of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 237

give emphasis to the worth of the Federation and the splendid contribution
made by its members in almost every walk of modern life.

Here in Maryland, we need but look at the record of the past year to get
some idea of the widespread participation of our business and professional
women in the affairs of State and Nation.

Even in such admittedly masculine activities as preparation for national
defense, we find women actively taking part in the deliberations of both the
State and National Councils of Defense. Our State Hospital Boards have the
benefit of women's membership and advice; our School Survey Commission
likewise; and we have women lending their active cooperation in countless
other capacities; —on our Maryland Traffic Safety Committee, a public-spirited
group that has devoted many hours of planning towards the very worthwhile
purpose of reducing traffic fatalities and accidents on our streets and high-
ways; as members of our Juvenile Court Committee, in the various counties;
on Boards of Education, on the Motion Picture Censors' Board, as Justices of
the Peace, and in many other roles.

Just a few weeks ago I had the extreme pleasure of issuing a commission
to an additional feminine member of the State Legislature. On all sides we
have the gratifying* picture of increased numbers of our women, capable,
thoroughly versed in the important affairs of the times, taking and holding
positions of importance and dignity, and bringing to the solutions of our prob-
lems a feminine viewpoint whose influence and assistance no one would attempt
to deny.

Instead, however, of attempting to assess further the value of the Federa-
tion, or indulging in its praise, I beg leave to use the few moments of time
allotted me for the purpose of stimulating the interest and effort of its mem-
bers toward considerations outside of their ordinary line and activities.

This annual National Business Women's Week comes this year at a parlous
time, far more so, I am afraid, than most of us have yet come to realize.
The fearful fact is that from almost every corner, Democracy as a way of life,
is confronted by the greatest challenge it has ever known.

During the past ten years a strange new school of thought, which denounces
and threatens the Democratic way of living and all its attendant privileges,
has sprung up and taken possession of the European continent. The masters
of the movement, before the Democratic peoples of the world fully realized
their intent, succeeded in clothing themselves with the most effective combina-
tion of military power the world has ever known.

The result has been that within the short space of one year, ancient and
powerful nations have been ruthlessly overrun; populous cities and properties
seized or destroyed; their institutions overturned; their populations enslaved.

During that period, we, as a people, have been devoting our energies
primarily toward domestic affairs, with constant effort towards their improve-
ment. In all that time European Decocracies gave little or no sign that they
thought there was danger. We, with the ocean as a barrier, gave little or no
thought to the ever-rising threat until a few months ?go.

Now, with Poland, Norway, Denmark. Holland, Belgium, Austria, Czecho-
slovakia and France in virtual slavery—and with Great Briton fighting for her
very life—every thoughtful person must realize that our way of life, the
American way of life that has been the envy of all the world these many years,
is also in danger. With a world dominated by these tyrannical masters, as now