e throng that filled the
doorway, was another assembly eager to hear what it could. The
earnest, interested, assenting faces of the vast audience and their
hearty applause attested their sympathy with the ideas and principles
expressed.

Every evening several of the speakers addressed large audiences in St.
Paul, thus carrying on two series of meetings contemporaneously. The
Hon. Wm. Dudley Foulke occupied the chair. Mayor George A. Pillsbury,
of Minneapolis, gave the address of welcome, which he closed by
saying: "Our citizens may not all agree with you, yet we recognize the
fact that some of the greatest and best minds in the country are
engaged in this work. I have never identified myself with your
organization but wish you Godspeed, and hope to see the time when the
women shall stand with the men at the polls."

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe in responding said: "We are glad to be welcomed
for ourselves; we are still more gratified by the welcome extended to
our cause. We do not live altogether in our magnificent cities and
houses; we all live in houses not made with hands. We have with us
some who have devoted their lives to this noble work. They have been
building up, stone by stone, a mighty structure, and it is to lay a
few more stones that we have gathered here."

It had been persistently asserted that Mrs. Howe and Louisa M. Alcott
had renounced their belief in equal suffrage. Mrs. Howe was present to
speak for herself. Miss Alcott wrote from Concord, Mass.:

I should think it was hardly necessary for me to say that it is
impossible for me ever to "go back" on woman suffrage. I
earnestly desire to go forward on that line as far and as fast as
the prejudices, selfishness and blindness of the world will let
us, and it is a great cross to me that ill-health and home duties
prevent my devoting heart, pen and time to this most vital
question of the age. After a fifty years' acquaintance with the
noble men and women of the anti-slavery cause and the sight of
the glorious end to their faithful work, I should be a traitor to
all I most love, honor and desire to imitate if I did not covet a
place among those who are giving their lives to the emancipation
of the white slaves of America.

If I can do no more, let my name stand among those who are
willing to bear ridicule and reproach for the truth's sake, and
so earn some right to rejoice when the vic