Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/116

 

The Thirty-sixth annual convention opened the afternoon of Feb. 11 1904, in National Rifles' Armory Hall, Washington, D. C., and closed the evening of the 17th. There was a good attendance of delegates from thirty States and the audiences were large and appreciative. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the president, was in the chair at the opening session. The delegates were welcomed by Mrs. Carrie E. Kent in behalf of the District Equal Suffrage Association and the response was made by Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, vice-president-at-large, who began by saying: "If the women here welcome us after we have been coming for thirty years it must be because we deserve it; the men welcome us because in the District they are in the same disfranchised condition as we are." A cordial letter of greeting was read from Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, whose headquarters were in Washington.

Greetings were received from Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller