founder and president of the National Red Cross Society; to whom might
be added hosts of others.

LEGISLATIVE ACTION AND LAWS: The suffrage association has been largely
instrumental in securing most of the District legislation in favor of
women, as the records of the past twenty years will show. What is
regarded as the most important achievement of this nature since 1884
is the passage by Congress, in 1896, of the Married Woman's Property
Rights Bill.

The removal of the disabilities of wives had been agitated for a
number of years by the association. In 1893 a bill for this purpose,
drafted by one of its members, Miss Emma M. Gillett, attorney-at-law,
was passed by the Senate. When it reached the House it went through
the usual stages, was tossed about from one committee to another and
deferred and delayed in the most exasperating manner. It was
championed by Miss Gillett, however, with an unswerving courage and
fidelity which never allowed it to be forgotten or neglected, and she
was treated always with the utmost courtesy when appearing before
congressional committees.

In 1894 Mrs. Ellen Spencer Mussey, always an ardent suffragist, as
chairman of the committee on legislation for the District Federation
of Women's Clubs, began a vigorous prosecution of this bill before
Congress. Miss Gillett and Mrs. Mussey were ably assisted by Mrs.
Belva A. Lockwood, Mrs. Lucia B. Blount, Mrs. M. E. Coues and Mrs.
Mary S. Lockwood.

At this time married women had no legal right to hold property, and in
most respects the District laws remained about as arbitrary as they
were in the reign of King Charles II. A mother had no right by law to
her own child, the father having legal sanction to dispose of the
offspring even before it was born. At the time this committee was
urging Congress to pass the bill, the public was horrified by a
notorious case in the courts of the District in which a profligate
father, who had never done anything to benefit his children, had
disposed of them by will, debarring the mother from their custody and
control. This cruelty and injustice was an object-lesson which
especially evoked the sympathy of Congress.

The bill finally passed both Houses, was approved by President William
McKinley, and became a law June 1, 1896. At a special meeting, held
June 11, Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood presented the association with an
engrossed copy of the new law, and the women held a jubilee to
celebrate their victory.