Foster are worthy of mention. That untiring reformer, the Hon. Neal Dow, has clearly seen and declared in the later years of his labors, that suffrage for women is the short path to the advancement of prohibition.

The Hon. Thomas B. Reed has done us great service in congress as leader of the Republican party in the House, and member of the Judiciary Committee. His report,* in 1884, on the submission of the sixteenth amendment has had an extended influence. It is an able argument, and as a keen piece of irony it is worthy the pen of a Dean Swift. In the Senate we have a fast friend in William P. Frye, who has always voted favorably in both houses on all questions regarding the interests of woman. In 1878, in presenting Miss Willard's petition of 30,000 for woman's right to vote on the temperance question, he made an able speech recommending the measure.†

And in closing, the name of Maine's venerable statesman, Hannibal Hamlin, so long honored by his State in a succession of official positions from year to year, must not be forgotten. As chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia in 1870 he presided at the first hearing of the National Woman Suffrage Association, listened with respect and courtesy, and at the close introduced the ladies to each member of the committee, and said "he had been deeply impressed by the arguments, and was almost persuaded to accept the new gospel of woman's equality." Mr. Hamlin's vote has always been favorable and we have no words of his recorded in the opposition.

Hon. James G. Blaine has generally maintained a dignified silence on the question. Thus far in his History, a reviewer says, "he has ignored the existence of woman"; but perhaps in his researches he has not yet reached the garden of Eden, nor taken cognizance of the part the daughters of Eve have played in the rise and fall of mighty nations.

Nevertheless in our prolonged struggle of half a century for equal rights for woman, we have found in every State the traditional ten righteous men necessary to save its people from destruction.

* Mr. Reed's report is published in full in our annual report of 1884, which can be obtained of Susan B. Anthony, Rochester, N. Y.

+ See page 104.

CHAPTER XXXV.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Nathaniel P. Rogers-First Organized Action, 1868-Concord Convention-William Lloyd Garrison's Letter-Rev. S. L. Blake Opposed-Rev. Mr. Sanborn in Favor -Concord Monitor-Armenia S. White-A Bill to Protect the Rights of Married Men-Minority and Majority Reports-Women too Ignorant to Vote-Republican State Convention-Women on School Committees-Voting at School-District Meetings-Mrs. White's Address-Mrs. Ricker on Prison Reform-Judicial Decision in Regard to Married Women, 1882-Letter from Senator Blair.

A STATE that could boast four such remarkable families as the Rogers, the Hutchinsons, the Fosters, and the Pillsburys, all radical, outspoken reformers, furnishes abundant reason for its prolonged battles with the natural conservatism of ordinary communities. Every inch of its soil except its mountain tops, where no man could raise a school-house for a meeting, has been overrun by the apostles of peace, temperance, anti-slavery, and woman's rights in succession.

To the early influence of Nathaniel P. Rogers and his revolutionary journal, The Herald of Freedom, we may trace the general awakening of the true men and women of that State to new ideas of individual liberty. But while some gladly accepted his words as harbingers of a new and better civilization, others resisted all innovations of their time-honored customs and opinions. And when the clarion voices of Foster and Pillsbury arraigned that State for its compromises with slavery, howling mobs answered their arguments with brickbats and curses; mobs that nothing. could quell but the sweet voices of the Hutchinson family. Their peans of liberty, so readily accepted when set to music, were obstinately resisted when uttered by others, though in most eloquent speech. Thus with music, meetings and mobs, New Hampshire was at least awake and watching, and when the distant echoes of woman's uprising reverberated through her mountains she gave a ready response.

In 1868, simultaneously with other New England States, she felt the time had come to organize for action on the question of

*

suffrage for women. A call for a convention was issued to be held in Concord, December 22, 23, and signed by one hundred and twenty men and women, some of the most honored and influential classes of all callings and professions. Nathaniel P. White, always ready to aid genuine reformatory movements, was the first to sign the call. As a member of the legislature he had helped to coin into law many of the liberal ideas sown broadcast in the early days + by the anti-slavery apostles. Galen Foster, a brother of Stephen, used his influence also as a member of the legislature, to vindicate the rights of women to civil and political equality. This first convention was held in Eagle Hall, Concord, with large and enthusiastic audiences. A long and interesting letter was read from William Lloyd Garrison:

BOSTON, December 21, 1868. DEAR MRS. WHITE: I must lose the gratification of being present at the Woman Suffrage Convention at Concord and substitute an epistolary testimony for a speech from the platform.

The two conventions recently held in furtherance of the movement for universal and impartial suffrage-one in Boston, the other in Providencewere eminently successful in respect to numbers, intellectual ability, moral strength and unity of action; and their proceedings such as to challenge attention and elicit wide-spread commendation. I have no doubt that the convention in Concord will exhibit the same features, be animated by the same hopeful spirit and produce as cheering results.

The only criticism seemingly of a disparaging tone, I have seen, of the speeches made at the conventions alluded to, is, that there was nothing new advanced on the occasion; as though novelty were the main thing, and the reiteration of time-honored truths, with their latest application to the duties of the hour, were simply tedious! For one, I ask no more light upon the subject; nor am I so vain as to assume to be capable of throwing any additional light upon it. One drop of water is very like another, but it is the perpetual dropping that wears away the stone. The importunate widow had nothing fresh or new to present to the unjust judge,

*Concord, Nathaniel P. White, Mrs. Sarah Pillsbury, Rev. J. F. Lovering, P. B. Cogswell, Mrs. Eliza Morrill, Mrs. Louisa W. Wood, Col. James E. Larkin, Mrs. J. F. Lovering, Charles S. Piper, Mrs. Armenia S. White, Mrs. M. M. Smith, Mrs. F. E. Kittredge, Mrs. Sarah Piper, Mrs. Ira Abbott, Mrs. L. M. Bust, Dr. A. Morrill, Mrs. P. Ladd, Mrs. R. A. Smith, George W. Brown, Mr. and Mrs. J. V. Aldrich, Mr. and Mrs. M. B. Smith, Mrs. T. H. Brown, Mrs. R. Hatch, Mrs. J. L. Crawford, Mrs. Anna Dumas, Miss Harriet C. Edmunds, Miss Salina Stevens, Miss Mary A. Denning, Miss N. E. Fessender, Miss M. L. Noyes, Miss Clara Noyes, James H. Chase, Peter Sanborn; Lancaster, Rev. J. M. L. Babcock; Rochester, Mrs. Abby P. Ela; Bradford. Mrs. L. A. T. Lane, Miss M. J. Tappan ; Laconia, Rev. J. L. Gorman, William M. Blair; Manchester, Dr. M. O. A. Hunt; Plymouth, Hon. D. R. Burnham; Portsmouth, Hon. A. W. Haven; Canterbury, Mr. and Mrs. D. M. Clough; Lebanon, A. M. Shaw; Keene, Col. and Mrs. Wilson; Grafton, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Kimball; Northfield, Mrs. D. E. Hill; Franklin, Rev. Wm. T. Savage; Canaan, William W. George; Littleton, R. D. Runneville.

+ They had their influence in the church as well as the State, as the following item in The Revolution, July 16, 1868, shows: "The New Hampshire convention of Universalists, at their late anniversary, adopted unanimously a resolution in favor of woman's elevation to entire equality with man in every civil, political and religious right."