f the making and
administering of law has become so corrupt as to justify calling
politics filthy, and a thing in which no clean hands can meddle
without danger, may we not wisely remember, as we begin our work
of purification, that politics have been wholly managed by men?
How can we purify them? Is there no radical method, no force yet
untried, a power not only of skillful checks, which I do not
undervalue, but of controlling character? Mr. Chairman, if we sat
in this chamber with closed windows until the air became thick
and fetid, should we not be fools if we brought in
deodorizers--if we sprinkled chloride of lime and burned
assafoetida, while we disdained the great purifier? If we would
cleanse the foul chamber, let us throw the windows wide open, and
the sweet summer air would sweep all impurity away and fill our
lungs with fresher life. If we would purge politics let us turn
upon them the great stream of the purest human influence we know.

But I hear some one say, if they vote they must do military duty.
Undoubtedly when a nation goes to war it may rightfully claim the
service of all its citizens, men and women. But the question of
fighting is not the blow merely, but its quality and persistence.
The important point is, to make the blow effective. Did any brave
Englishman who rode into the jaws of death at Balaklava serve
England on the field more truly than Florence Nightingale? That
which sustains and serves and repairs the physical force is just
as essential as the force itself. Thus the law, in view of the
moral service they are supposed to render, excuses clergymen from
the field, and in the field it details ten per cent of the army
to serve the rest, and they do not carry muskets nor fight.
Women, as citizens, have always done, and always will do that
work in the public defense for which their sex peculiarly fits
them, and men do no more. The care of the young warriors, the
nameless and innumerable duties of the hospital and home, are
just as essential to the national safety as fighting in the
field. A nation of men alone could not carry on a contest any
longer than a nation of women. Each would be obliged to divide
its forces and delegate half to the duties of the other sex.

But while the physical services of war are equally