Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/396

 It is not our business whether we are going to get it; our business is to make the demand. Suppose during these fifty years we had asked only for what we thought we could secure, where should we be now? Ask for the whole loaf and take what you can get.

Mrs. Mary L. Doe (Mich.), brought greetings from the American Federation of Labor. "Woman suffrage would find its most hopeful and fertile field among the labor organizations," she said; "the workingmen stood for weak and defenseless women even before they did for their own rights.'"? From Samuel Gompers, president of the Federation, she read the following letter:

The American Federation of Labor, at every convention where the subject has been brought up and discussed, has unfalteringly declared for equal legal, political and economic rights for women. At the convention held in Detroit, some thirteen years ago, a resolution to that effect was unanimously adopted. A petition to Congress for the submission of a constitutional amendment enfranchising women was circulated among our various unions, and within two months it received nearly 300,000 signatures and indorsements.

At the Kansas City convention last December, the question of woman's work was discussed, and the following declaration was unanimously adopted: "In view of the awful conditions under which woman is compelled to toil, this, the eighteenth annual convention of the American Federation of Labor, strongly urges the more general formation of trade unions of wage-working women, to the end that they may scientifically and permanently abolish the terrible evils accompanying their weakened, because unorganized state; and we emphatically reiterate the trade-union demand that women receive equal compensation for equal service performed."

You will see that there ought to be no question as to the attitude of the organized labor movement on this subject, notwithstanding the designing misrepresentations of enemies of our cause, who seek to place our movement in a false light. Let me say, too, that the declaration just quoted is not for compliment merely, for members of many of our organizations have been involved in long and sacrificing contests in order to secure to women equal pay for equal work, Please convey fraternal greetings to our friends who will meet at Grand Rapids.

When Mrs. Loraine Immen came forward with a greeting from the Michigan Elocutionists' Association, Miss Anthony spoke of the great change which had taken place in women's voices in the last twenty-five years. At an early Woman's Rights Convention, when she insisted that they should speak louder, one of them answered, "We are not here to screech; we are here to be ladies."