htieth birthday of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton has been chosen. Her half century of pioneer work
for the rights of women makes her name an inspiration for such an
occasion and her life a fitting object for the homage of all women.

"'This National Council is composed of twenty organizations; these and
all other societies interested are invited to co-operate in grateful
recognition of the debt the present generation owes to the pioneers of
the past. From their interest in the enfranchisement of women, the
influence of Mrs. Stanton and her coadjutor, Miss Anthony, has permeated
all departments of progress and made them a common center round which
all interested in woman's higher development may gather.'

"To this invitation came responses, from the Old World and the New,
expressing sympathy with the proposed celebration, which was intended to
emphasize a great principle by showing the loftiness of character that
had resulted from its embodiment in a unique personality. The world
naturally thinks of the personality before it thinks of the principle.
It has, at least, so much unconscious courtesy left as to honor a noble
woman, even when failing to rightly apprehend a noble cause. To afford
this feeling its proper expression, to render more tangible all vague
sympathy, to crystallize the growing sentiment in favor of human
freedom, to give youth the opportunity to reverence the glory of age, to
give hearts their utterances in word and song was perhaps the most
popular purpose of the reunion. In other words, it gave an opportunity
for those who revered Mrs. Stanton as a queen among women to show their
reverence, and to recognize the work her life had wrought, and to see in
it an epitome of the progress of a century.

"The celebration was also an illustration of the distinctive idea of the
National Council of Women, which aims to give recognition to all human
effort without demanding uniformity of opinion as a basis of
co-operation. It claims to act upon a unity of service, notwithstanding
differences of creed and methods. The things that separate, shrank back
into the shadows where they belong, and all hearts brave enough to
think, and tender enough to feel, found it easy to unite in homage to a
life which had known a half century of struggle to lift humanity from
bondage and womanhood from shame.

"This reunion was the first general recognition of the debt the present
owes to the past. It was the first effort to show the exte