ARDENT FEMINIST

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21304, 25 March 1939, Page 11

ARDENT FEMINIST

EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY The 80th birthday of Mrs Carrie Chapman Catt, one of the most remarkable women in the history of the women's suffrage movement, was celebrated at a dinner party held recently in New York. Founder and honorary life president of the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, Mrs Catt has, for more than half a century, been in the front rank of the women’s movement, not only in the interests of suffrage for women, but in public life generally. At this dinnerparty, 500 women were present to do honour to their famous leader. Among them were Miss Frances Perkins, American Secretary of State for Labour, Miss Josephine Schain, chairman of the National Conference on the Cause and Cure of War, who is well known to Australians who have visited the headquarters of the Pan-Pacific Women's Movement at Honolulu; Miss Marguerite W. Wells, president of the National League of Women Voters, and Miss Rosa Manus, first vice-president of the alliance.

The only person permitted to make a speech was Miss Manus, who had come from Holland specially for this occasion, so that she might present the congratulations of hundreds of women in more than 22 countries. These messages were represented by visiting cards strung on a ribbon and representing literally "yards of greeting.” This staunch old lady gave a stirring address, bidding w< men carry on the struggle for equality. "It is a hard future,” she said. “but every

problem can be solved and some of them must be solved. For your own sake, face the future cheerfully; for your friends' sake, be optimistic; for your children's sake be confident; and for the sake of all things, be bravely unafraid.”