membered that this
entire discussion was founded on the mere proposal to place Miss
Anthony on a committee of a temperance meeting. Horace Greeley handled
these men without gloves in an article in the Tribune beginning:

Rev. John! We have allowed you to be heard at full length; now you
and your set will be silent and hear us. Very palpably your palaver
about Mr. Higginson's motion is a dodge, a quirk, a most
contemptible quibble, reluctant as we are to speak thus
irreverently of the solemn utterances of a Doctor of Divinity.
Right well do you know, reverend sir, that the particular form or
time or fashion in which the question came up is utterly
immaterial, and you interpose it only to throw dust in the eyes of
the public. Suppose a woman had been nominated at the right time
and in the right way, according to your understanding of
punctilios, wouldn't the same resistance have been made and the
same row got up? You know right well that there would. Then what is
all your pettifogging about technicalities worth? The only question
that anybody cares a button about is this, "Shall woman be allowed
to participate in your World's Temperance Convention on a footing
of perfect equality with man?" If yea, the whole dispute turns on
nothing, and isn't worth six lines in the Tribune. But if it was
and is the purpose of those for whom you pettifog to keep woman off
the platform of that convention and deny her any part in its
proceedings except as a spectator, what does all your talk about
Higginson's untimeliness and the committee's amount to? Why not
treat the subject with some show of honesty?

The women and their friends held a grand rally in the Broadway
Tabernacle the second day afterwards. Every foot of sitting and
standing room was crowded, although there was an admission fee of a
shilling. Miss Anthony presided and there was the strongest enthusiasm,
but perfect order was maintained. The following comment was made by the
New York Commercial-Advertiser:

THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES.--On Saturday evening the Broadway
Tabernacle reverberated with the shrill, defiant notes of Miss Lucy
Stone and her "sisters," who have thrown down the gauntlet to the
male friends of temperance and declared not literally "war to the
knife" but conflict with tongues.... Henceforth the women's rights
ladies--including among them the m