y responsible position, is one of
the most remarkable ever made by any woman.

At the time Miss Anthony prepared her petition to Congress for
representation, no action had been taken by any organized body of women
in the country, and if she had not been on the field of battle in
Washington and acted at the very moment she did, the bill would have
passed Congress without any provision for women. They would have had no
recognition from the government, no appropriations for their work, no
official power, and their splendid achievements at the Columbian
Exposition, which did more to advance the cause of women than all that
had been accomplished during the century, would have been lost to the
world. Having secured this great object, she asked no office for herself
or for any other woman. On several public occasions, in the early months
of the fair, she refused to speak or to sit on the platform, lest she
might embarrass the President of the Board of Lady Managers by
committing her to woman suffrage. Mrs. Palmer, however, showed her the
most distinguished courtesy, in both public and private affairs,
inviting her to the platform and including her in the social functions
at her own residence. Miss Anthony soon felt that she was in full
sympathy with herself in every measure which tended to secure for women
absolute equality of rights, a point which Mrs. Palmer emphasized in the
most unmistakable language in her eloquent address delivered in the
Woman's Building, at the close of the exposition.

In these circumscribed limits it will be impossible to give any adequate
account of that greatest of all accomplishments of women at the World's
Fair--the Woman's Congress--whose proceedings fill two large volumes in
the official report. In order that intellectual as well as material
progress should be presented, it had been decided to hold a series of
congresses which should bring together a representation of the great
minds of the world. C. C. Bonney was made president of the Congress
Auxiliary; Mrs. Palmer, president, and Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin,
vice-president of the Woman's Branch. Although women were to participate
in all, Mr. Bonney desired to have one composed of them alone. To assist
Mrs. Henrotin, who had been made acting president, as well as to further
insure the success of this congress, Mr. Bonney appointed May Wright
Sewall chairman, and Rachel Foster Avery secretary, of the committee of
organization, and they were assist