States; for that very reason we desire to enter our protest. We
are aware that this government has been conducted for one hundred
years without consulting the women of the United States; for this
reason we desire to enter our protest.

General HAWLEY replied: Undoubtedly we have not lived up to our
own original Declaration of Independence in many respects. I
express no opinion upon your question. It is a proper subject of
discussion at the Cincinnati convention, at the St. Louis
convention,, in the Senate of the United States, in the State
legislatures, in the courts, wherever you can obtain a hearing.
But to-morrow we propose to celebrate what we have done the last
hundred years; not what we have failed to do. We have much to do
in the future. I understand the full significance of your very
slight request. If granted, it would be the event of the day--the
topic of discussion to the exclusion of all others. I am sorry to
refuse so slight a demand; we cannot grant it.

General Hawley also addressed a letter to Mrs. Stanton:

DEAR MADAM: I regret to say it is impossible for us to make any
change in our programme, or make any addition to it at this late
hour.

Yours very respectfully,
JOS. R. HAWLEY, _President U. S. C. C._

As General Grant was not to attend the celebration, the acting
vice-president, Thomas W. Ferry, representing the government, was
to officiate in his place, and he, too, was addressed by note, and
courteously requested to make time for the reception of this
declaration. As Mr. Ferry was a well-known sympathizer with the
demands of woman for political rights, it was presumable that he
would render his aid. Yet he was forgetful that in his position
that day he represented, not the exposition, but the government of
a hundred years, and he too refused; thus this simple request of
woman for a half moment's recognition on the nation's centennial
birthday was denied by all in authority.[11] While the women of
the nation were thus absolutely forbidden the right of public
protest, lavish preparations were made for the reception and
entertainment of foreign potentates and the myrmidons of monarchial
institutions. Dom Pedro, emperor of Brazil, a representative of
that form of government against which the United States is a
perpetual defiance and protest, was welcomed with