t the friends of the measure proposed
to do. The American Association[91] held its convention September
12, 13, 14. The National[92] continued three days, September 27,
28, 29.

The Opera House, in which the National Association held its
meeting, was completely filled during all the sessions. The address
of welcome was given by Hon. A. J. Poppleton, one of the most
distinguished lawyers in that State. He said:

I deem it no light compliment that, in the face of an explicit
declaration that I am not in favor of woman suffrage, I have been
asked to make, on behalf of the people of Omaha and the State, an
address of welcome to the many distinguished men and women whom
this occasion has brought together. Doubtless the consideration
shown me is a recognition of the fact that I have been a
life-long advocate of the advancement of women through the
agencies of equality in education, equality in employment,
equality in wages, equality in property-rights and personal
liberty, in short, a fair, open, equal field in the struggle for
life. That I cannot go beyond this and embrace equal suffrage, is
due rather to long adherence to the political philosophy of
Edmund Burke than any lack of conviction of the absolute equality
of men and women in natural rights.

In the winter of 1852-3, when a student at Poughkeepsie, N. Y.,
while the spot on which we now stand was Indian country as yet
untouched by the formative power of national legislation, I
listened to Miss Susan B. Anthony, Miss Antoinette Brown and
others in the advocacy of the rights of women. It seems a strange
fortune that brings now, nearly thirty years after, one of those
speakers, crowned with a national reputation, into a State carved
out of that Indian country and containing 60,000 people, in
advocacy of equal suffrage for her sex. This single fact
proclaims in thunder tones the bravery, the fidelity, the
devotion of these pioneers of reform, and challenges for them the
sympathy, respect, esteem and admiration of every good man and
woman in America.

The thirty years commencing about 1850 have been prolific of
momentous changes. It is the era of the sewing machine, of the
domestication of steam and electricity, the overthrow of the
great rebellion, the destruction of slavery, the consolidation of
the German