Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/551

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1917 517 of the Legislature; from Colorado, Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, State Superintendent of Public Instruction; from New Mexico, Mrs. V. E. Lindsay, wife of the Governor, and from Kansas, Mrs. Y. Y. Morgan, wife of the Lieutenant Governor. Fraternal delegates were present from four countries. The convention was opened Wednesday afternoon, December 12, with an invocation by the honorary president of the association, the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw. In her brief words of greeting Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the president, who was in the chair, declared her firm conviction that the American Congress would not allow this country to be outstripped in the race toward the enfranchisement of women while the countries of Europe were hastening to give woman suffrage as a part of that right to self-government for which the world is fighting today, and said: "For fifty years ve have been allaying fears, meeting objections, arguing, educat- ing, until today there remain no fears, no objections in connection with the question of woman suffrage that have not been met and answered. The New York campaign may be said to have closed the case. It carried the question forever out of the stage of argument and into the stage of final surrender. As the women of the country foregather for this convention nothing stands out more emphatically than the new stress that has been laid on suffrage as a political issue in the minds of women as in the minds of men. As such the Federal Amendment must now be dealt with by Congress." Mrs. Catt emphasized the necessity for active -war work and introduced Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw, vice-president of the New York Suffrage Association, who presented the "service flag" and -aid : "The National American Suffrage Association's service here unfurled a field of white with golden stars sur- rounded by a deep blue border shows thirteen stars for its first thirteen women serving at the front. These stars represent wo- men who have been connected with the association or one of its State affiliations in official or representative capacity. The total of suffragists in foreign service numbers thousands." l The 1 The names of the thirteen were given as follows: Miss Heloise Meyer of Massachu- setts, first auditor of the asrociation. arhrilulrd fnr ranfrm work in France. Mrs. J. Borden Harritnan, member of the ConRrcnnional Committee of the association, now on foreromentml assignment in Europe. Miss Irene C. Boyd, of the New York Suffrage