ny disabilities of our sex, and our countrywomen
to higher self-respect and worthier ambition, and in this
struggle for justice we have deepened and broadened our own lives
and extended the horizon of our vision. Ridiculed, persecuted,
ostracised, we have learned to place a just estimate on popular
opinion, and to feel a just confidence in ourselves. As the
representatives of principles which it was necessary to explain
and defend, we have been compelled to study constitutions and
laws, and in thus seeking to redress the wrongs and vindicate the
rights of the many, we have secured a higher development for
ourselves. Nor is this all. The full fruition of these years of
seed-sowing shall yet be realized, though it may not be by those
who have led in the reform, for many of our number have already
fallen asleep. Another decade and not one of us may be here, but
we have smoothed the rough paths for those who come after us. The
lives of multitudes will be gladdened by the sacrifices we have
made, and the truths we have uttered can never die.

Standing near the gateway of the unknown land and looking back
through the vista of the past, memory recalls many duties in
life's varied relations we would had been better done. The past
to all of us is filled with regrets. We can recall, perchance,
social ambitions disappointed, fond hopes wrecked, ideals in
wealth, power, position, unattained--much that would be
considered success in life unrealized. But I think we should all
agree that the time, the thought, the energy we have devoted to
the freedom of our countrywomen, that the past, in so far as our
lives have represented this great movement, brings us only
unalloyed satisfaction. The rights already obtained, the full
promise of the rising generation of women more than repay us for
the hopes so long deferred, the rights yet denied, the
humiliation of spirit we still suffer.

And for those of you who have been mere spectators of the long,
hard battle we have fought, and are still fighting, I have a
word. Whatever your attitude has been, whether as cold,
indifferent observers--whether you have hurled at us the shafts
of ridicule or of denunciation, we ask you now to lay aside your
old educational prejudices and give this question your earnest
consid