The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 50

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

RHODE ISLAND.

Senator Anthony in _North American Review_--Convention in Providence--Work of State a.s.sociation--Report of Elizabeth B.

Chace--Miss Ida Lewis--Letter of Frederick A. Hinckley--Last Words from Senator Anthony.

Rhode Island, though one of the smallest, is, in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, one of the wealthiest states in the Union. In political organization Rhode Island, in colonial times, contrasted favorably with the other colonies, nearly all of which required a larger property qualification, and some a religious test for the suffrage. The home of Roger Williams knew nothing of such narrowness, but was an asylum for those who suffered persecution elsewhere. Nevertheless this is now, in many respects, the most conservative of all the States.

In the November number of the _North American Review_ for 1883, Senator Anthony, in an article on the restricted suffrage in Rhode Island, stoutly maintains that suffrage is not a natural right, and that in adhering to her property qualification for foreigners his State has wisely protected the best interests of the people. In his whole argument on the question, he ignores the idea of women being a part of the people, and ranks together qualifications of s.e.x, age, and residence. He quite unfairly attributes much of Rhode Island's prosperity--the result of many causes--to her restricted suffrage. His position in this article, written so late in life, is the more remarkable as he had always spoken and voted in his place in the United States Senate (where he had served nearly thirty years) strongly in favor of woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt. And the _Providence Journal_, which he owned and controlled, was invariably respectful and complimentary towards the movement.

While such a man as Senator Anthony, one of the political leaders in his State, regarded suffrage as a privilege which society may concede or withhold at pleasure, we need not wonder that so little has been accomplished there in the way of legislative enactments and supreme-court decisions. Nevertheless that State has shared in the general agitation and can boast many n.o.ble men and women who have taken part in the discussion of this subject.

The first woman suffrage a.s.sociation was formed in Rhode Island in December, 1868. In describing the initiative steps, Elizabeth B.

Chace in a letter to a friend, says:

In October 1868, while in Boston attending the convention that formed the New England society, Paulina Wright Davis[171]

conceived the idea that the time had come to organize the friends of suffrage in Rhode Island. After consultation with a few of the most prominent friends of the cause, a call was issued for a convention, to be held in Roger Williams Hall, Providence, December 11th, signed by many leading names. No sooner did the call appear than, as usual, some clergyman publicly declared himself in opposition. The Rev. Mark Trafton, a Methodist minister, gave a lecture in his vestry on "The Coming Woman," who was to be a good housekeeper, dress simply, and not to vote. This was published in the _Providence Journal_, and called out a gracefull vindication of woman's modern demands from the pen of Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, the poet, and Miss Norah Perry, a popular writer of both prose and verse. The convention was all that its most ardent friends could have desired, and resulted in forming an a.s.sociation.[172] The audience numbered over a thousand, at the different sessions, and among the speakers were some of the ablest men in the State. Though the friends were comparatively few in the early days, yet there was no lack of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. Weekly meetings were held, tracts and pet.i.tions circulated; conventions[173] and legislative hearings were as regular as the changing seasons, now in Providence, and now in Newport, following the migratory government.

Mrs. Davis was president of the a.s.sociation for several successive years in which her labors were indefatigable. Finally failing health compelled her to resign her position as president of the a.s.sociation.[174] Since then her able coadjutor Elizabeth B. Chace, has been president of the Rhode Island Suffrage a.s.sociation, and with equal faithfulness and persistence, carried on the work. She steadily keeps up the annual conventions and makes her appeals to the legislature. Among the names[175] of those who have appeared from year to year before the Rhode Island legislature we find many able men and women from other States as well as many of their own distinguished citizens.

In this State an effort was made early to get women on the board of managers for schools, prisons and charitable inst.i.tutions. In a letter to Mrs. Davis, John Stuart Mill says:

I am very glad to hear of the step in advance made by Rhode Island in creating a board of women for some very important administrative purpose. Your proposal that women should be empanneled on every jury where women are to be tried seems to me very good, and calculated to place the injustice to which women are subjected at present by the entire legal system in a very striking light.

