106 State Papers and Addresses

INAUGURATING BUSINESS WOMEN'S WEEK

Radio Station WFBR, October 8, 1939

Baltimore

THE coming week has been chosen to celebrate "One Hundred Years of
Women's Progress. " The program arranged has been sponsored by 1600
women's clubs, with a membership of seventy odd thousand, distributed through
all parts of the Nation. The active direction of this celebration week is in the
nands of representative Women's clubs of the Country.

During the week in practically every one of our States, hundreds, and
perhaps thousands of women, who have achieved leadership and responsible
position, will participate in the program in various ways. By such united
action, it is proposed to give emphasis to the progress and achievements of
women during the years in American business, professional, and civic life.
It is meet and proper that such a program should have been arranged. The
voice of any movement, in the last analysis, is found to be the voice of the
leaders of that movement. Recognition and appreciation, through which
comes encouragement, is almost always the result of persistent and emphatic
action on the part of those who have active leadership in the interest of a
given cause.

The progress made by women, while cause for pride on their part, really
rebounds to the benefit of the whole of society. While the plans outlined for
this week of celebration by these women's clubs finds justification to them in
the fact that these achievements have been made by women, the celebration
thus arranged deserves the commendation of us all.

The past one hundred years have been marked by intense progress in
almost all phases of life, both National and International. As a fact, it may
be ventured to say that in almost all lines the progress of the world during
that period exceeded all that had been done in the previous one thousand years.
Great fundamental change, and rapid progress in ways having world-wide
effect, have been pronouncedly characteristic of the period of which we speak.

Not the least among those changes during that time has been the change
notably amongst Western nations in the status and position of women. In
America particularly, that change may be said to have been remarkable, and
the progress of women to have been outstanding in its importance and effect.
Our whole point of view has been re-arranged with the progress made by the
women.

This great change, affecting as it has the whole of our society and polity,
was not easily brought about. The truth is that the change and progress
referred to was the result of courageous effort by a very small number of
far-sighted women. The road to that progress was not smooth—more often
it was rough, full of stoppage and obstruction. The attainment thus achieved
for women, and for the whole of society, was the result of real struggle—
while many times their efforts seemed doomed to fail. It is the long view, how-
ever, that counts. Attempts which never succeeded—efforts which met with
setback, amounting frequently to apparent flat failure, can be overlooked and
forgotten when the survey shows that, as a whole, such great and substantial
progress has been finally achieved. The names of these early leaders in the
cause of women's emancipation are deservedly the names of great pioneers,