of its proprietors, Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Spofford, and was
able to secure them through personal attention and influence. There
were always some members of these committees who were favorable to
woman suffrage, but with the great pressure on every side from other
matters, this one was apt to be neglected unless somebody made a
business of seeing that it did not go by default. This Miss Anthony
did for many years, and during this time secured the excellent reports
of 1879, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886 and 1890. The great speech of Senator
T. W. Palmer, made February 6, 1885, was in response to her insistence
that he should keep his promise to speak in favor of the question. In
1888-90 Mrs. Upton, who was residing in Washington with her father,
Ezra B. Taylor, M. C., did not permit the Judiciary Committee to
forget the report for that year, which was the first and only
favorable House Report.

[127] For account of the work of the association before Congress see
Chap. I.

[128] George W. Ray, N. Y., chairman; John J. Jenkins, Wis.; Richard
Wayne Parker, N. J.; Jesse Overstreet, Ind.; De Alva S. Alexander, N.
Y.; Vespasian Warner, Ill.; Winfield S. Kerr, O.; Charles E.
Littlefield, Me.; Romeo H. Freer, W. Va.; Julius Kahn, Calif.; William
L. Terry, Ark.; David A. De Armond, Mo.; Samuel W. T. Lanham, Tex.;
William Elliott, S. C.; Oscar W. Underwood, Ala.; David H. Smith, Ky.;
William H. Fleming, Ga.

[129] That this was a mistaken courtesy was proved by subsequent
events, as afterwards Mrs. Dodge came out with a card in the New York
_Sun_ denying that they were admitted through the intervention of Miss
Anthony.

[130] In the official Senate report of the hearing the arguments of
the suffragists filled forty pages; those of the "antis" five pages.
They consisted of brief papers by Mrs. Dodge and Miss Bissell. The
former took the ground that the Congress should leave this matter to
be decided by the States; that women are not physically qualified to
use the ballot; and that its use by them would render "domestic
tranquillity" a byword among the people. Miss Bissell began by saying,
"It is not the tyranny but the chivalry of men that we have to fear,"
and opposed the suffrage principally because the majority of women do
not want it, saying, "I have never yet been so situated that I could
see where a vote could help me. If I felt that it would, I might
become a suffragist perhaps."

CHAPTER XXI.

THE NATIONAL-AMERICAN CONV