t obtained the suffrage in any of the States
where we had hoped to do so during the past year, the failures
have been by very small majorities. In South Dakota, where eight
years ago a woman suffrage amendment was lost by a majority of
over 23,000, at the election of 1898 the opposing majority was
reduced to 3,000; while in Washington, where the question was
submitted for the second time, it was lost by a majority less
than one-half as large as that of nine years ago. In California
both Houses of the Legislature passed the School Suffrage Bill,
which the Governor refused to sign, repeating the action of 1894.
The suffrage bills in the Territorial Legislatures of Oklahoma
and Arizona were carried by very fine majorities through both
lower Houses, but were lost in both upper Houses (as will be
stated by our national organizer, who led our suffrage hosts in
each case) through a shameful surrender to the temptation of
bribery from the open and avowed enemies of woman's
enfranchisement, the liquor organizations.

None of these so-called defeats ought to discourage us in the
slightest degree. Our enemies, the women remonstrants, may
comfort themselves with the thought that the liquor interest has
joined in their efforts, but we surely can solace ourselves with
the fact that the very best men voted in favor of allowing women
to exercise their right to a voice in the conditions of home and
State. So we have nothing to fear but everything to gain by going
forward with renewed faith to agitate and educate the public,
until the vast majority of men and women are thoroughly grounded
in the great principle of political equality....

I thank you, friends, for your cordial words of welcome. We are
glad to come here. I always feel a certain kinship to Michigan
since the constitutional amendment campaign of 1874, in which I
assisted. I remember that I went across one city on a dray, the
only vehicle I could secure, in order to catch a train. A
newspaper said next day: "That ancient daughter of Methuselah,
Susan B. Anthony, passed through our city last night, with a
bonnet looking as if she had just descended from Noah's Ark." Now
if Susan B. Anthony had represented votes, that young political
editor would not have cared if she were the oldest or youngest