History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV
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History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV By Elizabeth Cady Stanton History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV CHAPTER XXXIII RHODE ISLAND Senator Anthony in North American Review—Convention in Providence—Work of State Association—Report of Elizabeth B. Chace—Miss Ida Lewis—Letter of Frederick A. Hinckley—Last Words from Senator Anthony. Rhode Island, though one of the smallest, is, in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, one of the wealthiest states in the Union. In political organization Rhode Island, in colonial times, contrasted favorably with the other colonies, nearly all of which required a larger property qualification, and some a religious test for the suffrage. The home of Roger Williams knew nothing of such narrowness, but was an asylum for those who suffered persecution elsewhere. Nevertheless this is now, in many respects, the most conservative of all the States. In the November number of the North American Review for , Senator Anthony, in an article on the restricted suffrage in Rhode Island, stoutly maintains that suffrage is not a natural right, and that in adhering to her property qualification for foreigners his State has wisely protected the best interests of the people. In his whole argument on the question, he ignores the idea of women being a part of the people, and ranks together qualifications of sex, age, and residence. He quite unfairly attributes much of Rhode Island's prosperity—the result of many causes—to her restricted suffrage. His position in this article, written so late in life, is the more remarkable as he had always spoken and voted in his place in the United States Senate (where he had served nearly thirty years) strongly in favor of woman's enfranchisement. And the Providence Journal, which he owned and controlled, was invariably respectful and complimentary towards the movement. While such a man as Senator Anthony, one of the political leaders in his State, regarded suffrage as a privilege which society may concede or withhold at pleasure, we need not wonder that340 so little has been accomplished there in the way of legislative enactments and supreme-court decisions. Nevertheless that State has shared in the general agitation and can boast many noble men and women who have taken part in the discussion of this subject. The first woman suffrage association was formed in Rhode Island in December, . In describing the initiative steps, Elizabeth B. Chace in a letter to a friend, says: In October , while in Boston attending the convention that formed the New England society, Paulina Wright Davis171 conceived the idea that the time had come to organize the friends of suffrage in Rhode Island. After consultation with a few of the most prominent friends of the cause, a call was issued for a convention, to be held in Roger Williams Hall, Providence, December th, signed by many leading names. No sooner did the call appear than, as usual, some clergyman publicly declared himself in opposition. The Rev. Mark Trafton, a Methodist minister, gave a lecture in his vestry on "The Coming Woman," who was to be a good housekeeper, dress simply, and not to vote. This was published in the Providence Journal, and called out a gracefull vindication of woman's modern demands from the pen of Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, the poet, and Miss Norah Perry, a popular writer of both prose and verse. The convention was all that its most ardent friends could have desired, and resulted in forming an association. The audience numbered over a thousand, at the different sessions, and among the speakers were some of the ablest men in the State. Though the friends were comparatively few in the early days, yet there was no lack of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. Weekly meetings were held, tracts and petitions circulated; conventions173 and legislative hearings were as regular as the changing seasons, now in Providence, and now in Newport, following the migratory government. Mrs. Davis was president of the association for several successive years in which her labors were indefatigable. Finally failing341 health compelled her to resign her position as president of the association. Since then her able coadjutor Elizabeth B. Chace, has been president of the Rhode Island Suffrage Association, and with equal faithfulness and persistence, carried on the work. She steadily keeps up the annual conventions and makes her appeals to the legislature. Among the names175 of those who have appeared from year to year before the Rhode Island legislature we find many able men and women from other States as well as many of their own distinguished citizens. In this State an effort was made early to get women on the board of managers for schools, prisons and charitable institutions. In a letter to Mrs. Davis, John Stuart Mill says: I am very glad to hear of the step in advance made by Rhode Island in creating a board of women for some very important administrative purpose. Your proposal that women should be empanneled on every jury where women are to be tried seems to me very good, and calculated to place the injustice to which women are subjected at present by the entire legal system in a very striking light. In an effort was made to place women on the Providence School Board, with what success the following extracts from the daily papers show. The Providence Press of April , , says: A shabby trick was perpetrated by the friends of John W. Angell, which was certainly anything but "angelic," and which ought to consign the parties who committed it to political infamy. Yesterday, for the first time in the history of this city, women were candidates for political honors—in the fifth ward, Mrs. Sarah E. H. Doyle, and in the fourth ward, Mrs. Rhoda A. F. Peckham, were candidates for positions on the school committee; both, however, failed of an election. Mrs. Doyle received the unanimous nomination of the large primary meeting of the National Union Republican party, and Mrs. Peckham was run as an outside candidate against the regular nominee. These ladies would undoubtedly have made excellent members of the committee, and unlike a great portion of that body, would have been found in their places at the meetings, and we should have been glad to have seen the experiment tried of women in the position for which their names were presented. When the polls opened in the fifth ward, instead of Mrs. Doyle's name being on the ballots for the place to which she had been nominated there appeared the name of John W. Angell, esq., and until about o'clock a. m. he had the field to himself. At that hour, however, Mrs. Doyle's friends appeared with the "regular" nomination, and from that time to the close of the polls she received votes; Mr. Angell, notwithstanding his several hours' start in the race, only winning by a majority of . From this fact it is clear that had Mrs. Doyle's name been in its proper place at the opening of the polls she would have beaten her opponent handsomely. Mrs. Peckham's opponent obtained but majority in a poll of . It is evident from the vote yesterday, that if they have but a fair show, women will at the next election be successful as candidates for the school committee. Had the intelligent ladies of the fifth ward been allowed to vote, Mrs. Doyle would have led even the gubernatorial vote of that ward. The Providence Journal makes the following comment: We are sorry to observe that the two estimable and admirably qualified ladies whose names were presented for school committee in this city, failed of success. Their influence in official connection with the schools could not have been other than salutary. The treatment accorded Mrs. Doyle in the fifth ward was wofully shabby. Without her solicitation, the Republican caucus unanimously nominated her for a member of the school committee. Being a novice in political proceedings, she naturally enough supposed that the party that desired her services so much as to place her in nomination, would make provision for electing their candidate. There was not gallantry enough in the ward, however, for that duty, and it was not until o'clock on election day that any tickets bearing the name of Mrs. Doyle were to be found in the ward-room; but a ticket with the names of two men was on hand at sunrise, and the time lost in procuring tickets for the regular nominee proved fatal to her success. Mrs. Doyle has now learned something of the ways of politicians, and is not likely to put her trust again in the faithfulness of ward committees. At a meeting of the State association, held in Providence, on Thursday, May , , the following preamble and resolutions were, after a full and earnest discussion, unanimously adopted: Whereas, It is claimed, in opposition to the demand that the elective franchise shall be given to women, that they are represented in the government by men, so that they do not need the ballot for their protection, inasmuch as all their rights are secured to them by the interest of these men in their welfare; and, whereas, in February last, in view of the appalling facts frequently coming to our notice, consequent upon the mismanagement of poor-houses and asylums for the insane, this association did earnestly petition our State legislature to enact a law providing for the appointment of women in all the towns in our State to act as joint commissioners with men in the care and control of these institutions; and, whereas, in utter disregard of our request, the Committee on State Charities, to whom it was referred, in reporting back our petition to the House of Representatives, did recommend that the petitioners be given leave to withdraw, and the House, without (so far as we could learn) one word of protest from any member thereof, did so dispose of our petition; therefore, Resolved, That this association do most solemnly declare, that so far from being represented in our legislature, the rights of the women of this State were in this instance trampled under foot therein, and the best interests of humanity, in the persons343 of the poorest and most unfortunate classes, were not sufficiently regarded, under this system of class legislation.