the convention of its old-time crusading, consecrated spirit, but the younger ones were full of ardor and enthusiasm over the limitless opportunities that were nearly within their grasp.
On Sunday evening the national officers and directors held an informal reception in the Hotel Statler for the delegates and all the sessions were held in this hotel, with the two evening mass meetings in the Odeon Theater. The convention opened Monday evening, March 24, with the president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, in the chair. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, who was an ordained Methodist minister, pronounced the invocation and the community singing at this and all sessions was led by Mrs. W. D. Steele of St. Louis.[1] The Mayor, Henry W. Kiel, extended a cordial welcome to the city and pledged his earnest support of woman suffrage. Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, president of the Missouri suffrage association, gave the welcome from the State. Mrs. B. Morrison Fuller, president of the Daughters of Pioneers, brought their greeting and referred to a convention held in St. Louis in 1872, introducing three ladies who were present at that time.
Dr. Shaw, honorary president, took the chair and presented Mrs. Catt. Her address, The Nation Calls, was a strong appeal for an organization of Women Voters to be formed in the States where they were enfranchised. The plan was outlined and she asked: "Shall the women voters go forward doing their work as free women in the great world while the non-free women ire left to struggle on alone toward liberty unattained?" She showed how powerful an influence such a coordinated body could wield and among its primary objects she pointed out the Federal Suffrage Amendment, corrections in the present laws and true democracy for the world. She named nine vital needs of the Government at the present time, to which the proposed organization could contribute—compulsory education, English the national language, education of adults, higher qualifications for citizenship, direct citizenship for women and not through marriage, compulsory lessons in citizenship through foreign language
- ↑ Ministers who opened the different sessions with prayer were Mary J. Safford, of Iowa; Dr. Ivan Lee Holt, Rabbi Samuel Thurman, Dr. G. Nussman and the Rev. Father Russel J. Wilbur; at the meetings in the Odeon, Dr. J. W. McIvor and Dean Carrol is, all of St. Louis.
