indefinitely; they grow up and
hence leave the mother. It may be true that the mother, instead of
participating in political affairs, prefers to sew flannel shirts
for the heathen, or prefers to read novels, but one ought at least
to permit her the freedom of making the choice.

4. "The right to vote will not change the nature of woman. If she
wished to leave the home as her sphere of activity, she would have
found other opportunities long ago."

Further fears are the following: 1. _The majority of women do not wish the
right to vote at all._ To this we must answer that we cannot yet come to a
conclusion concerning the wish of the majority in this respect. The
petitions for woman's suffrage always have a greater number of signatures
than any other petitions to Congress. 2. _Women will use the right to vote
only to a limited extent._ The statistics in Wyoming and Colorado prove
the contrary. 3. _Only women "of ill repute" will vote._ Thus far this has
been nowhere the case. The men guard against attracting these elements.
Moreover, the right to vote is not restricted to the men "of good repute"
either, etc., etc.

The American women can obtain the political franchise by two methods: 1.
At the hands of every individual legislature (which would occasion 52
separate legislative acts,--48 states and 4 territories). 2. Through the
adoption of a sixteenth amendment to the national Constitution by
Congress.[6] Let us consider the first method. The franchise
qualifications in the United States are generally the following: male sex,
twenty-one years of age, American citizenship (through birth, or by
naturalization after five years' residence).

Amendments to the state constitution must be accepted by the state
legislature (consisting of the lower house and the senate),[7] and then be
accepted in a referendum vote by the (male) electorate. To secure the
adoption of such an amendment in a state legislature is no easy task. In
the first place the presentation of a woman's suffrage bill is not
received favorably; the Republicans and Democrats struggle for control of
the legislature, the majority one way or the other never being large.
Therefore the party leaders usually consider woman's suffrage not on the
basis of party politics. Matters are decided on the basis of
opportuneness. Especially is this the case in those states where the bill
must be passed by two successive legisla