tures. In this case, between the
time of the first passing of a bill and the referendum, there is a new
election, and the opponents of woman's suffrage can defeat the adherents
of the measure at the polls before the women themselves can exercise the
right of suffrage.

Changing the national Constitution through the adoption of a sixteenth
amendment has difficulties equally great; the amendment must pass the
House of Representatives and the Senate by a two-thirds vote and then be
ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures or specially called
conventions.

To the present time only two of the Presidents of the Union have publicly
expressed themselves in favor of woman's suffrage,--Abraham Lincoln and
Theodore Roosevelt. In 1836 Lincoln addressed an open letter to the voters
in New Salem, Illinois, in which he said: "I go for all sharing the
privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens"; and he
was in favor of "admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay
taxes or bear arms (_by no means excluding females_)." Garfield, Hayes,
and Cleveland gave their attention to the question of woman's suffrage;
the last two supporting motions in favor of the movement. Theodore
Roosevelt, in 1899, as Assemblyman in the New York State Legislature,
spoke in favor of woman's suffrage: "I call the attention of the Assembly
to the advantages which a general extension of woman's right to vote must
bring about."

In order to attain their end,--political emancipation,--the American women
use the following means of agitation: petitions, the submission of
legislative bills, meetings, demonstrations, the distribution of
pamphlets, deputations to the legislatures of the individual states and to
the Congressional House of Representatives, the organization of
workingwomen, requests to teachers and preachers to comment on patriotic
memorial days on woman's worth, and to preach at least once during the
year in favor of woman's suffrage.

To the present time four states of the Union have granted full municipal
and political suffrage to women (active suffrage, the right to vote;
passive suffrage, eligibility to office). The states in question are
Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho. Wyoming and Utah inaugurated woman's
suffrage in 1869 and 1870, respectively, when they were still territories;
and in 1890 and 1895, when they were given statehood, they retained
woman's suffrage. Colorado granted it in 1893 and Idaho in 1