president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, in the chair. Dr. Anna Howard
Shaw, who was an ordained Methodist minister, pronounced the
invocation and the community singing at this and all sessions was led
by Mrs. W.D. Steele of St. Louis.[116] The Mayor, Henry W. Kiel,
extended a cordial welcome to the city and pledged his earnest support
of woman suffrage. Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, president of the Missouri
suffrage association, gave the welcome from the State. Mrs. B.
Morrison Fuller, president of the Daughters of Pioneers, brought their
greeting and referred to a convention held in St. Louis in 1872,
introducing three ladies who were present at that time.

Dr. Shaw, honorary president, took the chair and presented Mrs. Catt.
Her address, The Nation Calls, was a strong appeal for an organization
of Women Voters to be formed in the States where they were
enfranchised. The plan was outlined and she asked: "Shall the women
voters go forward doing their work as free women in the great world
while the non-free women are left to struggle on alone toward liberty
unattained?" She showed how powerful an influence such a coordinated
body could wield and among its primary objects she pointed out the
Federal Suffrage Amendment, corrections in the present laws and true
democracy for the world. She named nine vital needs of the Government
at the present time, to which the proposed organization could
contribute--compulsory education, English the national language,
education of adults, higher qualifications for citizenship, direct
citizenship for women and not through marriage, compulsory lessons in
citizenship through foreign language papers, oath of allegiance as
qualification for citizenship, schools of citizenship in every city
ward and rural district and an educational requirement for voting.

This comprehensive and convincing address is given in part in the
chapter on The League of Women Voters, by Mrs. Nettie Rogers Shuler,
corresponding secretary. It showed beyond question the great work that
awaited the action of women endowed with political power and it swept
away all doubts of the necessity for this new organization to which
Mrs. Catt and her committee had given so much time and thought.
Throughout the convention the League was the dominating feature,
meetings being held daily to discuss its organization, constitution,
objects, methods, officers, etc.

At the close of Mrs. Catt's address Mrs. Guilford Dudley of Tennessee,
wit