he
ballot.

A series of resolutions was discussed, other letters read, and a
large number of new converts joined the association. The _State
Register_ spoke in a very complimentary manner of the
deliberations of this convention:

It is but just, perhaps, that we should say, in general
terms, of the State woman suffrage convention, in session in
Des Moines the past week, that its proceedings were
characterized with good sense, dignity, and the best of
order. The world has had an impression for five or six
thousand years that women cannot talk without wrangling,
counsel without confusion. Again, many are so unjust as to
imagine that a convention composed of ladies, assembled to
discuss serious subjects, can be nothing more than a
quilting party or tattlers' club enlarged and let loose.

We have never seen a convention conducted with more decorum,
or a greater degree of intelligent accord exhibited in the
routine of proceedings, than was noticeable in this first
annual gathering of the friends of suffrage in Iowa. A
majority of the members were women. They opened the
convention and conducted the discussions with a spirit and
in a manner after which men might well pattern. In some
respects, the ladies who took the lead, showed themselves
better posted in general information, in all matters of
deliberation, than men.

We would not endorse all that was done at the convention,
but we would be fair enough to give to it the meed of having
been, in all respects, well conducted. The convention
strengthened those in whose name it met, not only among
themselves, but with the public. All who attended it were
impressed with the conviction that its members were earnest
and honest, and could see that they were intelligent and
well armed. Whatever it may have done directly, and that we
know was much, it accomplished more good for its cause by
impressing the public mind that its adherents in Iowa are
banded together in union, and bound to make every honorable
effort for success.

In January, 1872, I received a letter from a very prominent
member of the legislature, from which th