after day, month after month, have made them fit
mates and comrades of the men in the trenches and on the sea. And not
the men here in Washington only. They have but directed the vast
achievement. Throughout innumerable factories, upon innumerable farms,
in the depths of coal mines and iron mines and copper mines, wherever
the stuffs of industry were to be obtained and prepared, in the
shipyards, on the railways, at the docks, on the sea, in every labor
that was needed to sustain the battle lines men have vied with each
other to do their part and do it well. They can look any man-at-arms in
the face, and say, we also strove to win and gave the best that was in
us to make our fleets and armies sure of their triumph!

"And what shall we say of the women--of their instant intelligence,
quickening every task that they touched; their capacity for organization
and co-operation, which gave their action discipline and enhanced the
effectiveness of everything they attempted; their aptitude at tasks to
which they had never before set their hands; their utter
self-sacrificing alike in what they did and in what they gave? Their
contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a
new luster to the annals of American womanhood.

"The least tribute we can pay them is to make them the equals of men in
political rights as they have proved themselves their equals in every
field of practical work they have entered, whether for themselves or for
their country. These great days of completed achievement would be sadly
marred were we to omit that act of justice. Besides the immense
practical services they have rendered, the women of the country have
been the moving spirits in the systematic economies by which our people
have voluntarily assisted to supply the suffering peoples of the world
and the armies upon every front with food and everything else that we
had that might serve the common cause. The details of such a story can
never be fully written, but we carry them at our hearts and thank God
that we can say we are the kinsmen of such.

"And now we are sure of the great triumph for which every sacrifice was
made. It has come, come in its completeness, and with the pride and
inspiration of these days of achievement quick within us we turn to the
tasks of peace again--a peace secure against the violence of
irresponsible monarchs and ambitious military coteries and made ready
for a new order, for new foundations of jus