor left, the arrangements had not been completed for office-room and furnishings. It is finally de-
