In 1893 Madame Modjeska was one of four actresses[67] who addressed the Women’s Congress at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. Besides her appearance before the Congress as an actress, she was asked to speak on another occasion as a representative of Poland. The women who were expected from Poland evidently feared the Czar’s displeasure in case they spoke frankly concerning their country, and failed to appear in Chicago. But Modjeska spoke her mind freely concerning the grievances of the Poles. She was widely quoted in the papers, and news of her speech reached St. Petersburg. Playing two years later in Poland, she was about to act in Warsaw when word came from the Russian government forbidding her appearance. Plans were made for an engagement in St. Petersburg itself, but at the last moment, when large sums had already been spent in preparation, she was told that her appearance in the capital was forbidden. Shortly afterwards Modjeska and her husband were ordered to leave Warsaw, and an imperial decree was issued to the effect that they were never thereafter to enter any part of the Russian territory. Efforts were often made to obtain permission to go to Warsaw, but to the end of her life Modjeska was excluded from the Czar’s dominions.[68] In April, 1905, Madame Modjeska, then living in practical retirement in California, received a letter signed by a number of authors, fellow actors and artists in New York which acknowledged in affectionate terms their debt and gratitude for her career, and offered her a public testimonial in New York. This was the idea of Paderewski, who had visited her in California but a short time before and like many others was disturbed by the lack of public acclaim with which she was modestly sinking into retirement.[69] The great pianist, much to his distress, was prevented by an accident from being present, but the best known actors appearing in New York at the time lent their services. Modjeska herself played scenes from _Macbeth_ and _Mary Stuart_. Edmund Clarence Stedman presented to Madame Modjeska a memorial scroll bearing signatures of her many friends, actors, actresses, and her “attached votaries in other walks of life--all made associates,” Mr. Stedman said in addressing her, “by their delight in your genius and career. A quarter-century ago you came to us from a land invested with traditions of valor, beauty, and romance, from the brave and soulful country that flashed its sword in our behalf and that in our own times enthralls us with music,[70] and through you with impassioned tenderness and artistic power. The felicities of art are limitless, and, as in creations of our master playwright you found the most alluring range for your own powers, so your fresh impersonations woke in us the sense of ‘something rich and strange.’” Modjeska, with tears in her eyes and her voice breaking with emotion, briefly expressed her gratitude.