Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/149

fore—they don't fuss with me and they don't scrap with each other!" Monday morning they entered the magnificent scenery along the Columbia River and at The Dalles were met by Mrs. Duniway and a party of friends. By noon they had reached the City of Roses and were comfortably settled in the Portland Hotel and the hospitable homes of the city.

The convention, held in the First Congregational Church, was planned for a very full program of ten days instead of the usual week. Notwithstanding the Exposition was in progress and conventions were a matter of daily occurrence, none of the national suffrage conventions ever had fuller or more satisfactory reports. Journal, Telegram and Oregonian vied with each other and the Associated Press sent out whatever was requested of it. The Oregonian said of the first executive session: "Room 618 in the Portland Hotel was the scene of a notable gathering yesterday afternoon. Lawyers, doctors, ministers of the gospel, lecturers of renown and expert auditors were in close conference, mapping out a plan of campaign by which they will fight for their rights in this land of the free and home of the brave. That they have not had the rights accorded by the Declaration of Independence to all American citizens they attribute to the fact that they are women and it is to convince unseeing mankind that women who are intelligent enough to obey laws are capable of helping frame them, that the most profound and representative women of the country are gathered here in the interests of equal suffrage." Miss Blackwell presented this interesting picture in her letter to the Woman's Journal.

The convention has opened magnificently, with glorious sunshine, great audiences, full and friendly press reports and the suffragists of the Pacific Coast outdoing themselves in cordial hospitality. The beautiful city of Portland is so full of flowers at this season that the whole city might be thought to have decorated in honor of the coming of the national convention. As the yellow-ribboned delegates go through the streets they constantly utter exclamations of delight over the enormous roses, the curtains of dark blue clematis draping the verandas, the luxuriant masses of ivy and the majestic trees rising above the velvet lawns and casting their shade upon the many handsome residences....Hospitable Oregonians send in presents to the officers of huge red and yellow apples and baskets of mammoth cherries nestling in their green leaves....