National Woman's Rights Association Proposes Constitutional Amendment

Susan B. Anthony

The Cortland News, Friday, February 4, 1887.

WASHINGTON LETTER.

(From Our Regular Correspondent) January 31, 1887.

   With the National Woman's Rights Association in convention here, with a National Convocation of the W. C. T. U., of which Miss Frances Willard is President; with a Catholic convention; the social season at its height, and Congress struggling with a dozen important questions, the past week at the Capital has been at the same time interesting and amusing, serious and gay.

   The woman suffragists came and fought and failed, just as they have been in the habit of doing for the past nineteen successive winters. But they again condemned their oppressors, cherished their faith and renewed their vows. They are as enthusiastic, resolute and hopeful, as in years gone by, and they are jubilant over the fact that sixteen Senators voted for their proposed Constitutional amendment allowing "people to vote regardless of sex." They claim-that eleven more Senators would have voted in their favor had they been in the Senate Chamber when the amendment was called up. That would make twenty-seven votes in all, and if true, one third of the U. S. Senate friendly to woman suffrage.

   The prominent leaders of the movement were all here as usual, except Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who is in England now. They tell of their wrongs as pathetically and plead for their rights as eloquently as they did when they were thirty or forty years younger, and perhaps more so, for time has made them rich in experiences, and they have more to tell and to talk about every winter.

   Mrs. Hooker declared that the Constitution already guarantees to women the right to vote. The only trouble is that men will not learn by heart that women are people. Mrs. Wallace, who is one of the most earnest workers in the cause of woman's enfranchisement, delivered an address on the subject that was pronounced the feature of the convention. She is deeply conscientious in believing that God has called her to this work, and she speaks with the conviction and solemnity of a divinely inspired messenger. She said among other things that the next statue of Liberty would wear the face of Susan B. Anthony. Mrs. Wallace is the mother of Gen. Lew Wallace, who wrote "Ben Hur."

   A committee of these ladies went to the President with a memorial asking him to veto the Edmunds-Tucker bill which proposes to disfranchise the non-polygamous women of Utah, in case it passes Congress as finally amended, and comes before him for action. Mr. Cleveland received them in one of the private parlors and told them that he would give the memorial careful consideration, and that he regarded it as a serious matter to disfranchise any class.

   Senator Beck has at last succeeded in getting his bill before the Senate prohibiting members from acting as attorneys for railroads. Senator Teller announced that he was prepared to vote against the measure notwithstanding newspaper clamor, and notwithstanding the effort made to attract attention to the fact that the Senate was a body of lawyers, and the charge that Senators were devoting to the practice of law for railroad corporations the time which they should devote to the public service. He believed Congressmen should studiously abstain from employment of that kind, but he argues that men who came to Congress did not therefore give up their business and professions. He said an effort had been made to deride the Senate, to break it down, to destroy its usefulness and thus eventually compel its abolition. But this could not be accomplished so long as Delaware and Rhode Island insisted on the right given them by the Constitution.

   Others followed for and against the bill and in the midst of the debate, Senator Fry of Maine took the floor, in order, he said, to give a piece of information. He read an Associated Press telegram from Eastport, Me., stating that the winter school of herring had struck into the American shore, and that about twenty-five English boats and vessels were there fishing within the shore line, and that meanwhile the English cruiser Middleton was cruising near Eastport and St. Andrews, ready to seize any American fishermen who might venture beyond the dead line. That was all, he said, and the debate proceeded.

   Messrs. Frye and Ingalls were the Senators who last week championed the retaliatory bill for the protection of American fisherman with so much warmth and bitterness. Mr. Ingalls has since been deluged with congratulatory letters from the States and insolent denunciations from Canada.

REX.

EXCITEMENT OVER AN OIL WELL.

   BUTLER. Pa., Feb. 2, 1887.—Philip's No. 3 well on the Heide farm, quite a distance in advance of the present production, was drilled into the sand last evening and started off at a 1500-barrel-a-day gait. There is much excitement, and a second Thorn Creek experience is predicted.

References:

1) Woman's Christian Temperance Union: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union

2) Women's Suffrage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage