Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/267

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NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1908
235

and mother together rule, so shall we have the better city, the better State, when men and women together counsel, together rule. No mother fulfills her whole mother duty in the sight of God who is not willing to do her service, to take her share of direct responsibility for the good of the whole. She can not fully care for her own without some care for all the children of the community. Her own, however guarded, are menaced so long as the least of these is exposed to pestilence or is robbed of his birthright of fresh air and sunshine.

The hard struggle and toil of our honored pioneers was for Woman's Rights. We of the coming day must take up the cry of Woman's Duty. We live in the new age; new obligations are laid upon us. We must labor until no woman in the land shall he content to say, "I am not willing to pay the price I owe for the comfort and safety of my life"; until every woman shall be ashamed not to demand equal duties and equal responsibilities for the common weal; until none can be found of whom it can with truth be said, "They do not want to vote."

Miss Gregg discussed The Real Enemy, and, while endorsing all that had been said; asserted that "this enemy is among our own sex." "It is not the anti-suffragist," she said, "she is our unwilling ally, for when there is danger that we might fall asleep she arouses us by buzzing about our ears with her misrepresentations. It is not the indifferent suffragist, she can be galvanized into life. Our real enemy is the dead or dormant suffragist," and then she preached a stirring sermon on the necessity for hard, incessant, faithful work by all who were enlisted heart and soul in this cause.

Mrs. Upton, the treasurer, called attention to the mistaken idea conveyed through the newspapers that the association had unlimited funds. The report that it intended to raise $100,000 had been made to read that it had raised it, and the Garrett-Thomas fund of $12,000 a year had caused many to cease their subscriptions.[1] The new opportunities for effective work caused larger demands for money than ever before and the year 1907 had been the most anxious the board had known. The expenditures had been larger than the receipts and most of the balance that was in the treasury had been used. Even this strong state-

  1. This fund had been raised primarily to pay salaries to officers who now had to devote their whole time to the increased work of the association and who had hitherto for the most part given their service gratuitously. Dr. Shaw received $3,500; the secretary $1,000, the treasurer $1,000. This left $6,500 for other purposes each year.