In 1873 an effort was made to place women on the Providence School Board, with what success the following extracts from the daily papers show. The _Providence Press_ of April 25, 1873, says:

A shabby trick was perpetrated by the friends of John W. Angell, which was certainly anything but "angelic," and which ought to consign the parties who committed it to political infamy.

Yesterday, for the first time in the history of this city, women were candidates for political honors--in the fifth ward, Mrs.

Sarah E. H. Doyle, and in the fourth ward, Mrs. Rhoda A. F.

Peckham, were candidates for positions on the school committee; both, however, failed of an election. Mrs. Doyle received the unanimous nomination of the large primary meeting of the National Union Republican party, and Mrs. Peckham was run as an outside candidate against the regular nominee. These ladies would undoubtedly have made excellent members of the committee, and unlike a great portion of that body, would have been found in their places at the meetings, and we should have been glad to have seen the experiment tried of women in the position for which their names were presented. When the polls opened in the fifth ward, instead of Mrs. Doyle's name being on the ballots for the place to which she had been nominated there appeared the name of John W. Angell, esq., and until about 11 o'clock A. M. he had the field to himself. At that hour, however, Mrs. Doyle's friends appeared with the "_regular_" nomination, and from that time to the close of the polls she received 145 votes; Mr. Angell, notwithstanding his several hours' start in the race, only winning by a majority of 38. From this fact it is clear that had Mrs. Doyle's name been in its proper place at the opening of the polls she would have beaten her opponent handsomely. Mrs.

Peckham's opponent obtained but 23 majority in a poll of 349. It is evident from the vote yesterday, that if they have but a fair show, women will at the next election be successful as candidates for the school committee. Had the intelligent ladies of the fifth ward been allowed to vote, Mrs. Doyle would have led even the gubernatorial vote of that ward.

The _Providence Journal_ makes the following comment:

We are sorry to observe that the two estimable and admirably qualified ladies whose names were presented for school committee in this city, failed of success. Their influence in official connection with the schools could not have been other than salutary. The treatment accorded Mrs. Doyle in the fifth ward was wofully shabby. Without her solicitation, the Republican caucus unanimously nominated her for a member of the school committee.

Being a novice in political proceedings, she naturally enough supposed that the party that desired her services so much as to place her in nomination, would make provision for electing their candidate. There was not gallantry enough in the ward, however, for that duty, and it was not until 11 o'clock on election day that any tickets bearing the name of Mrs. Doyle were to be found in the ward-room; but a ticket with the names of two men was on hand at sunrise, and the time lost in procuring tickets for the regular nominee proved fatal to her success. Mrs. Doyle has now learned something of the ways of politicians, and is not likely to put her trust again in the faithfulness of ward committees.

At a meeting of the State a.s.sociation, held in Providence, on Thursday, May 18, 1871, the following preamble and resolutions were, after a full and earnest discussion, unanimously adopted:

WHEREAS, It is claimed, in opposition to the demand that the elective franchise shall be given to women, that they are represented in the government by men, so that they do not need the ballot for their protection, inasmuch as all their rights are secured to them by the interest of these men in their welfare; and, whereas, in February last, in view of the appalling facts frequently coming to our notice, consequent upon the mismanagement of poor-houses and asylums for the insane, this a.s.sociation did earnestly pet.i.tion our State legislature to enact a law providing for the appointment of women in all the towns in our State to act as joint commissioners with men in the care and control of these inst.i.tutions; and, whereas, in utter disregard of our request, the Committee on State Charities, to whom it was referred, in reporting back our pet.i.tion to the House of Representatives, did recommend that the pet.i.tioners be given leave to withdraw, and the House, without (so far as we could learn) one word of protest from any member thereof, did so dispose of our pet.i.tion; therefore,

_Resolved_, That this a.s.sociation do most solemnly declare, that so far from being represented in our legislature, the rights of the women of this State were in this instance trampled under foot therein, and the best interests of humanity, in the persons of the poorest and most unfortunate cla.s.ses, were not sufficiently regarded, under this system of cla.s.s legislation.

