Forty years ago women had no place anywhere except in their homes; no pecuniary independence, no purpose in life save that which came through marriage. From a condition, as many of you can remember, in which no woman thought of earning her bread by any other means than sewing, teaching, cooking or factory work, in these later years the way has been opened to every avenue of industry, to every profession, whereby woman to-day stands almost the peer of man in her opportunities for financial independence. What is true in the world of work is true in education, is true everywhere. Men have granted us, in the civil rights which we have been demanding, everything almost but the pivotal right, the one that underlies all other rights, the one with which citizens of this republic may protect themselves--the right to vote. I have the pleasure of introducing to you this morning the woman who not only joined with Lucretia Mott in calling the first convention, but who for the greater part of twenty years has been president of the National Suffrage Association--Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The entire audience arose with clapping of hands and waving of handkerchiefs to greet this leader, who had come from England to attend the Council. In the course of a long and dignified address of welcome, she said: Whether our feet are compressed in iron shoes, our faces hidden with veils and masks; whether yoked with cows to draw the plow through its furrows, or classed with idiots, lunatics and criminals in the laws and constitutions of the State, the principle is the same; for the humiliations of spirit are as real as the visible badges of servitude. A difference in government, religion, laws and social customs makes but little change in the relative status of woman to the self-constituted governing classes, so long as subordination in all countries is the rule of her being. Through suffering we have learned the open sesame to the hearts of each other. With the spirit forever in bondage, it is the same whether housed in golden cages with every want supplied, or wandering in the dreary deserts of life, friendless and forsaken. Long ago we of America heard the deep yearnings of the souls of women in foreign lands for freedom responsive to our own. Mary Wollstonecraft, Madame de Stael, Madam Roland, George Sand, Frederica Bremer, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Frances Wright and George Eliot alike have pictured the wrongs of woman in poetry and prose. Though divided by vast mountain ranges, oceans and plains, yet the psalms of our lives have been in the same strain--too long, alas, in the minor key--for hopes deferred have made the bravest hearts sometimes despairing. But the same great over-soul has been our faith and inspiration. The steps of