Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/160

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
130
HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
unanimously voted to strike out the objectionable word "in accordance with your very reasonable request." It was a great victory and more than paid for the labor. Mrs. McCulloch was as good as her word and raised the money to defray all the expenses, giving $100 herself and securing from her friend and ours, Mrs. Elmina Springer of Chicago, $500; Mrs. Mary Wood Swift of California, president of the National Council of Women, contributed $50; our own president, Miss Shaw, gave $25 and there were some small contributions. The work was most economically done, the printing and envelopes costing $118, the postage over $300 and a balance was left.[1]

The report of Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, national treasurer, showed receipts for the year to be $14,662, including bequests of $4,237 from Mrs. Henrietta L. Banker of New York and $500 from Mrs. Armilla J. Starr of Michigan; $2,000 from Mrs. Charlotte A. Cleveland of New York and $100 each from Mrs. Jonas Green of Virginia and Mrs. Helen J. Underwood of California. The disbursements were $12,437. Miss Hauser asked for the money for the next year's work and $4,614 were quickly subscribed. A large number of $50 life memberships were taken. One hundred one-dollar pledges were made in memory of Sacajawea. Mrs. Catt guaranteed that Mrs. Upton and herself would raise $3,000 for the Oregon campaign.

Henry B. Blackwell, chairman of the Presidential Suffrage Committee, gave the welcome information that the U. S. Supreme Court through Chief Justice Fuller had rendered a decision that "the power of every State Legislature in the appointment of presidential electors is plenary, exclusive and final." The report of Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer, chairman of the Libraries Committee, was read by Mrs. Blankenburg and showed that thus far a bibliography of 823 books, pamphlets, etc., on woman suffrage had been compiled. One book bore the date of 1627. Another had the title "No Female Suffrage; Theology, Logic, Anatomy, Physiology and Philology United to Establish the Truism that Woman is No Human Being." Mrs. Blankenburg went as fraternal delegate to the convention of the National Libraries Association meeting in Portland at this time and gave

  1. If this request was so "reasonable" why was the word "sex" included in the first place? Although it was omitted from the Act of Congress which admitted these Territories to Statehood under the names of Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma, each one adopted a constitution whose suffrage clause absolutely barred women and those constitutions were approved by Congress. (See their special chapters.)