Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/698

Rh ized, and more than twenty-five thousand miles of toilsome travel enabled her to meet the national convention, in Detroit, Michigan, in October, 1883, to celebrate the completion of its first decade with rejoicing over the complete organization of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in each one of the forty-eight sub-divisions of the United States, Alaska not then included. In 1885 the national headquarters were removed from New York to Chicago and the White-Cross movement was adopted as a feature of the work of the national union. Because no other woman could be found to stand at the helm of this new movement, Miss Willard did so. No other movement of the work developed so rapidly. A great petition for the better legal protection of women and girls was presented to Congress with thousands of signatures. Mr. Powderly, chief of the Knights of Labor, through Miss Willard's influence, sent out ninety-two thousand petitions to local assemblies of the Knights to be signed, circulated and returned to her. Through the efforts of the temperance workers the same petition was circulated and presented for legislative action in nearly every state and territory.

The sacrifices which Miss Willard has so freely made for this work were repaid to her in abundant measure. She was called by Joseph Cook the most widely known and best-beloved woman in America, and the widespread influence of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in England, Canada and America is an imperishable monument to her place among the great of the world. The end of the career of Francis Willard, so far as her earthly life was concerned, was as truly religious as the great days of her power. As she lay upon her last bed of sickness after a hard day, she suddenly gazed intently on a picture of the Christ directly opposite her bed. Her eyes seemed to meet those