mportant amendments effected by the Republican legislatures, in
the laws which concern the personal and property relations of wives,
mothers and widows, and by the election and appointment of women to the
superintendence of education, charities and other public trusts. The
honest demands of this class of citizens for additional rights,
privileges and immunities should be treated with respectful
consideration." In a letter from Mrs. Duniway, of Oregon, she says,
"Well, the Republicans have thickened the old sop and re-served it."

The women were determined to obtain a recognition at the centennial
celebration to be held July 4, in Independence Square. "It is the hour,
the golden hour, for woman to speak her word which shall roll down our
second century as has man's Fourth of July manifesto through the last
one hundred years," wrote Miss Anthony. Then she and Mrs. Stanton and
Mrs. Gage put their heads together and framed a document which had all
the holy fire of the immortal Declaration of Independence, and this
they proposed to have made a part of the-great day's proceedings.[88]
Their efforts to this end, their repulse and their subsequent action
are so delightfully described in the History of Woman Suffrage that it
would be presumptuous to attempt to improve upon it. Their utmost
efforts could obtain but four seats on the platform. Miss Anthony had a
ticket as reporter for her brother's paper. The earnest request of Mrs.
Stanton, president of the National Suffrage Association, to General
Joseph R. Hawley, president of the Centennial Commission, not that the
women might read but simply might present their declaration, was
refused on the ground that the program could not be changed. The report
thus continues:

As President Grant was not to attend the celebration, the acting
Vice-President, Thomas W. Ferry, representing the government, was
to officiate in his place and he, too, was addressed by note, and
courteously requested to make time for the reception of this
declaration. As Mr. Ferry was a well-known sympathizer with the
demands of woman for political rights, it was presumable that he
would render his aid. Yet he was forgetful that in his position
that day he represented, not the exposition, but the government of
a hundred years, and he too refused; thus the simple request of
woman for a half moment's recognition on the nation's centennial
birthday was denied by all in au