Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/580

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544
HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

year was adopted and letters of greeting were sent to the pioneers still living. A message of love and admiration was sent to Mrs. Catherine Breshkovsky, "the grandmother of the Russian Revolution." "Cordial and grateful appreciation for the inestimable service Of the press," was voted.

The program for the last evening was devoted to Women's War Service Abroad. Miss Helen Fraser, representing Great Britain, was here on a special mission from its Government to tell what its women were doing. 'The audience was deeply moved by her simple but thrilling recital of the unparalleled sacrifices of the women of Great Britain and its colonies. Madame Simon pictured in eloquent language how the war had strengthened the devotion of France to America, not only through the unequalled assistance of this Government in money and soldiers but also through the sympathy and help of the American women. Miss C. M. Bouimistrow, a member of the Russian Relief Council, spoke of the warm feeling of that country for the United States and the bond between them created by the war in which they had a common enemy. Mrs. Nellie McClung, a leader of the Canadian suffragists, described what the war had meant to the women of the Dominion, and, as the Woman Citizen said in its account, "kept her hearers wavering between laughter and tears as she hid her own emotion behind a veil of stoicism and humor." The convention ended with a mass meeting at the theater on— Sunday afternoon at three o'clock with a notable. audience such as can assemble only in Washington. Mrs. Catt presided. Mrs. McClung told enthusiastically the story of How Suffrage Came to the Women of Canada in 1916 and 1917, and Miss Fraser related how the work of women during the war had made it impossible for the British Government longer to deny them the franchise, that now only awaited the assent of the House of Lords, which was near at hand. It was always left to Dr. Shaw to finish the program. One who had attended many suffrage conventions said of her at this time: "As ever, Dr. Shaw's oratory was a marked feature of the week's proceedings. Sometimes she was the able advocate of loyalty to the country; sometimes she rose to heights of supplication for an applied democracy