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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.^[1] 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

1. Part of Call: In our own country the advocates of our cause know no discouragement or disappointment. The seed planted by the pioneers of the woman's rights movement is continuously bearing fruit in the educational, industrial and social opportunities for the women of today; these in turn presage the full harvest political enfranchisement. Under the stimulus of an educated intelligence and awakened self-respect women daily grow more unwilling that their opinions in government, the fundamental source of civilization, should continue to be uncounted with those of the defective and criminal classes of men. In the industrial world organized labor is recognizing in the underpaid services of women an enemy to economic prosperity and is making common cause with woman's demand for the ballot with which to protect her right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, avowed to be inalienably hers by the Declaration of Independence. Time, agitation, education and organization cannot fail to ripen these many influences into a general belief in true democratic government of the people, without distinctions in regard to sex.
    

   Susan B. Anthony,	Honorary President.
   Carrie Chapman Catt,	President.
   Anna Howard Shaw,	Vice President.
   Kate M. Gordon,	Corresponding Secretary.
   Alice Stone Blackwell,	Recording Secretary.
   Harriet Taylor Upton,	Treasurer,
   Laura Clay,	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$ Auditors
   Mary J Coggeshall,

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