The candidates were presented to the platform and introduced to the Convention by the National President.

Business was then suspended on motion, and General Clarkson, Past Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic and General Winans, his Chief of Staff, and Commander-in-Chief Gobin were admitted and escorted to the platform.

National President: Ladies, I am delighted to present to you General Clarkson, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army and General Gobin, who is to be. [General Clarkson then informed her that General Gobin had already been elected and had been installed Commander-in-Chief.] I have the very great pleasure of introducing to you General Gobin, who is Commander-in-Chief, and General Clarkson, who is Past Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, and General Winans, Past Chief-ofStaff. Ladies, salute.

General Gobin: I must confess that I have addressed many different kinds of assemblies in my time, but I don't know that I ever addressed one composed entirely of ladies before. Therefore, if I call Mr. for Mrs. you will excuse me, and attribute it to my want of experience. However, I believe that I am in the National Convention of the Woman's Relief Corps, and representing the Grand Army for the time being, with my honors so new that I scarcely know how to wear them. I come to congratulate you upon the cordial relation which exists between the Grand Army and this organization — and it could not well be otherwise; where in the Grand Army of the Republic all men are manly, and in the Woman's Relief Corps they are all young and handsome and such good business people. And let me say, ladies, that there is nothing in the management of this organization with which the old soldier is connected which so thoroughly demands your attention and might as business matters. I was wondering some time ago whether there were, in any of the hamlets and towns which you represent, some old fellows who were kept out of the Grand Army Posts because they had not the money to pay their dues; and if there are will you look after them? We want to get them all in. We want to have them all come to the Posts. We want them to come regularly. When we find out down among the Pennsylvania Dutch, where I belong, that there is any old fellow who cannot pay his dues, we pay them for him. But if the great army of the Woman's Relief Corps were engaged in any

have my

thing of that kind, they would find out and bring back to our Post room many a worthy fellow who ought to be there, and there learn the lessons which they ought to know. I did not come to make a speech, but what I want to say to you now is that you best wishes for your success. I don't know whether you have held your election or not. If you have not, fight over it all you can, for it is the one little pleasure you have in life. I never knew anything worth having unless you had a row about it. It sweetens the success to know that you got there through trials and tribulations.

National President:

Let me present to you the one who will

work with you [presenting Mrs. Martin].

Commander-in-Chief Gobin: Madam, I congratulate you. You look well considering what you have been through. If between us we cannot get these people to work, we will turn it over to someone who can.

Mrs. Wittenmyer: I only want to say that he will find before the year is out that the Woman's Relief Corps is a greater help than he ever imagined a lot of women could be.

National President: Ladies, it is not necessary to introduce General Clarkson to you, for you know how nobly he has stood by our Order. I can say to you, ladies, that I have heard him speak in favor of the Woman's Relief Corps in the face of the enemy. I have heard him speak brave words of commendation of the noble deeds of the women of the Woman's Relief Corps. I want to thank you for all that you have done, General Clarkson, and say to you that I believe that your administration as Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic has been an incentive to the Woman's Relief Corps such as it has seldom or never had. I thank you, and I can say that the pledge has been fulfilled which I gave you one year ago, that one hundred and forty thousand women would be truly loyal to the Grand Army of the Republic.

General Clarkson: Mrs. President, you do me great honor. It does not seem to me that any one ought to be specially commended in this world for doing his or her duty. We have seen the direction in which our duties lay, and we have tried hard, both of us, this year to keep in line. We have come as close to the line as we could. We have done our best; nobody could do more. The year has been a delightful one to me. The associa

General Gobin says

tions which I have had with these great bodies of women all over the country has sustained me beyond measure. My successor and friend, General Gobin, asks that he be excused in case that he makes a mistake before a convention of women, because he is not in the habit of attending them. He don't hanker after them as much as I do, or he would have been there before. And he will find that he will miss a great deal, more than half the pleasures of his year, if he misses the meetings of the Woman's Relief Corps in his travels, for they are an inspiration everywhere all over the country. I have seen their Department Conventions in the largest halls in the towns, and I have seen them sitting almost on each other's laps, because there was not room in the building for them. Everywhere that I have been there was that marked enthusiasm among those great women that simply paralyzed me. It was an inspiration to me. It has done me a world of good. that he hopes these women will get these old fellows back into the ranks. Do you know that there are thousands of the old veterans all over this country whose dues are quietly paid by these women? Lots of our boys would have gone except for the sustaining power of these splendid women. The one suggestion that I believe that we could make would be, that the Corps of this organization go back and arrange with the Posts that they have joint meetings; for wherever they have had them they have been of great benefit to both organizations, where there is a Post and a Corps, a joint meeting of the two every month or so, where they could have a good time. I have laid down my insignia of office. I have turned over my badge to a better man, who will carry out the work of this organization better, I hope, than I did; but I want to say just one word more before I leave you. I am what our good friend, Kate Sherwood, calls a faded flower. Kate and I were having a little confab last spring in Toledo, and she spoke of herself and some others of the retired officers of the organization as "faded flowers." We are all faded flowers together now. But I want to tell you, Sister Hitt, I want to say to you, that the faded flowers come in very well some time. All flowers have to fade. The beautiful rose that we see in its first stages, opens out its little petals and it throws out a sweet perfume while it lasts; and then it begins to fade and another power takes hold of it, and it works it over and over and it makes a sweet perfume out of it, and that sweet perfume pervades the atmosphere all over