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 day with contempt and
ridicule in their hearts but went out the last day 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.

In 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 so she 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 but 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 out the gladness in your
hearts! There will never come another day like this. Let joy be
unconfined and let 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 a
jollification meeting for a considerable time until the delegates were
tired out by their enthusiasm and composed themselves to receive 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 triumphant end and that you can now
merge it into a League of Women Voters to carry on the developme