THE NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1901
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One of the most popular addresses of the convention was made by Mrs. Ellis Meredith of Denver—The Menace of Podunk—a clever satire showing that narrow partisanship and dishonest politics were to be found alike in New York and Podunk, Indiana.
Podunk is the place where the country is nothing, the caucus everything; where patriotism languishes and party spirit runs riot. It is the centre of intelligence where they hold back the returns until advices are received from headquarters as to how many votes are needed. The Podunkians believe it is a good thing to have a strong man at the head of the ticket, not because they care about electing strong men but because by putting a good nominee at the head of the ballot it is possible they may be able to pull through the seven saloon keepers and three professional politicians who go to make up the rest of the ticket. .... But there lives in Podunk another class that is a greater menace to the life of the nation, the noble army of Pharisees. They have read Bryce's American Commonwealth and have an intellectual understanding of the theory and form of our government but they do not know what ward they live in, they are vague as to the district, have never met their Congressman and do not know a primary from a kettle drum. ....
The politician and the shirk of Podunk are the creatures who are doing their noble best to blot out the words of Lincoln and make it possible for the government he died to save to perish from the earth. And between these two evils the least apparent is the most real. The man who votes more than once is nearer right than the man who refuses to vote at all. The activity of the repeater in the pool of politics may be wholly pernicious but is no worse than the stagnation caused by the inertia of his self-righteous brother. The republic has less to fear from her illiterate and venal voters than from those who, knowing her peril, refuse to come to the rescue.
The resolutions were presented by Mr. Blackwell, who, at conventions almost without number, served as chairman of this important committee, and the first ones set forth the political status of the women in the year 1901 as follows:
"We congratulate the women of America upon the measure of success already attained—school suffrage in twenty-two States and Territories; municipal suffrage in Kansas; suffrage on ques-
from all parts of the United States and from London, Paris, Copenhagen, Berlin, Dresden, Zurich and Rome and from Melbourne. Among the writers are bishops and ministers, publishers, educators, authors, college presidents, physicians, women's societies, workingmen's organizations and scores of men and women in the private walks of life. One article brought twenty-five pages of legal cap from lawyers in New York and Brooklyn. It is a noteworthy fact that it is the first metropolitan daily paper to make a woman suffrage department a regular feature."
The articles were published until the autumn of 1903, almost five years. Mr. Dana them sold the paper and it went under the control of William A. Laffan, an anti-suffragist, who discontinued them.
