During my stay in Lincoln there was a celebration of the opening of some railroad.  An immense crowd from miles about assembled on this occasion.  The collation was spread and speeches were made in the open air.  The men congratulated each other on the wonderful progress the State had made since it became an organized Territory in 1854.  There was not the slightest reference, at first, to the women.  One speaker said:  “This State was settled by three brothers, John, James, and Joseph, and from them have sprung the great concourse of people that greet us here to-day.”  I turned, and asked the Governor if all these people had sprung, Minerva-like, from the brains of John, James, and Joseph.  He urged me to put that question to the speaker; so, in one of his eloquent pauses, I propounded the query, which was greeted with loud and prolonged cheers, to the evident satisfaction of the women present.  The next speaker took good care to give the due meed of praise to Ann, Jane, and Mary, and to every mention of the mothers of Nebraska the crowd heartily responded.

In toasting “the women of Nebraska,” at the collation, I said:  “Here’s to the mothers, who came hither by long, tedious journeys, closely packed with restless children in emigrant wagons, cooking the meals by day, and nursing the babies by night, while the men slept.  Leaving comfortable homes in the East, they endured all the hardships of pioneer life, suffered, with the men, the attacks of the Dakota Indians and the constant apprehension of savage raids, of prairie fires, and the devastating locusts.  Man’s trials, his fears, his losses, all fell on woman with double force; yet history is silent concerning the part woman performed in the frontier life of the early settlers.  Men make no mention of her heroism and divine patience; they take no thought of the mental or physical agonies women endure in the perils of maternity, ofttimes without nurse or physician in the supreme hour of their need, going, as every mother does, to the very gates of death in giving life to an immortal being!”

Traveling all over these Western States in the early days, seeing the privations women suffered, and listening to the tales of sorrow at the fireside, I wondered that men could ever forget the debt of gratitude they owed to their mothers, or fail to commemorate their part in the growth of a great people.  Yet the men of Nebraska have twice defeated the woman suffrage amendment.

In 1874 Michigan was the point of interest to all those who had taken part in the woman-suffrage movement.  The legislature, by a very large majority, submitted to a vote of the electors an amendment of the Constitution, in favor of striking out the word “male” and thus securing civil and political rights to the women of the State.  It was a very active campaign.  Crowded meetings were held in all the chief towns and cities.  Professor Moses Coit Tyler, and a large number of ministers preached, every Sunday, on the