ing that they
would not make the adoption of a suffrage plank by the Republican State
Convention "a test of party fealty," etc. Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw
condemned this in the strongest English they could command. Mrs. Johns
also severely criticised the committee, but Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, who
had come for both conventions, said: "I care more for the dominant
principles of the Republican party than I do for woman suffrage." The
committee finally were compelled to report a stronger resolution asking
for recognition.

The Republican convention met June 6. C. V. Eskridge, of Emporia, the
oldest and bitterest opponent of woman suffrage in the State of Kansas,
was made chairman of the committee on resolutions. The proposal to hear
the women speak, during an interim in the proceedings, was met by a
storm of noes. Finally Mrs. Foster and Mrs. Johns were permitted to
present the claims of women, but neither Miss Anthony nor Miss Shaw was
given an opportunity to address the convention. They did, however, plead
the women's cause most eloquently before the resolution committee of
thirty-five members, but the platform was entirely silent on the
subject, not even containing the usual complimentary allusions,
recognition of their services, etc.[103] Not the slightest attempt was
made to deny the fact that agents of the party had been at work for
weeks among the various county conventions to see that delegates were
appointed who were opposed to a suffrage plank, and that the resolution
committee had been carefully "packed" to prevent any danger of one. In
conversations which Miss Anthony held with several of the leading
candidates who in times past had advocated woman suffrage, they did not
hesitate to admit that the party had formed an alliance with the whiskey
ring to defeat the Populists. "We must redeem the State," was their only
cry. "Redeem it from what?" she asked. "From financial heresies," was
the answer. "Yes," she retorted, "even if you sink it to the depths of
hell on moral issues."

[Illustration: Autograph: "Your Brother, D R Anthony"]

It is not probable that any earthly power could have secured Republican
endorsement at this time, although heretofore the party always had posed
as the champion of this cause. There never was a more pitiable
exhibition of abject subserviency to party domination. Men who had stood
boldly for woman suffrage in the legislature, men who had spoken for it
on the platform in every county in