The fortunes of the Student Volunteer Movement during this period provide vivid illustration of the general trends in American Protestantism. Even while missionary enthusiasm was peaking and declaration cards were pouring in, winds of dissent were buffeting the Des Moines convention of 1919/1920. As Robert Handy has described the scene, the patriarch of the Movement, John R. Mott, opened the convention with an address similar in tone to those of previous conventions. When Sherwood Eddy took the same tack, some of the students disclosed their feelings to him frankly, saying "why do you bring us this piffle, these old shibboleths, these old worn-out phrases, why are you talking to us about the living God and the divine Christ?" Eddy thereupon threw aside his prepared second address and spoke instead in support of the League of Nations and social reform, before returning again to spiritual reform.