d her dowry (in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho). Men and women
receive equal pay for the same work. All professions and public offices
are open to women. Women act as jurors. They have the same right of
inheritance as men. Divorce is granted to either party under the same
circumstances. The claims of the wife and the children under age are given
a decided preference over those of creditors. Education from the
kindergarten to the university is free and is open to women. The labor of
women in mines is prohibited. The maximum working-day for women is eight
hours. All houses of correction and institutions for the protection of
women and children must have women physicians and overseers. The age of
consent is 18 years. Gambling and prostitution are prohibited. Both father
and mother exercise parental authority. The surviving husband is guardian
of the children. The sale of alcoholic liquors and tobacco to children is
prohibited. No child under 14 years of age may work in the mines.
Pornographic literature and pictures are prohibited.

In conclusion I shall take several points from the lecture which Professor
F. Laurie Poster held before the Political Equality League in Chicago,
after the women of Chicago had waged a vigorous campaign for the right to
vote in municipal affairs.

Why is the value of woman placed so low? Merely because she is more
helpless than man. Children are valued even less than women because they
surpass the women in helplessness. Only animals have less power of
defense; therefore they have the lowest value placed on them. In the
United States it has now been demonstrated that whoever possesses the
right to vote is esteemed more highly than he who does not have that
right. We see this in the woman's suffrage states; here the women have
made provisions not only for themselves, but for the children as well, for
it is one of the fundamental instincts of woman to protect her little
ones. In most of the states of the Union, however, women can help directly
neither themselves nor their children. That women should be forced to
struggle for these ends against the opposition of man is one of the most
unfortunate phases of the whole movement.

When woman became property, a possession, the overestimation of her sexual
value began. Her sex was her weapon, and her capabilities became stunted.
This over emphasis of the sexual causes a great part of the most flagrant
evils among civilized peoples. To-day we have re