Hauser, a capable executive, that she would manage the details of the
office. The arrangement was to be temporary but it continued for six
years.

[26] Quotations are given from each of the opening prayers because
each of them endorsed woman suffrage.

[27] Mrs. Hussey left a bequest of $10,000 to the National American
Woman Suffrage Association.

[28] For appreciations of Mrs. Stanton see Appendix.

CHAPTER IV.

THE NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1904.

The Thirty-sixth annual convention opened the afternoon of Feb. 11,
1904, in National Rifles' Armory Hall, Washington, D. C., and closed
the evening of the 17th.[29] There was a good attendance of delegates
from thirty States and the audiences were large and appreciative. Mrs.
Carrie Chapman Catt, the president, was in the chair at the opening
session. The delegates were welcomed by Mrs. Carrie E. Kent in behalf
of the District Equal Suffrage Association and the response was made
by Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, vice-president-at-large, who began by saying:
"If the women here welcome us after we have been coming for thirty
years it must be because we deserve it; the men welcome us because in
the District they are in the same disfranchised condition as we are."
A cordial letter of greeting was read from Samuel Gompers, president
of the American Federation of Labor, whose headquarters were in
Washington.

Greetings were received from Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller of London,
whose letter commenced: "Beloved Friends: As president of the British
National Committee of the International Woman Suffrage Committee, I
write to send you greetings from English, Scotch, Irish and Welsh
fellow-workers in the woman's cause. It seems but a short time since
the convention of 1902, which I attended as the delegate appointed by
the British United Women's Suffrage Societies and also of the Scottish
National Society. The admiration and affection that the ability, the
earnestness and sincerity, the sisterliness and the sweetness of
temper and manners of the American suffragists then aroused in me, are
unabated at this moment." She told of the progress that had been made
by the various societies toward uniting in an International Woman
Suffrage Alliance, gave a glowing forecast of the ultimate triumph of
their common cause and ended: "With admiring and abiding love for
America's grand women, the suffrage leaders." The convention sent an
official answer. Mrs. Mary Bentley Thomas (Md.