The address of M. J. Sanders, president of the Progressive Union, was enthusiastically received as representing the best thought of advanced Southern men. He said in beginning: "I believe my own state of mind on the woman suffrage question when I attended your first public meeting last Thursday evening represented fairly the average male opinion in this city--one of moderate ignorance and considerable indifference. Since listening to the addresses here I have had my ignorance largely dispelled and my indifference dissipated, I hope forever. It has been my lot to attend meetings all over the country but never in my life have I heard such eloquence, such logic and such glorious oratory as in this hall during this convention. A cause that can bring forth such talent and devotion must have in it a great truth.... I have come now to see that the franchise is not an end but a means to an end; that the object of these women is not merely to escape injustice done to themselves but to be able to take part in the great work of reform which is calling for the best energies of the nation. I have seen sufficient of the women who are working in this fight for suffrage to believe that hand-in-hand with earnest men, as co-workers and equals, in no way subordinate, they can furnish brains and power to remove a vast load of the iniquities and inequalities of life and even in our generation lift this country to a plane of civilization wherein the masses shall have a chance for happiness and freedom." In explaining the absence of Dr. Julia Holmes Smith of Chicago Dr. Shaw said: "She is detained because of illness of her husband and like a good wife she puts him first and the convention second." Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (N. Y.) spoke on the Duties of Today, outlining her address by saying: "The strongest feeling of most women is the sense of duty. The reason they do not see the practicability and immediate need of suffrage is because they do not see the duty of it. There is a gradual development of the sense of duty. The first duty that we recognize is that of self-preservation--our duty to ourselves. Then comes duty to our own, to our family, to those dear to us, before which duty to self must and does go down unfailingly. These two duties to one's self and to one's family are the foundation but they are the beginning of life, not the end of it. Next comes social duty.... In America we rank high in personal and family virtues but not in public virtues. Our great need is for the deep and broad civic virtues...."