rers newly come to our country was a humiliating one to accept; and
we realized more forcibly than ever before the difficulty of the task we
had assumed--a task far beyond any ever undertaken by a body of men in
the history of democratic government throughout the world. We not only
had to bring American men back to a belief in the fundamental
principles of republican government, but we had also to educate ignorant
immigrants, as well as our own Indians, whose degree of civilization
was indicated by their war-paint and the flaunting feathers of their
head-dresses.

The Kansas campaign, which Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Johns, and
I conducted in 1894, held a special interest, due to the Populist
movement. There were so many problems before the people--prohibition,
free silver, and the Populist propaganda--that we found ourselves
involved in the bitterest campaign ever fought out in the state. Our
desire, of course, was to get the indorsement of the different political
parties and religious bodies, We succeeded in obtaining that of three
out of four of the Methodist Episcopal conferences--the Congregational,
the Epworth League, and the Christian Endeavor League--as well as that
of the State Teachers' Association, the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union, and various other religious and philanthropic societies. To
obtain the indorsement of the political parties was much more difficult,
and we were facing conditions in which partial success was worse than
complete failure. It had long been an unwritten law before it became a
written law in our National Association that we must not take partisan
action or line up with any one political party. It was highly important,
therefore, that either all parties should support us or that none
should.

The Populist convention was held in Topeka before either the Democratic
or Republican convention, and after two days of vigorous fighting, led
by Mrs. Anna Diggs and other prominent Populist women, a suffrage plank
was added to the platform. The Populist party invited me, as a minister,
to open the convention with prayer. This was an innovation, and served
as a wedge for the admission of women representatives of the Suffrage
Association to address the convention. We all did so, Miss Anthony
speaking first, Mrs. Catt second, and I last; after which, for the first
time in history, the Doxology was sung at a political convention.

At the Democratic convention we made the same appeal, and we