Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/635

meet was impregnable and the response would be ridicule and condemnation. It went to the rescue of every State campaign for half a century with such forces as it could command, even when realizing that there was no hope. In every corner it sowed the seeds of justice and trusted to time to bring the harvest. It has aided boys in high school with debates and later heard their votes of "yes" in Legislatures. Reporters assigned to our Washington conventions long, long ago, took their places at the press table on the first clay with contempt and ridicule in their hearts but went out the last clay won to our cause and later became editors of newspapers and spoke to thousands in our behalf. Girls came to our meetings, listened and accepted, and later as mature women became intrepid leaders. Tn all the years this association has never paid a national lobbyist, and. so far as I know, no State has paid a legislative lobbyist. During the fifty years it has rarely had a salaried officer and even if he has been paid less than her earning capacity elsewhere. It has been an army of volunteers who have estimated no sacrifice too great, no service too difficult.

Mrs. Catt enumerated some of the immortal pioneer suffragists and said: "How small seems the service of the rest of us by comparison, yet how glad and proud we have been to give it. Ours has been a cause to live for, a cause to die for if need be. It has been a movement with a soul, a dauntless, unconquerable soul ever leading onward. Women came, served and passed on hut others took their places.... How I pity the women who have had no share in the exaltation and the discipline of our army of workers! How I pity those who have not felt the grip of the oneness of women struggling, serving, suffering, sacrificing for the righteousness of woman's emancipation! Oh, women. Be glad today and let your voices ring I out the gladness your hearts! There will never come another day like this. joy he unconfined and lot it speak so clearly that its echo will be heard around the world and find its way into the soul of every woman of every race who is yearning for opportunity and liberty still denied...."

After this inspiring address the convention-was turned into jollification meeting for a considerable time until the delegates were tired out bv their enthusiasm and composed themselves to a telegram of greeting from President Woodrow Wilson addressed to Mrs. Catt: Permit me to congratulate your association upon the fact that its great work is so near its trium-