Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/235

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NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1907
203

Mason Slade at the organ rendered the great chorus—Guilmant; Cantilene—Wheeldon; Marche Militaire—Schubert. The Rev. Mecca Marie Varney of Chicago offered prayer. During the evening Miss Marie Ludwig gave an exquisite harp solo and Mrs. Jennie F. W. Johnson sang with deep feeling Tennyson's Crossing the Bar, a favorite poem of Miss Anthony's. A telegram of greeting from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was sent through its president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. A tribute of an intimate and loving nature was paid by Miss Emily Howland of Sherwood, a friend of half a century, in which she said: "The first time I ever met Miss Anthony was at an anti-slavery meeting in my own shire town of Auburn, N. Y., which was broken up by a mob and we took refuge with Mrs. Martha Wright, a sister of Lucretia Mott." She spoke of Miss Anthony's "genius for friendship" and quoted the lines: "The bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring." Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery gave a number of instances during their travel in Europe which showed Miss Anthony's strong humanitarianism.

Mrs. Fannie Barrier Williams of Chicago paid touching tribute in behalf of the colored people, in which she said: "My presence on this platform shows that the gracious spirit of Miss Anthony still survives in her followers.... When Miss Anthony took up the cause of women she did not know them by their color, nationality, creed or birth, she stood only for the emancipation of women from the thraldom of sex. She became an invincible champion of anti-slavery. In the half century of her unremitting struggle for liberty, more liberty, and complete liberty for negro men and women in chains and for white women in their helpless subjection to man's laws, she never wavered, never doubted, never compromised. She held it to be mockery to ask man or woman to be happy or contented if not free. She saw no substitute for liberty. When slavery was overthrown and the work of reconstruction began she was still unwearied and watchful. She had an intimate acquaintance with the leading statesmen of the times. Her judgment and advice were respected and heard in much of the legislation that gave a status of citizenship to the millions of slaves set free."

The principal address was made by the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones