d
one of the delegates said: "Miss Anthony, with all due respect, I wish
to ask, in the event of the Populists putting a woman suffrage plank in
their platform, will you work for the success of this party?" The
newspapers thus report her reply and what followed:

"For forty years I have labored for woman's enfranchisement, and I
have always said that for the party which endorsed it, whether
Republican, Democratic or Populist, I would wave my handkerchief. I
will go before the people at your meetings, and though I know very
little about the other principles of your party and never discuss
finance and tariff, I will try to persuade every man in those
meetings to vote for woman suffrage."

"Miss Anthony," said Mr. Carpenter, "we want more than the waving
of your handkerchief, and if the People's party put a woman
suffrage plank in its platform, will you go before the voters of
this State and tell them that because the People's party has
espoused the cause of woman suffrage it deserves the vote of every
one who is a supporter of that cause?"

Miss Anthony answered: "I most certainly will!"

Immediately upon hearing this, the convention went wild--yelled and
cheered and applauded to its very utmost--hundreds rose to their
feet--the cheering lasted five minutes without intermission.

In the confusion Miss Anthony thus finished her interrupted sentence:

"For I would surely choose to ask votes for the party which stood
for the principle of justice to women, though wrong on financial
theories, rather than for the party which was sound on the
questions of money and tariff, and silent on the pending amendment
to secure political equality to half the people."

None of the reporters caught this and, as a result, the simple
statement, "I certainly will," appeared in all the Kansas papers and
went the rounds of the press of the entire country.

The suffrage question had its opponents and advocates among leaders and
delegates. It occupied the resolution committee until late at night, and
finally went down to defeat, 8 to 13. When the resolutions were reported
they considered finance, labor, taxes, banks, bonds, arbitration,
pensions, irrigation, freight rates, transportation, initiative and
referendum--everything under the sun but the suffrage amendment. In
regard to that much agitated point they were painfully silent.