nsurpassed
addresses which had delighted audiences and inspired workers. As the
practical work of the association increased and spread throughout the
different States, more and more of the time of the conventions had to
be given to reports and details of business and the number of speeches
constantly lessened. The first evening of the convention was devoted
to the victory in Illinois, with delightful addresses by Mrs.
Catharine Waugh McCulloch, long the State president, who twenty years
before had discovered the loophole in the Illinois constitution by
which the Legislature itself could grant a large measure of suffrage
to women and had tried to obtain the law that had just been gained; by
Mrs. Ella S. Stewart, another president, who had carried on this work;
and by Mesdames Ruth Hanna McCormick, Grace Wilbur Trout, Antoinette
Funk and Elizabeth K. Booth, the famous quartette of younger workers,
who had finally succeeded with a progressive Legislature. As there was
no representative from far-off Alaska, Dr. Shaw told how its
Legislature had given full suffrage to women. [See Illinois and Alaska
chapters.] Miss Lucy Burns gave a clear analysis of the situation in
regard to the Federal Suffrage Amendment and the evening closed with
one of Dr. Shaw's piquant addresses, which began: "I know the
objections to woman suffrage but I have never met any one who
pretended to know any reasons against it," and she closed with a flash
of the humor for which she was noted:

By some objectors women are supposed to be unfit to vote because
they are hysterical and emotional and of course men would not
like to have emotion enter into a political campaign. They want
to cut out all emotion and so they would like to cut us out. I
had heard so much about our emotionalism that I went to the last
Democratic national convention, held at Baltimore, to observe the
calm repose of the male politicians. I saw some men take a
picture of one gentleman whom they wanted elected and it was so
big they had to walk sidewise as they carried it forward; they
were followed by hundreds of other men screaming and yelling,
shouting and singing the "Houn' Dawg"; then, when there was a
lull, another set of men would start forward under another man's
picture, not to be outdone by the "Houn' Dawg" melody, whooping
and howling still louder. I saw men jump up on the seats and
throw their hats i