_Resolved_, That, despairing of obtaining for women even the privileges which would enable them to look after the welfare of the dest.i.tute and the suffering, with any power or authority to improve their condition, until equal rights in the government itself are guaranteed to all without regard to s.e.x, we will henceforth make use of this treatment we have received as a new argument in favor of the emanc.i.p.ation of women from the legal status of idiots and criminals, and, with this weapon in our hands, we will endeavor to arouse the women of our State to a keener sense of their degraded condition, and we will never abate our demand until an amendment to the const.i.tution is submitted to the people granting suffrage to the women of Rhode Island.

_Resolved_, That this preamble and these resolutions be offered for publication to the daily papers of this city.

ELIZABETH B. CHACE, _President_.

SUSAN B. P. MARTIN, _Secretary_.

For several years the philanthropic women of Rhode Island made many determined efforts to secure some official positions in the charitable inst.i.tutions of the State, with what success the following report by Elizabeth B. Chace, at the annual meeting of the American a.s.sociation, in Philadelphia, in 1876, will show:

The Rhode Island Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, while holding its monthly meetings through the year, circulating pet.i.tions to the legislature, and, in other ways, constantly endeavoring to revolutionize the entire sentiment of the State on the question of woman suffrage, still has less progress to report than its friends would have desired. Our last annual meeting, as usual, drew together a large audience. Among our speakers from abroad was William Lloyd Garrison, who, in a speech of almost anti-slavery force and fervor, appeared to send conviction into many minds. Our home speakers included a clergyman of Providence and one of our ablest lawyers, and an ex-legislator who had never stood on our platform before.

As usual, our pet.i.tions went into the legislature. They were referred to the Judiciary Committee, before whom we had a hearing, at which three Providence lawyers gave us their unqualified support and earnest advocacy. One of these men set forth in the strongest light the injustice of our laws in regard to the property of married women and their non-owners.h.i.+p of their minor children. The committee made no report to the legislature, and so our pet.i.tions lie over until the next session, when we hope for some evidence of progress. In the meantime we intend to very much increase their number. For many years we have been begging of our law-makers to permit women to share in the management of the penal, correctional and charitable inst.i.tutions of the State; we have, however, only succeeded in obtaining an advisory board of women, which has been in operation for the last six years.

Last spring a majority of these women, having become weary of the service in which they had no power to decide that any improvement should be made in the management of these inst.i.tutions, resigned their positions on this board, some of them giving through the press their reasons therefor. When the time came for making the new appointments for the year, the governor earnestly urged these women to permit him to appoint them, voluntarily pledging himself to recommend at the opening of the next session of the legislature, that a bill should be pa.s.sed providing for the appointment of women on the boards of management of all these prisons and reformatories, with the same power and authority with which the men are invested, who now alone decide all questions concerning them. On this condition these women consented to serve on the advisory board a few months longer, with the understanding that, if the legislature fails to make this important provision, their advice will be withdrawn, and the men will be left to take care of thieves, criminals and paupers until they are ready to ask for our help on terms of equality and justice.

In the _Providence Journal_ appeared the following:

Mrs. Doyle seems to have learned by experience that the board, as now const.i.tuted under the law, can have no real efficiency. The ladies are responsible for the management of no part of any of the inst.i.tutions which they are permitted officially to visit.

Their reports are not made to the boards which are charged with the responsibility of managing these inst.i.tutions, and, in the case of the reform school, are not made to the body which elects and controls the board of management. The State ought not to place ladies in such an anomalous position. The women's board should have positive duties and direct responsibilities in its appropriate sphere, or it should be abolished. The following is Mrs. Doyle's letter of resignation:

_To His Excellency Henry Lippitt, Governor of the State:_

SIR: Please accept my resignation as member of the Board of Lady Visitors to the Penal and Correctional Inst.i.tutions of the State. The recent action of a part of the board, in regard to the annual report made to the General a.s.sembly, makes it impossible for me to continue longer as a member.

