now had to devote their whole time to the increased work of the
association and who had hitherto for the most part given their service
gratuitously. Dr. Shaw received $3,500; the secretary $1,000, the
treasurer $1,000. This left $6,500 for other purposes each year.

CHAPTER IX.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1909.

The invitation to hold the Forty-first annual convention of the
association in Seattle was accepted for two special reasons. The
Washington Legislature had submitted a woman suffrage amendment to be
voted on in 1910; similar action had been taken by the Legislatures of
Oregon and South Dakota, and a convention on the Pacific Coast would
attract western people and create sentiment in favor of these
amendments. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in progress during the
summer, by causing reduced railroad rates, would enable those of the
east and middle west to attend the convention and visit this beautiful
section of the country.[60] The date fixed was July 1-6.

The eastern delegates assembled in Chicago on June 25 to take the
"suffrage special" train for Seattle and a reception was given to
them at Hotel Stratford by the Chicago suffragists. At St. Paul the
next morning ex-Senator S. A. Stockwell and Mrs. Stockwell, president
of the Minnesota Association, with a delegation of suffragists, met
them at the station and escorted them to the Woman's Exchange, where a
delicious breakfast was served on tables adorned with golden iris and
ferns. Many club officials were there and brief addresses were made by
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, Mrs. Florence Kelley, Miss Laura Clay, Mrs.
Fanny Garrison Villard, Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Miss Alice
Stone Blackwell, Miss Kate M. Gordon and Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton.
Mrs. Villard recalled a visit she had made there twenty-six years
before with her husband, Henry Villard, who had just completed the
Northern Pacific Railroad and his train was making a kind of triumphal
tour across the continent. "St. Paul welcomed him with a procession
ten miles long," she said, "and Minneapolis, determined not to be
outdone, got up one fifteen miles long. It gives me joy to remember
that not only my father, William Lloyd Garrison, but also my good
German-born husband believed in equal rights for women."

The train sped through the Great Northwest and continuous business
meetings were held by the board of officers in what was usually the
smoking car until the next stop was made at Sp