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Madame President General and Members of the Congress:-- It is with a great deal of trepidation that I undertake to address this august body of women. In fact, I am not going to attempt an address or speech; I'm just going to say a few things to you about the National Old Trails Highway and to express the appreciation of the people who live along this wonderful and historical road, for the monuments to the Pioneer Mother of the Great West, which you good women are erecting to her memory. Empires and Republics have been built on proper methods of transportation and communication. The British Empire is the British Empire because England has controlled the sea since the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Rome was great because the Roman Republic and Empire had the finest systems of communication on land and sea in ancient times. This great American Republic is what is is today because of your ancestors and the National Old Trails Road. When Washington won the Revolutionary War and he and Madison, Jefferson, Jay, Adams, Alexander Hamilton and all the others of that galaxy of your revered Revolutionary Saints had written and adopted our Constitution and set up TRUMAN this Republic with its thirteen original states, Ft. Pitt and Kentucky were the far west and the country beyond them was Karea a un ARONIVES COVERAGENCY SERVICER RECORDS AND not considered worth much. But the same pioneer blood which caused the ancestors of the framers of the Constitution to come to America in search of a free conscience and the privi- lege of worshiping God a.s they saw fit, caused our ancestors to cross the Alleghenys and settle the Ohio and Missouri Valleys and finally to reach the Pacific. In those days transportation was by coach and ox