inning 'tis all a pretense,
And the people will find it so, _a hundred years hence_.

Lying, cheating and fraud will be laid on the shelf,
Men will neither get drunk, nor be bound up in self,
But all live together, good neighbors and friends,
Just as _Christian folks_ ought to, _a hundred years hence_.

Then woman, man's partner, man's equal shall stand,
While beauty and harmony govern the land,
To think for oneself will be no offense,
The world will be thinking _a hundred years hence_.

Oppression and war will be heard of no more,
Nor the blood of a slave leave his print on our shore,
Conventions will then be a useless expense,
For we'll all go _free-suffrage a hundred years hence_.

Instead of speech-making to satisfy wrong,
All will join the glad chorus to sing Freedom's song;
And if the Millenium is not a pretense,
We'll all be good brothers _a hundred years hence_.

This song was written in 1852, at Cleveland, Ohio, by Frances Dana
Gage, expressly for John W. Hutchinson. Several of the friends were
staying with Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, on their way to the Akron
convention, where it was first sung.

[15] Protests and declarations were read by Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton
Harbert, in Evanston, Ill.; Sarah L. Knox, California; Mrs. Rosa L.
Segur, Toledo, Ohio; Mrs. Mary Olney Brown, Olympia, Washington
territory; Mrs. Henrietta Paine Westbrook, New York city. In
Maquoketa, Iowa; Mrs. Nancy R. Allen read the declaration at the
regular county celebration. Madam Anneke, Wis.; Elizabeth Avery
Meriwether, Tenn.; Lucinda B. Chandler, N. J.; Jane E. Telker,
Iowa; S. P. Abeel, D. C.; Mrs. J. A. Johns, Oregon; Elizabeth Lisle
Saxon, La.; Mrs. Elsie Stewart, Kan.; and many others impossible to
name, sent in protests and declarations.

[16] See Appendix.

[17] Henry Hutchinson, the son of John.

[18] A German legend says, God first made a mouse, but seeing he
had made a mistake he made the cat as an afterthought, therefore if
woman is God's afterthought, man must be a mistake.

[19] Afterwards killed by the Indians in Colorado.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

NATIONAL CONVENTIONS, HEARINGS AND REPORTS.

1877-1878-1879.

Renewed Appeal for a Sixteenth Amendment--Mrs. Gage Petitions for
Removal of Political Disabilities--Ninth Washington Convention,
1877--Jane Grey Swisshelm--Letters, Robert Purvis, Wendell
Phillips, Francis E. Abbott