Note 14 — Chapter V

Several of the speakers had weak, piping voices which did not reach beyond a few of the front seats and, after one of these had finished, Miss Anthony said: "Mrs. President, I move that hereafter the papers shall be given to some one to read who can be heard. It is an imposition on an audience to have to sit quietly through a long speech of which they can not hear a word. We do not stand up here to be seen, but to be heard." Then there was a protest. Mrs. Davis said she wished it understood that "ladies did not come there to screech; they came to behave like ladies and to speak like ladies." Miss Anthony held her ground, declaring that the question of being ladylike had nothing to do with it; the business of any one who read a paper was to be heard. Mr. May, always the peacemaker, said Miss Anthony was right; there was not a woman that had spoken in the convention who if she had been in her own home would not have adjusted her voice to the occasion. "If your boy were across the street you would not go to the door, put your head down and say in a little, weak voice, 'Jim, come home;' but you would fix your eye on him and shout, 'Jim, come home!' If the ladies, instead of looking down and talking to those on the front seats, would address their remarks to the farthermost persons in the house, all between would hear."