ion. This
fact being duly heralded in the newspapers, they put the obituary
notices back into their pigeonholes.

She started for New York November 6 to be present at an event to which
she had looked forward with more pleasure than to anything of that
nature in all her life--the celebration of the eightieth birthday of
Mrs. Stanton. At the convention in February it had been unanimously
decided that the National-American Association should have charge of
this, but at the Woman's Council in Washington it was agreed that it
would have greater significance if held under the auspices of that
body, which cheerfully accepted the charge. Its new president, Mary Lowe
Dickinson, urged Miss Anthony to take the chairmanship of the committee
of arrangements, insisting that no one else could make so great a
success of it, but Miss Anthony assured her of what afterwards proved to
be true, that no one could manage the affair more perfectly than Mrs.
Dickinson herself.

Naturally many of the suffrage women resented having any one outside
their own association as the leader on this great occasion, and Lillie
Devereux Blake wrote: "Mrs. Stanton stands for suffrage above all else
and she should be honored by our societies. To have the celebration
under the charge of the secretary of the King's Daughters, an orthodox
organization, seems very much out of taste, greatly as I honor Mrs.
Dickinson. I do not think any one else will make the celebration such a
success as you would; you, the long-time companion and co-worker with
our dear leader, are the person who should be at the head and, with your
admirable manner as a presiding officer, you would give a tone to it
that no one else could." To this Miss Anthony replied:

All of you fail to see the higher honor to Mrs. Stanton in having
the celebration mothered by a great body composed of twenty
national societies, instead of by only our one. Surely, for all
classes of women--liberal, orthodox, Jewish, Mormon, suffrage and
anti-suffrage, native and foreign, black and white--to unite in
paying a tribute of respect to the greatest woman reformer,
philosopher and statesman of the century, will be the realization
of Mrs. Stanton's most optimistic dream. I am surprised and
delighted at the action of the council. It shows a breadth and
comprehensiveness on the part of the leaders of its twenty-in-one
organization of which I am very proud. Of co