Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/130

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HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

ices in behalf of the Red Cross, such a collection, it was said, as no other woman possessed.;

The convention was largely in the nature of a Colorado jubilee, as its women ten years before had cast their first vote, having been enfranchised in the autumn of 1893. The program for two evenings was given up to men and women from that State under the heading, Colorado Speaks for Itself, and it was most appropriate that Miss Anthony should preside. In presenting her Mrs. Catt said: "This is Miss Anthony's 84th birthday. We might have had a program filled with tributes to her and no doubt you would all have enjoyed them but instead we have what she will like better, a program to show, not that woman suffrage would be a good thing but that it has been a good thing. When Miss Anthony was born no woman in America could vote; no woman in modern times had been a lawyer. Tonight our ushers are seven women graduates of the Washington Law School, in the cap and gown which used to be forbidden to women. But there is something else going on tonight that is a more noteworthy celebration of her birthday. A measure to grant suffrage to women is pending in Denmark with the backing of the government and the women of that country have arranged a great demonstration in favor of the bill and have fixed the date for today because it is the birthday of Susan B. Anthony. Opponents of woman suffrage pay almost their whole attention to Colorado, so we have asked Colorado to come and talk for itself and it has responded magnificently. All the speakers pay their own expenses and have come this long way for the pleasure of saying a word for woman suffrage."

The Washington "Post" commented, "Miss Anthony received an ovation and it was delightful to see the pride with which she introduced the speakers—a former Governor, a woman State Superintendent of Public Instruction, chairmen of women's political committees and clubs, a woman county superintendent." Mrs. Katharine Cook, president of the Jane Jefferson Club, a Democratic organization of over a thousand women, spoke on The Ideals We Cherish and strongly emphasized that politics did not impair true womanliness or lower high ideals. "A nation can be no more free or pure or beautiful than the homes of which it is composed," she said. "Our country is but a greater home and no