[20] A Washington paper said: "There were a good many men in the audience and they did not look much as they do in the comic papers. The suffragists' husbands in caricature are consumptive, cadaverous, insignificant mortals, trailing around in the wake of rambunctious and overwhelming wives; but most of the men who mixed themselves up with this convention looked as if they could not very easily have been dragged there if they had not wanted to come. Some of them were six feet tall and broad in proportion and none of them looked as if they had been in the habit of asking their wives for permission to think. They did not act like cats in a strange garret either but as if they were having the time of their lives. No wonder; when a man does make up his mind to come out for woman suffrage he can depend upon it he is going to be appreciated." [21] Besides the women ministers mentioned in this chapter sessions were opened by the Rev. Ulysses G. B. Pierce, the Rev. John Van Schaick, Jr., the Rev. Alexander Kent and the Rev. Donald C. McLeod, all of Washington. The excellent musical program was in charge of Miss Etta Maddox of Baltimore. She was a graduated lawyer but the courts of Maryland had refused her permission to practice, as contrary to law. After the convention she was accompanied to Baltimore by Miss Laura Clay, Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, an attorney of Iowa; Miss Gail Laughlin, a New York lawyer; Dr. Cora Smith Eaton and Mr. Blackwell. The Judiciary Committee of the State Senate granted a hearing conducted by Miss Maddox. By the end of March both Senate and House had passed a bill giving women the right to practice law. [22] Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Upton and Miss Blackwell were made a committee to present the matter to President Roosevelt. Protests arose from all parts of the country and before they had time to call on him he declared himself opposed to "regulated vice." The dispatches of March 22 announced that a general order signed by Secretary Root had gone from the War Department to Manila that no more "certificates" would be issued but that soldiers as well as women would be inspected and cases of disease would be sent to the hospital. CHAPTER III. THE NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1903. In 1903 the National American Suffrage Association for the second time took its annual convention to a southern State and held it in New Orleans, March 15-25, in Athenaeum Hall.[23] The _Woman's Journal_ said: "To the northern delegates there was something almost magical in the sudden change from snowdrifts and nipping winds to balmy air and a temperature like June. The delicious climate of Louisiana in spring has not been exaggerated and it seems wonderful to find roses in bloom in March, the wistaria vines in a cloud of purple blossom and the grass an emerald green.... The delegates were enthusiastic over the quaint houses surrounded by palms, bananas and great live oaks, a pleasing novelty to most of them."