The astonishing thing about the movement which you represent is, not
that it has grown so slowly, but that it has grown so rapidly. No doubt
for those who have been a long time in the struggle, like your honored
president, it seems a long and arduous path that has been trodden, but
when you think of the cumulating force of this movement in recent
decades, you must agree with me that it is one of the most astonishing
tides in modern history. Two generations ago, no doubt Madam President
will agree with me in saying, it was a handful of women who were
fighting this cause. Now it is a great multitude of women who are
fighting it.
And there are some interesting historical connections which I would like
to attempt to point out to you. One of the most striking facts about the
history of the United States is that at the outset it was a lawyers'
history. Almost all of the questions to which America addressed itself,
say a hundred years ago, were legal questions, were questions of
method, not questions of what you were going to do with your Government,
but questions of how you were going to constitute your Government,--how
you were going to balance the powers of the States and the Federal
Government, how you were going to balance the claims of property against
the processes of liberty, how you were going to make your governments up
so as to balance the parts against each other so that the legislature
would check the executive, and the executive the legislature, and the
courts both of them put together.
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