this volume.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE NATIONAL-AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1899.

A departure was made by the suffrage association in 1899 in having its
convention in the late spring instead of the winter, the Thirty-first
annual meeting being held in Grand Rapids, Mich., April 27-May 3. It
was thought by many that this was an unfavorable season, as the
audiences were not so large as usual, but in all other respects it was
one of the most delightful of these many gatherings. The meetings were
held in the handsome St. Cecilia Club House, whose auditorium seats
1,200, and the official report, usually confined to bare details,
contains the following account:

The music arranged by Mrs. Rathbone Carpenter and her efficient
committee was throughout of the finest character and fully
justified the reputation of Grand Rapids as a musical community.
Mrs. W. D. Giddings, chairman of decorations, worked daily with
different members of her committee in arranging the cut flowers
and decorative plants generously furnished by different florists,
so that the platform was beautiful and fragrant from beginning to
end of the meetings. At the evening sessions the audience was
seated by the help of young lady ushers under the management of
Mrs. Marie Wilson Beasley.

The Bureau of Information, under the charge of Mrs. H. Margaret
Downs; the Courtesies, chairman, Mrs. Delos A. Blodgett, and the
opening reception on the first evening of the convention,
chairman, Mrs. William Alden Smith, were ably managed. But, with
the exception of the work devolving upon Mrs. Ketcham, the most
constant and trying labor fell to the chairman of entertainment,
Mrs. Allen C. Adsit, who cared for the housing of all the
delegates and also of the Michigan friends in attendance.

Of the efforts bf Mrs. Emily B. Ketcham the entire convention
bore witness; it went to Grand Rapids upon her invitation, and
upon her work for many months before its opening depended its
success, which was unquestioned. At one of the evening sessions
she was surprised by the presentation of a handsome souvenir of
the occasion containing the signatures of the officers of the
association, the speakers and many of the local workers. At the
close of the first evening the National officers, assisted by
Mrs. Ketcham, Mrs. William Alden Smith, Mrs. Julius Burr