The time intervening between the thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth annual convention being unusually short permits but a meager report and presents little actual work accomplished. In the early fall we held the most successful convention in the history of our organization—revising our Constitution and By-laws and placing our Association on a much better basis than it had ever been before. The sentiment grows and grows, but it is apparently sterile; we find many indifferent, some who are ignorant of the subject, others who are prejudiced. Our most formidable opponents are those who are engaged in the vicious trades. All but the last are surprisingly open to conviction, and the barriers are easily removed. We are rich in sentiment, but poor in funds, while laborers are not easily procured. Those who have the means are handicapped in some other way, and those of us who have the zeal have neither time nor money at our disposal. So we can show no brilliant achievements, other than occasional public meetings; prizes for best oratorical efforts in the school, a wide distribution of literature and the placing of same in our public libraries.

We avail ourselves of the courtesies of the local press in printing original and timely articles and are enabled thereby to do much educational work, endeavoring to impress the people with the present unfair status of woman and the necessity for woman suffrage. We do no rely on the press alone for growth of our cause, but use all available means of diffusing sentiment and instilling our principles—indeed we have had prolific suffrage mottoes made into transparencies and thrown upon canvas being surprised at the hearty cheering of the usual Saturday evening crowd. Also in the same manner interspersing between election returns where they have been most cordially received. The financial problem presents the greatest difficulty. Sales exchanges and such methods result in small profits with too arduous labor. Having many competing organizations in churches and lodges that rely on the same means for revenue rather causes us to retreat from the field of exchanges. Could we but successfully cope with thee depressing conditions (and we shall), West Virginia will remove the manacles of subordination and inequality imposed upon her women ere long, declaring her worth and her justly deserved freedom.

Anne Manley Southern, President.