d it seemed to me if that ever came to pass, a man
who could say "no" so cavalierly, without even a "thank you,
ma'am," or, "you're quite welcome," both could and would
manage to make surroundings rather disagreeable to the party
of the second part. So far no person who has thought much,
read much, or suffered much, has refused to sign, and in the
few hours which I have devoted to the work, three
grandmothers nearly ninety years of age, wished to have
their names recorded on the right side of the question, and
in two of those instances the grandmother, daughter, and
grandfather affixed their signatures, one after
another.[376]

We have been permitted to copy the following private letter from
A.J. Grover to Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who is now at her
home in Tenafly, N. J., busily at work with Miss Anthony and Mrs.
Gage on the second volume of the "History of Woman Suffrage." The
first volume should be on the center-table of every family in the
land as a complete text-book on the woman suffrage question,
which is to be one of the great issues, social and political, in
the coming years. These three women have grown old and won their
crowns of white hair in the cause of not only their sex, but of
mankind:

CHICAGO, November 29, 1881.

MY DEAR FRIEND: You represent a movement of more importance
to mankind than any that ever before claimed attention in
the whole history of the race, viz.: the freedom of one-half
of it. You have enforced this claim by half a century of
heroic discussion--of persistent, unanswerable logic and
appeal against the theory and practice of all nations,
against all governments, codes and creeds. You proclaimed
fifty years ago the novel doctrine that woman by nature is,
and by law and usage should be, the absolute equal of man. A
claim so self-evident should only have to be stated to be
recognized by all civilized nations; and yet to this hour
the highest civilization, equally with the lowest, is built
on the slavery of woman. In the darkest corners of the earth
and on the sunlit heights of civilization, the mothers of
the race are by law, religion a