vines--dead at the top.

When Miss Anthony said, "One reason why politicians hesitate to grant
suffrage to woman is because she is an unknown quantity," Mrs. Henry
responded quickly, "There are two great unknown forces to-day,
electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity
than they can on woman." A resolution was adopted for a public
celebration in New York City of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's
eightieth birthday, November 12, by the association.[103]

The treasurer, Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, reported the receipts of the
past year to be $5,820, of which $2,571 went to the Kansas campaign.
The contributions and pledges of this convention for the coming year
were about $2,000. In addition, Mrs. Louisa Southworth of Cleveland
gave $1,000 to Miss Anthony to use as she thought best, and she
announced that it would be applied to opening national headquarters. A
National Organization Committee was for the first time formally
organized and Mrs. Chapman Catt was made its chairman by unanimous
vote.

Mrs. Colby presented the memorial resolutions, saying in part:

During the past year our association has lost by death a number
of members whose devotion to the cause of woman's liberty has
contributed largely to the position she holds to-day, and whose
labors are a part of the history of this great struggle for the
amelioration of her condition. Among these beloved friends and
co-workers three stood, each as the foremost representative in a
distinct line of action: Myra Bradwell of Chicago, Virginia L.
Minor of St. Louis, Amelia Bloomer of Council Bluffs, Ia.

Mrs. Bradwell was the first to make a test case with regard to
the civil rights of women, and to prove that the disfranchised
citizen is unprotected. [Her struggle to secure from the U.S.
Supreme Court a decision enabling women to practice law was
related.] The special importance of Mrs. Minor's connection with
the suffrage work lies in the fact that she first formulated and
enunciated the idea that women have the right to vote under the
United States Constitution. [The story was then told of Mrs.
Minor's case in the U.S. Supreme Court to test the right of women
to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment.][104] Mrs. Amelia Bloomer
was the first woman to own and edit a paper devoted to woman
suffrage and temperance, the _Lily_, published in Seneca Falls,