Volume 15 , Issue 15

One Hundred Years Ago - 15 April 1913

One hundred years ago today The Washington herald, dated Tuesday, 15 April 1913, page two, the headlines read: "Nominating Speeches of DAR Tonight Will Bring Climax Nearer."

President Wilson, at whose advent the delegates stood and applauded while the Marine Band orchestra played the National Anthem, was introduced by Mrs. Scott. He said in part:

Remarks of President

"we Established an independent nation in order that men might enjoy a new kind of happiness and a new kind of dignity; that kind which a man has when he respects every other man and woman's individuality as he repeats his own; where he is not willing to draw distinctions between classes; where he is not willing to shut the door of privilege in the face of any one. The dignity of your organization is measured by the dignity of the traditions which you are organized to maintain. Therefore, the American Revolution is worth remembering, because it is one of the few struggles int he history of the world which was entirely devoted to the establishment of human liberty.

"We cut links with the past in that struggle which we hope will never be forged again. We cut the links that bound us to every system of privilege that had existed, and anybody who stands for privilege of any exclusive sort forfeits at the title of Americanism. It is a stern doctrine, it is a doctrine at which some people wince, particularly those who think that the distinction will be drawn in their favor.

"But it is the only standard of gentility in America, that all men and women are equally genteel who are equally devoted to the interests of mankind. This is our only patent of nobility. This is the particular standard of nobility which I understand associations like this to be organized to maintain.

It is, therefore, as if I welcomed you to the place where you belong, that an organization that stands for the principles upon which the nation was based should be welcomed to the Capital of the United States."

Mrs. Scott's Address

Mrs. Scott's address gave a broad review the work of the society for the four years during which she had been president general, and also dwelt at length upon the topics now claiming the attention of women. Mrs. Scott said, in discussing woman's work, "I look with indifference upon the demand for votes for women. I make no attempt to prophesy as to what our obligations and prerogatives may or may not be a century hence, but as I see it and feel it, the duty and privilege of this generation of women is, not to scatter their interest and attention upon the thousand and one political and social questions that are being pressed for solution by all sorts and conditions of Politicians, but to concentrate upon those vital complicated and delicate problems and issues with which they have, in the very nature of things, a special competence, and in which they are naturally and inevitably deeply concerned.

"Truly as Thackeray has said, 'Women are like the beasts of the field, they do not know their own power." The cry of them for the ballot for opportunity, for honors and officers, is the most extraordinary social fact of our times. It indicates a blindness as to the real status of affairs that the student of mob psychology would do well to ponder over.

"It reveals a lack of that intuitive and practical insight into reality which has been one of the crowning glories of our sex for ages."

Mrs. Scott expressed her gratitude to the national officers, the national board of management, to the chairman and members of national committee, State regents and State officers. Mrs. Scott spoke of Society's growth, "We have lifted our organization to the higher planes of large public ends. We have increased our membership 28,188 within the four years.

The DAR congress had by time completed the marble monument to stand in the nation's eye for all time.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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