t, rise up today and
call you blessed.

In those far-off days when our mothers' mothers sat contented in
the darkness, you, our champion, sprang forth to battle for us,
equipped and shining, inspired by a prophetic vision of the
future like that of the apostles and martyrs, and the heat of
your battle has lasted more than fifty years. Two generations of
men lie between the time when, in the early fifties, you and Mrs.
Stanton sat together in New York State, writing over the cradles
of her babies those trumpet calls to freedom that began and
carried forward the emancipation of women--and the day eighteen
months ago when that great audience in Berlin rose to do you
honor, thousands of women from every country in the civilized
world, silent, with full eyes and lumps in their throats, because
of what they owed to you. Of such as you were the lines of the
poet Yeats written:

"They shall be remembered forever,
They shall be alive forever,
They shall be speaking forever,
The people shall hear them forever."

Miss Anthony was profoundly moved. This wonderful scene--the
magnificent audience in one of the oldest and most conservative of
cities; this group of the most distinguished women educators; the
president of one of the leading universities of the world in the
chair; the large number of college women in the audience, free,
independent, equipped for life's highest work--represented the
culmination of what she had striven for during half a century. Her
Biography gives this account: "After the applause had ended there was
a moment of intense silence and then, as Miss Anthony came forward,
the entire audience rose and greeted her with waving handkerchiefs,
while tears rolled down the cheeks of many who felt that she would
never be present at another convention. 'If any proof were needed of
the progress of the cause for which I have worked,' she said, in
clear, even tones, distinctly heard by all, 'it is here tonight. The
presence on the stage of these college women, and in the audience of
all those college girls who will some day be the nation's greatest
strength, will tell their own story to the world. They give the
highest joy and encouragement to me. I am not going to make a long
speech but only to say thank you and good night.' It was all she had
the strength to say but she never would publicly confess it."

Int