ithin the past year the
Municipal franchise has been given to women in Natal, South Africa;
national associations have been organized in Hungary, Italy and Russia
and the reports at the recent meeting of the International Alliance at
Copenhagen showed a remarkable increase in the agitation for woman
suffrage all over Europe. In England, out of the 670 members of the
present House of Commons, 420 are pledged to its support.

In the United States widely circulated newspapers and magazines
representing the most opposite political views have lately declared
for woman suffrage; the National Grange and the American Federation of
Labor have unanimously endorsed it. In Chicago 87 organizations with
an aggregate membership of 10,000 women have petitioned for a
Municipal suffrage clause in the new charter and the men and women
most prominent in the city's good works are supporting the plea.

Men and women are natural complements of one another. American
political life today is marked by executive force and business
ability, qualities in which men are strong, but it is often lacking in
conscience and humanity. These a larger infusion of the mother element
would supply. We believe that men and women in co-operation can
accomplish better work than either sex alone....

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, President.
FLORENCE KELLEY, Vice-President-at-Large.
KATE M. GORDON, Corresponding Secretary.
ALICE STONE BLACKWELL, Recording Secretary.
HARRIET TAYLOR UPTON, Treasurer.
LAURA CLAY, }
ANNICE JEFFREYS MYERS, } Auditors.

[49] The proposition was defeated during the suffrage convention by a
tie, with the chairman, Milton J. Foreman, giving the deciding vote
against it. [See Illinois, Volume VI.]

[50] Miss Anthony helped arrange for the first National Woman Suffrage
Convention and it was held in Washington in January, 1869. From that
time to 1906 she missed but two of these annual meetings, when she was
speaking in the far West under the auspices of a lecture bureau, and
each time she sent the proceeds of a week's lectures as her
contribution.

[51] Through lack of initiative and effort the money for the bust was
never raised. For Mrs. Gannett's report and other matter about the
Memorial Building see the Appendix to this chapter. See also page 442,
Volume VI. R