Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/310

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250
HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s eightieth birthday, November 12, by the association.[1]

The treasurer, Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, reported the receipts of the past year to be $5,820, of which $2,571 went to the Kansas campaign. The contributions and pledges of this convention for the coming year were about $2,000. In addition, Mrs. Louisa Southworth of Cleveland gave $1.000 to Miss Anthony to use as she thought best, and she announced that it would be applied to opening national headquarters. A National Organization Committee was for the first time formally organized and Mrs. Chapman Catt was made its chairman by unanimous vote.

Mrs. Colby presented the memorial resolutions, saying in part:

During the past year our association has lost by death a number of members whose devotion to the cause of woman’s liberty has contributed largely to the position she holds to-day, and whose labors are a part of the history of this great struggle for the amelioration of her condition. Among these beloved friends and co-workers three stood, each as the foremost representative in a distinct line of action: Myra Bradwell of Chicago, Virginia L. Minor cf St. Louis, Amelia Bloomer of Council Bluffs, Ia.

Mrs. Bradwell was the first to-make a test case with regard to the civil rights of women, and to prove that the disfranchised citizen is unprotected. [Her struggle to secure from the U. S. Supreme Court a decision enabling women to practice law was related.] The special importance of Mrs. Minor’s connection with the suffrage work lies in the fact that she first formulated and enunciated the idea that women have the right to vote under the United States Constitution. [The story was then told of Mrs. Minor’s case in the U. S. Supreme Court to test the right of women to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment.][2] Mrs. Amelia Bloomer was the first woman to own and edit a paper devoted to woman suffrage and temperance, the Lily, published in Seneca Falls, N. Y. She was also an eloquent lecturer for both these reforms and one of the first women to hold an office under the Government, as deputy postmaster. The costume which bears her name she did not originate, but wore and advocated for a number of years.

Of the noble band that started in 1848, few now remain, but a host of young women are already on the stage of action, even bet-
  1. For an account of this beautiful celebration in the Metropolitan Opera House with an audience of 3,000, see Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, p. 848; also Reminiscences of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
  2. For account of Mrs. Bradwell’s case see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 601; of Mrs. Minor’s, same, p. 715.