In spite of this stirring cry from the heart, the audience seemed but mildly affected and allowed the President to depart with only perfunctory applause. There was no sign of success for his plea that the nation rouse itself from its lethargy and send its sons unselfishly in voluntary enlistment to drive the enemy from our shores. And there were resentful murmurs when the President warned his hearers that compulsory military service might be inevitable. “Why shall the poor give their lives to save the rich?” answered Charles Edward Russell, speaking for the socialists. “What have the rich ever done for the poor except to exploit them and oppress them? Why should the proletariat worry about the frontiers between nations? It’s only a question which tyrant has his heel on our necks. No! The labouring men of America ask you to settle for them and for their children the frontiers between poverty and riches. That’s what they’re ready to fight for, a fair division of the products of toil, and, by God, they’re going to have it!” One feature of the evening was a stirring address by the beautiful Countess of Warwick, prominent in the feminist movement, who had come over from England to speak for the Women’s World Peace Federation. “Women of America,” said the Countess, “I appeal to you to save this nation from further horrors of bloodshed. Rise up in the might of your love and your womanhood and end this wholesale murder. Remember the great war in Europe! What did it accomplish? Nothing except to fill millions of graves with brave sons and beloved husbands. Nothing except to darken millions of homes with sorrow. Nothing except to spread ruin and desolation everywhere. Are you going to allow this ghastly business to be repeated here? “Women of America, I bring you greetings from the women of England, the women of France, the women of Germany, who have joined this great pacifist movement and whose voices sounding by millions can no longer be stifled. Let the men hear and heed our cry. We say to them: ‘Stop! Our rights on this earth equal yours. We gave you birth, we fed you at the breast, we guarded your tender years, and we notify you now that you shall no longer kill and maim our husbands, our sons, our fathers, our brothers, our lovers. It is in the power of women to drive war’s hell from the earth and, whatever the cost, we are going to do it.’” “No! No!” came a tumult of cries from all parts of the hall. “We believe in fighting to the last for our national existence,” cried Mrs. John A. Logan, waving her hand, whereupon hundreds of women patriots, Daughters of the American Revolution, suffrage and anti-suffrage leaders, members of the Navy League, Red Cross workers, sprang to their feet and screamed their enthusiasm for righteous war.