e Minerva, goddess
of wisdom. Her advent was with thunders, not of applause, but of
the scorn of a degenerate masculinity. The great Horatio said, with
infinite condescension, that he held in his hand a memorial of the
women of the United States. The name of Miss Anthony was greeted
with a yell such as a Milton might imagine to rise from a conclave
of the damned. "She asked to plead the cause of her sex; to demand
the enfranchisement of the women of America--the only class of
citizens not represented in the government, the only class without
a vote, and their only disability, the insurmountable one of sex."
As these last significant words, with more than significant accent
and modulation, came from the lips of the knightly, the courtly
Horatio, a bestial roar of laughter, swelling now into an almost
Niagara chorus, now subsiding into comparative silence, and again
without further provocation rising into infernal sublimity, shook
the roof of Tammany. Sex--the sex of women--was the subject of this
infernal scorn; and the great Democratic gathering, with yells and
shrieks and demoniac, deafening howls, consigned the memorial of
Susan B. Anthony to the committee on resolutions.

The World, the Herald, the Democratic press generally, spoke of this
incident in satirical and half-contemptuous tones, and the few papers
which treated it seriously declared in effect that, if they had to take
the "nigger," they might as well add woman to the unpalatable dose. A
petition from the Workingmen's Association to this same convention,
demanding a "greenback plank" in the platform, was received with great
respect and the plank put in as requested--offering the very strongest
object lesson of the superiority of an enfranchised over a
disfranchised class. It was not that the convention had more respect
for the workingman, per se, but they feared his vote and so adopted the
greenback plank in order to placate him, and then nominated for
President the most ultra of gold bond-paying advocates.

The Revolution took up with great earnestness the cause of
workingwomen, investigated their condition and published many articles
in regard to it. A meeting was called at the office of The Revolution
and a Workingwoman's Association formed, with officers chosen from the
various occupations represented, which ranged from typesetters to
ragpickers. In September the National Labor Uni