all have everything you ask as ladies? Don't you know that we
are your natural protectors?" But what is a woman afraid of on a
lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there
is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.

On the islands off our coast there was a large population that
could not read or write. A missionary-spirited woman went there
to help educate them. After awhile she was made a member of the
school board, which consisted of a few white men and more
negroes. The president of the board, a colored man, was disgusted
at the elevation of a woman to that dignity, and when she was
sworn in he resigned, saying, "Now you've swore her in, you've
got to swear me out; I'm not going to sit on no board with no
woman."

During the convention Miss Anthony made an earnest appeal for
co-operation in the equal suffrage work, saying: "Why is it the duty
of the little handful on this platform to be talking and working for
the enfranchisement of women any more than that of all of you who sit
here to-night? Every woman can do something for the cause. She who is
true to it at her own fireside, who speaks the right word to her
guests, to her children and her neighbors' children, does an
educational work as valuable as that of the woman who speaks from the
platform." She also urged a wider reading of the equal rights papers,
the _Woman's Journal_, _Tribune_, _Standard_, _Wisconsin Citizen_,
etc., and suffrage pamphlets and leaflets. She defended herself
against the accusation of abusing the men, saying, "We have not been
fighting the 'male' citizen anywhere but in the statute books."

Eighty-seven delegates representing twenty-two States were present at
this convention. The treasurer reported the receipts of the past year
to be $14,020. Mrs. Chapman Catt, chairman of the Organization
Committee, related the work done by the suffrage organizations in
behalf of the Spanish-American War. She described also the efforts
made to obtain suffrage for women in the new constitution of Louisiana
the preceding year, which resulted in securing the franchise for
taxpaying women on all matters submitted to taxpayers. The work in
different States and Territories, especially in Arizona and Oklahoma,
was sketched in detail, and will be found in their respective
chapters.

In concluding her report as chairman of the Legislative Committee,
Mrs. Blake call