industry, or to advocate a reform
measure, was contended for inch by inch.

Many of those enjoying all these blessings, now complacently say, "If
these pioneers in reform, had only pressed their measures more
judiciously; in a more ladylike manner; in more choice language; in a
more deferential attitude, the gentlemen could not have behaved so
rudely." We give in these pages enough of the characteristics of these
women, of the sentiments they expressed, of their education, ancestry,
and position, to show that no power could have met the prejudice and
bigotry of that period more successfully than they did, who so bravely
and persistently fought and conquered them.

True, those gentlemen were all quite willing that women should join
their societies and churches, to do the drudgery, to work up the
enthusiasm in fairs and revivals, conventions and flag presentations,
to pay a dollar apiece into their treasury for the honor of being
members of their various organizations, to beg money for the church,
circulate petitions from door to door, to visit saloons, to pray with
or defy rum-sellers, to teach school at half-price, and sit round the
outskirts of a hall like so many wall flowers in teachers' State
Conventions; but they would not allow them to sit on the platform,
address the assembly, nor vote for men and measures.

Those who had learned the first lessons of human rights from the lips
of Beriah Green, Samuel J. May, and Gerrit Smith, would not accept any
such position. When women abandoned the temperance reform, all
interest in the question gradually died out in the State, and
practically nothing was done in New York for nearly twenty years.
Gerrit Smith made one or two attempts toward an "anti-dram-shop
party," but as women could not vote they felt no interest in the
measure, and failure was the result.

I soon convinced my new friend that the ballot was the key to the
situation, that when we had a voice in the laws we should be welcomed
to any platform. In turning the intense earnestness and religious
enthusiasm of this great-souled woman into this one channel, I soon
felt the power of my convert in goading me forever forward to more
untiring work. Soon fastened heart to heart with hooks of steel in a
friendship that thirty years of confidence and affection have steadily
strengthened, we have labored faithfully together.

After twelve added years of agitation, from the passage of the
property bill, New York conc