separate American commonwealths and the Federal
union.

But it is not alone for the service which Miss Anthony has rendered
to the cause of woman suffrage that she is highly honored. She is
honored because of her womanhood, because she has ever been brave
without conceit and earnest without pretense, because she has the
heart to sympathize with suffering humanity in its various phases,
and the will to redress human wrongs. She has revealed a true
nobility of soul, and has ever been patient under abuse and
misrepresentation. She has allied herself with all good causes, and
has been the friend of those struggling against the dominion of
appetite as well as of those who have sought to free themselves
from political thralldom. She has earned the esteem even of those
who were diametrically opposed to her views. Within the movements
which she has urged, she has been an administrator rather than an
orator, although on occasions her speech has been informed with
the eloquence of conviction. In private life she has constrained
affection by a gentleness with which the world would hardly credit
her; but those who best know her, best know also the gracious
womanhood which illustrates itself in acts of unselfishness and
beneficence.

The birthday was celebrated by individuals and clubs in many states with
luncheons, teas, receptions and literary entertainments. After all these
pleasant happenings, Miss Anthony felt new courage and hope to enter
upon the Twenty-second National Suffrage Convention, February 18, at
Lincoln Music Hall. This was to be an important meeting, as it was to
consummate the union of the National and American organizations, and she
was anxious for a large attendance. "Do come," she wrote to the most
influential friends, "if you stay away forever afterwards. This will be
the crucial test whether our platform shall continue broad and free as
it has been for forty years. Some now propose secession because it is to
be narrow and bigoted; others left us twenty years ago because it was
too liberal. Some of the prominent women are writing me that the union
means we shall be no more than an annex to the W. C. T. U. hereafter;
others declare we are going to sink our identity and become sectarian
and conservative. There is not the slightest ground for any of these
fears, but come and be our stay and support."

She also