e.

Rev. ANTOINETTE BROWN BLACKWELL, of Somerville, N. J., said: A
few days ago, in one of the New York dailies, I saw the
announcement that one subject which now occupies the minds of the
American people can never be settled till it is settled right.
Knowing that this Convention was just at hand, I mentally
exclaimed, "It is certainly woman suffrage!" But no! it was the
question of the National currency. Well, the currency question
did suggest great moral issues, and it was vital enough in
character to justify the editorial claim. I believe it never can
be settled till it is settled right. But what is the currency
problem to a direct question of human rights, involving the
highest moral and civil interests not only of all the women in
the country, but of all the men likewise? This suffrage question
never can be settled till it is settled right. So surely as the
law of justice must yet prevail, it will continue to vex and
trouble the whole nation continually.

Because the sexes are so unlike in their natures and in all their
relations to the State, there is imperative need of
representation for both. Women in beleaguered cities have again
and again stood heroically side by side with men, suffering
danger and privation without a murmur, ready to endure hunger
and every form of personal discomfort rather than surrender to
the enemy. What women have done in the past they would willingly
do again in the future in like circumstances. They are everywhere
as patriotic as men, and as willing to make sacrifices for their
country.

But their relations to the government in war are of necessity
widely unlike. If men as good citizens are bound to peril their
lives and to endure hardships to aid the country in its hour of
need, yet women peril their lives and devote their time and
energy in giving to the country all its citizens, whether for
peace or war. And if the liberties of the nation were in real
peril, they would freely devote their all for its salvation. In
any just warfare it is fitting that the young men should first
march to battle, and if all these were swept away, then the old
men and the old women might fitly go out together side by side,
and, last of all, the young mothers, leaving their little
children to the very aged and to t