Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/277

 evitable result of progress and enlightenment." He presented Dr. Shaw with a gavel made of wood from the four suffrage States bound together with a band of Idaho silver and expressed the hope that when she used it to open the convention in Seattle the sound would be like "the shot heard round the world."

The account in the Woman's Journal said: "Dr. Shaw, in returning thanks, said: 'It is an apt simile, for the blow will be struck on the Pacific Coast and it needs to be heard to the Atlantic and not only from the west to the east but from the north to the south. I hope it will be answered by men who, having known themselves what freedom is, wish to give women the benefits of it also. The only man who can be in any way excused for wanting to withhold freedom from women is the man who is himself a slave.' She recalled the times when the suffragists were offered not banquets but abuse and compared them to the pioneer days of clearing the forest. She closed with a beautiful tribute to the pioneer mothers and called upon the men to pay their debt to them next November."

Mrs. Villard, recalling here also her visit of more than a quarter of a century before, said in part: "Never could I have believed that such changes could have been wrought since that historic train. Then there was nothing at Spokane but Indians and cowboys and the beautiful Falls. I am glad you want women to share the full life of the city. 'The woman's cause is man's.' This movement is as wide as the world and will benefit men as well as women. I have come on this trip largely because I like to connect my husband's name not merely with the building of a great railroad but also with the cause of justice to women in which he believed. I wish greater and greater prosperity to Spokane but with her material prosperity let her not forget the larger things which must go hand in hand with it if cities are not to perish from the earth."

Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway of Portland, Ore., the renowned suffrage pioneer of the northwest, was enthusiastically received and in the course of her interesting reminiscences said: "I remember when 'Old Oregon' comprised most of the Pacific Northwest. At that time I was living in a log cabin engaged in the very domestic occupation of raising a large family of small children.