For the first time in the history of our association we meet to protest against the disenfranchisement of women in a State in which the first public demand for a part in the conduct of our government was made by a woman. It was in an impassioned appeal to your Assembly, that in 1647 Mistress Margaret Brent demanded "a part and voyce" as representative of the estate of her kinsman, Lord Baltimore, whose name your city bears. Here Mary Catherine Goddard published Baltimore's only newspaper through all the severe struggle of the Revolutionary War, and it is stated upon good authority that when Congress, then in session in Baltimore, sent out the official Declaration of Independence, with the names of the signers attached, it was published by official order in Miss Goddard's paper; that her name was on the sheet which was officially circulated throughout the country; but, although a memorial sheet was afterwards placed in the Court House, Miss Goddard's name was not left on it. This omission is but one of many evidences that in the compilation of the world's historic events it has been customary to overlook the part performed by women. Dr. Shaw took up the section on Labor in President Roosevelt's recent message to Congress in which he recommended a thorough investigation of the condition of women in industry, saying: "There is an almost complete dearth of data on which to base any trustworthy conclusions," and then drawing this one: "The introduction of women into industry is working change and disturbance in the domestic and social life of the nation; the decrease in marriage and especially in the birth-rate have been coincident with it." Dr. Shaw's comment was in part: This is unquestionably true but it is also true that this has been coincident with the wider discovery of gold and the application of steam and electricity to mechanics ... and to draw sweeping and universal conclusions in regard to a matter upon which there is an "almost complete dearth of data" is never wise. Is it true that there is a lower birth-rate among working women than among those of the wealthy class? Are not the effects of over-work and long hours in the household as great as are those of the factory or the office? Is the birth-rate less among women who are engaged in the occupations unknown to women of the past? Or is the decline alike marked among those who are pursuing the ancient occupations but under different conditions?... If conditions surrounding their employment are such as to make it a "social question of the first importance" it is unfortunate the President had not seen that women should constitute at least a part of any commission authorized to investigate it.