plans of her own. For herself, she managed to get a press card as
reporter for her brother's paper, the Leavenworth _Times_. Mrs.
Stanton and Lucretia Mott refused to attend the celebration, so
indignant were they over the snubs women had received from the
Centennial Commission, and they held a women's meeting at the First
Unitarian Church. When at the last minute four tickets were sent Susan
by the Centennial Commission, she gave them to the most militant of
her colleagues, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Lillie Devereux Blake, Sarah
Andrews Spencer, and Phoebe Couzins. With Susan in the lead, they
pushed through the jostling crowd to Independence Square on that
bright hot Fourth of July and were seated among the elect on the
platform.

By this time they had learned that Thomas W. Ferry of Michigan, Acting
Vice President, would substitute for President Grant at the ceremony.
Because he was a good friend of woman suffrage, Phoebe Couzins made
one more effort for orderly procedure, sending him a note asking for
permission to present the Women's Declaration. This failed, and rather
than take part in creating a disturbance, she withdrew, leaving her
four friends on the platform.

"We ... sat there waiting ..." reported Mrs. Blake. "The heat was
frightful.... Amid such a throng it was difficult to hear anything ...
We decided that our presentation should take place immediately after
Mr. Richard Lee of Virginia, grandson of the Signer, had read the
Declaration of Independence. He read it from the original document,
and it was an impressive moment when that time-honored parchment was
exposed to the view of the wildly cheering crowd.... Mr. Lee's voice
was inaudible, but at last I caught the words, 'our sacred honors,'
and cried, 'Now is the time.'

"We all four rose, Miss Anthony first, next Mrs. Gage, bearing our
engrossed Declaration, and Mrs. Spencer and myself following with
hundreds of printed copies in our hands. There was a stir in the
crowd just at the time, and General Hawley who had been keeping a wary
eye on us, had relaxed his vigilance for a moment, as he signed to the
band to resume playing. He did not see us advancing until we reached
the Vice President's dais. There Miss Anthony, taking the parchment
from Mrs. Gage, stepped forward and presented it to Mr. Ferry, saying,
'I present to you a Declaration of Rights from the women citizens of
the United States.'"[328]

Nonplussed, Mr. Ferry bowed low and received the De