made an appropriation for the celebration. In 1876 we were not invited to take part in the festivities, but some of us felt that on such a day, our centennial anniversary, we should not be ignored. Accordingly I started out to see what could be done, but finding some of our most active friends ill and others absent from home, I decided to do what I could alone. I had mottoes from the grand declarations of the Fathers painted and put on my house, which the procession would pass on two sides.
Some of our most prominent ladies seeing that I was determined to make a manifestation, drove with me in the procession, our carriage and horses decorated with flags, the ladies wearing sashes of red, white and blue, and bearing banners with mottoes and evergreens. A little daughter of Mrs. Clara Foltz, the lawyer, dressed in red, white and blue, was seated in the center of the carriage, carrying a white banner with silver fringe, a small flag at the top with a silver star above that, with streamers of red, white and blue floating from it, and in the center, in letters large enough to be seen some distance, the one word "Hope." On my flag the motto was: "We are Taxed without being Represented"; Mrs. Maria H. Weldon's, "We are the disfranchised Class"; Mrs. Marion Hooker's, "The Class entitled to respectful Consideration"; and Miss Hannah Millard's, "We are governed without our Consent." On the front of my house in large letters was the motto: "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny as much in 1876, as it was in 1776"; on the other side was, "We are Denied the Ballot, but Compelled to Pay Taxes"; fronting the other side was, "Governments Derive their Just Powers from the Consent of the Governed." Mrs. McKee also had the last motto on her house. On the evening of July 3, after we had all our preparations completed, we sent to one of the marshals and asked him to give us a place in the procession next to the negroes, as we wished to let our legal protectors have a practical illustration of the position occupied by their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters in this boasted republic. We did want to go in, however, ahead of the Chinamen, as we considered our position at present to be between the two. The marshal willingly assigned us a place, but not the one we desired. "We cannot allow you," said he, "to occupy such a position. You must go in front, next to the Pioneer Association"; and being in part members of that society we accepted the decision. Our carriage was the center of attraction. Many, after reading our mottoes, said: "Well, ladies, we will help you to get your rights"; "It is a shame for you to be taxed and not have the right to vote." Hundreds of people stood and read the mottoes on the house, making their comments, both grave and gay: "Good for Mrs. Knox": "She is right"; "If I were in her place I would never pay a tax"; "I guess one of the strong-minded lives here."Mrs. Knox was married to Mr. Goodrich, the well-known architect, in 1878, in whom she has found a grand, noble-souled companion, fully in sympathy with all her progressive views, and with whom she is passing the advancing years of her well-spent life in luxury and unalloyed happiness,
Mrs. Van Valkenburg tried to vote under the claim that the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States entitled her to registration, and being refused, brought suit against the registrars. The case was decided against her after being carried to the Supreme Court of California. These cases argued in the Supreme Court have been of inestimable value in the progress of the movement, lifting the question of woman's rights as a Citizen above the mists of ridicule and prejudice, into the region of reason and constitutional law. We cannot too highly appreciate the bravery and persistence of the few women who have furnished these test cases and compelled the highest courts to record their decisions.
