giving up the
National. If you and Mrs. Stanton think best, as your fingers are on
the pulse of the people, let us resolve the Union Society into the
National Association. So say Mr. and Mrs. Minor, but whatever is done,
the two grand women who have the qualifications for leadership _must be
at the head_; the cause will languish until you are back in your old
places."

The suffrage anniversary was held in Apollo Hall, New York, May 11 and
12, 1871. Mrs. Griffing read an able report on the work at Washington
the previous winter. There were strong objections by a number of ladies
to sitting on the platform with Mrs. Woodhull, but Mrs. Stanton said
she should be sandwiched between Lucretia Mott and herself and that
surely would give her sufficient respectability. She made a fine
constitutional argument, to which the most captious could not object.
The excitement created by her appearance at the Washington meeting was
mild compared to that in New York City where she was becoming so
well-known. The great dailies headed all reports, "The Woodhull
Convention." The injustice and vindictiveness of the Tribune, that
paper which once had been the champion of woman's cause, were
especially hard to bear. It rang the changes upon the term "free love,"
insisted that, because the women allowed Mrs. Woodhull to stand upon
their platform and advocate suffrage, they thereby indorsed all her
ideas on social questions, and by every possible means it cast odium on
the convention.

There is no doubt that the advocates of "free love," in its usually
accepted sense, did endeavor to insinuate themselves among the suffrage
women and make this movement responsible for their social doctrines,
but every great reform has to suffer from similar parasites. The lives
of Miss Anthony, Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Hooker, Mrs. Davis, and
of all the old and tried leaders in this cause, form the strongest
testimony of their utter repudiation of any such heresy. It was
impossible, however, for the world in general to understand their broad
ground that it was their business to accept valuable services without
inquiring into the private life of the persons who offered them. If
this were a mistake, these pioneers, who fought single-handed such a
battle as the women of later days can not comprehend, had to learn the
fact by experience.

The notorious Stephen Pearl Andrews prepared a set of involved and
intricate resolutions which were read by Paulina Wright