SENATE RESOLUTION

                         1999-8631

By Senators Kohl‑Welles, Rasmussen and Fraser

     WHEREAS, Monday, February 15, 1999, marks the one hundred seventy-ninth anniversary of the birth of Susan Brownell Anthony, reformer and leader of women's suffrage; and

     WHEREAS, Susan B. Anthony defied male electioneers and faced indictment for illegally voting in 1872; and

     WHEREAS, Susan B. Anthony spoke on suffrage legislation before members of the Washington State Territorial Legislature in Olympia, Washington, on October 19, 1871, making her the first woman in the history of the United States to be given the privilege of addressing an assembled legislature; and

     WHEREAS, Following her presentation to the Washington Territorial Legislature, Susan B. Anthony was the guest of Daniel Bigelow, a state lawmaker who was one of the first to support women's suffrage in the Northwest, at what is now Olympia's historic Bigelow Home; and

     WHEREAS, Susan B. Anthony helped draft the constitution for the Washington Women's Suffrage Association; and

     WHEREAS, Susan B. Anthony was director of the Female Department of the Canajoharie Academy in New York until she abandoned her career in education to devote her life to social reform, first organizing the Women's State Temperance Society of New York; and

     WHEREAS, Susan B. Anthony, along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, founded in 1863, the Woman's Loyal National League to petition Congress to advocate full civil and political rights for women and blacks when the Civil War ended; and

     WHEREAS, In 1866, Susan B. Anthony and other reformers formed the Equal Rights Association to further their campaign for women's suffrage; and

     WHEREAS, The reformers took their suffrage campaign, in 1867, to the New York State Constitutional Convention, where the state legislature refused to consider the issue, but instead gave considerable support to legislation legalizing prostitution; and

     WHEREAS, Susan B. Anthony and her suffragettes fought back with lobbying efforts that killed the prostitution bill in committee, and furthermore, eventually secured the first laws in New York State guaranteeing women's rights over their children and control over property and wages; and

     WHEREAS, Susan B. Anthony, during the presidential campaign in 1872, urged women to claim their rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments by registering and voting in every state in the union; and

     WHEREAS, In a colorful display of her remarkable courage, Susan B. Anthony and her three sisters boldly entered a stronghold of men in a Rochester, New York, barbershop in 1872, and insisted that they be registered to vote under provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment; and

     WHEREAS, On November 5th, Susan B. Anthony entered her polling place and voted the Republican ticket after which she was charged and indicted for voting illegally; and

     WHEREAS, In another display of determination, Susan B. Anthony, refusing to pay her streetcar fare, as a deputy marshall was carting her off to jail, announced loudly enough for all passengers to hear, "I'm traveling at the expense of this government.  This gentleman is taking me to jail.  Ask him for my fare!";

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, That the Washington State Senate honor Susan B. Anthony and remember her for and emulate her in her dedication to social reform that led to the passage of the Women's Suffrage Amendment (Nineteenth Amendment) to the United States Constitution in 1920; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That Susan B. Anthony be remembered for her courage and determination to work for equal rights for all citizens of America as reflected in Anthony's quote, "It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens, but we the whole people, who formed this Union.  And we formed it not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them, not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people--women as well as men."