extent, the women and the women's clubs. The
activity of these great forces may be clearly traced through the
nineteenth century. It first belonged to the antislavery movement,
which directly and historically led to the women's suffrage movement,
owing to the fact that at a great antislavery convention in England
a woman delegate was refused a seat upon the platform, while her
husband, a comparatively obscure person, was recognized as the
leading representative from America; and ending of late years in
the prohibition movement, to regulate or prohibit the trade in
intoxicating liquors, and to exclude the canteen from the army. But in
the latest years, in these last very few years indeed, the forces of
this category have devoted a large proportion of their "categorical
imperative" to labor conditions and the labor contract.

These great forces are entirely impatient of constitutional principles
and somewhat indifferent as to the law, while always very desirous
of making new statutes themselves. But their combined influence is
enormous, so much so that almost any cause to which they devote
themselves will in the long run succeed; unless, indeed, their
attention is diverted to some other need, for it may be suggested that
they are somewhat fickle of purpose. For example, their success in
the antislavery movement makes the American history of the nineteenth
century; in the prohibition movement they were, in the middle decades
of that century, almost entirely successful, and while apparently
there was a set-back in the twenty years of individualistic feeling
which marked the growth of the Democratic party to an equality with
its great rival, the movement of late years seems to have taken on
renewed strength, probably on account of the so-called negro question
in the South. And while, as to votes for women, they seem to have made
no progress beyond the adoption twenty years ago of women's suffrage
in four new Western States and Territories, this last year, it must be
admitted, the movement has taken on a new strength in sympathy with
the agitation in England. There are now already symptoms of a fourth
cause--the reform of marriage, divorce and the laws regulating
domestic relations, and the control of children. It is possible that
these matters will be taken up actively in coming decades, and we,
therefore, reserve them for a future chapter; this new effort is
itself partly bound up with the women's suffrage movement, and in