an men, and what is more, the
majority of American women, that woman is a person, you will have
the ballot to-morrow. We call woman an angel, and it is very easy
to do that, because the Constitution of the United States don't
take any account of angels. If all citizens who are masculine
have the right to vote, it is not because they are males, but
because they are persons who are members of the Nation. Therefore
women should likewise be given this right because they are also
members of the nation, and it is the right of every member to
vote. But, after all, we men are rather bashful, you know, and
the business is new to us. We have a sort of "Barkis is willin'"
feeling, and don't want to be the first to speak. We are like the
rustic young man who escorted a young lady home for the first
time. Says she, as they reached the garden-gate: "Now, Jake,
don't tell any one you beau'd me home." "No," he replied, "I am
as much ashamed of it as you be!" [Laughter.] Now, it would have
been much better if the young lady had said something more
exhilarating, more encouraging. So we are new to the business of
escorting women to the ballot, and they must come forward, and,
overcoming their natural timidity, meet us half way and speak for
themselves.

MARY GREW, of Philadelphia, was the next speaker: When I am asked
to give arguments for the cause of woman suffrage, it seems like
the old times when we were asked to give arguments for the
freedom of the slave. It is enough for me to know that the
charter of our Nation states that "taxation without
representation is tyranny," and that "all just government is
founded on the consent of the governed." No woman wrote those
words. They were written by men. I stood recently at a woman
suffrage meeting in Boston, and I heard a gentleman say, "I am
willing, on certain conditions, that women shall vote. When women
shall suppress intemperance, I am willing they shall have the
ballot." I don't know how he was going to ascertain whether they
would suppress it or not. I know that men who have held the
ballot all their lives have not suppressed it; and I don't think
there is any one here who would say that women would suppress it.
What is woman going to do with the ballot? I don't know; I don't
care; and it is of no con