Before the report was submitted, it was carefully examined by the members signing it, and was acquiesced in by them, as their signatures testify. Still further, I am confirmed in the opinion that so important a trust as this should be coupled with some power for action; without this we are necessarily confined to suggestions only to the male boards, which suggestions receive only the attention they may consider proper. Believing that this board, as now empowered, can have no efficiency except where its suggestions or criticisms meet the entire approval of the male boards, and failing to see any good which can result from our inspections under such conditions, or any honor to the board thus examining, I respectfully tender my resignation.

SARAH E. H. DOYLE,

_Providence, R. I._

Three more ladies of the Women's Board of Visitors to the Penal and Correctional Inst.i.tutions of the State attest the correctness of the repeated suggestions that the board, as organized under the existing laws, must be comparatively powerless for good. The question now comes, will the Rhode Island General a.s.sembly enact a law which shall give to women certain definite duties and responsibilities in connection with the care and correction of female offenders? We propose to refer to this matter further. We are requested to publish the following communications to his excellency, the governor:

_To Henry Lippitt, Governor of Rhode Island:_

My appointment on the Women's Board of Visitors to the Penal and Correctional Inst.i.tutions of the State, which I received from your hands for this year, I am now compelled respectfully to resign. My experience in this board for nearly six years has convinced me that this office, which confers on its holders no power to decide that any improvement shall be made in the government or workings of these inst.i.tutions, is so nearly useless that I am forced to the conclusion that, for myself, the time spent in the performance of its duties can be more effectively employed elsewhere. That the influence of women is indispensable to the proper management of these inst.i.tutions I was never more sure than I am at this moment; but to make it effectual, that influence must be obtained by placing women on the boards of direct control, where their judgment shall be expressed by argument and by vote.

A board of women, whose only duties, as defined by the law, are to visit the penal and correctional inst.i.tutions, elect its own officers and report annually to the legislature, bears within itself the elements of weakness and insufficiency. And if the annual reports contain any exposure of abuses, they are sure to give offense to the managers, to be followed by timidity and vacillation in the board of women itself. Our late report, written with great care and conscientious adherence to the truth, which called the attention of the legislature to certain abuses in one of our inst.i.tutions, and to some defect in the systems established in the others, has, thus far, elicited no official action, has brought censure upon us from the press, while great dissatisfaction has been created in our own body by the failure of a portion of its members to sustain the allegations to which the entire board, with the exception of one absentee, had affixed their names.

When the State of Rhode Island shall call its best women to an equal partic.i.p.ation with men in the direction of its penal and reformatory inst.i.tutions, I have no doubt they will gladly a.s.sume the duties and responsibilities of such positions; and I am also sure that the beneficent results of such cooperation will soon be manifest, both in benefit to individuals and in safety to the State. But under present circ.u.mstances I most respectfully decline to serve any longer on the advisory board of women.

_Valley Falls, R. I._ ELIZABETH B. CHACE.

GOVERNOR LIPPITT: _Dear Sir_: When I accepted an appointment on the Ladies' Board of Visitors to the Penal and Correctional Inst.i.tutions of the State, I did so with the hope that much good might be accomplished, especially toward the young girls at the reform school, in whose welfare I felt a deep interest. To that inst.i.tution my attention has been chiefly devoted during my brief experience in this office. This experience, however, has convinced me that a board of officers const.i.tuted and limited like this can have very little influence toward improvement in an inst.i.tution whose methods are fixed, and which is under the exclusive control of another set of officers, who see no necessity for change. Those causes render this women's board so weak in itself that I cannot consent to retain my position therein.

I therefore respectfully tender to you my resignation.

ABBY D. WEAVER.

_Providence, R. I._

GOVERNOR LIPPITT: Please accept the resignation of my commission as a member of the Ladies' Board of Visitors to the Penal and Correctional Inst.i.tutions of the State, conferred by you in June, 1875.