_Nation_ thinks women ought to be deprived of the franchise
because they do not, as a general thing, express a wish for it,
stating at the same time that they have as good a right to it as men.
Remarkable logic this, to deprive the whole class of the power to
obtain their dues because they do not _en masse_ express a wish for
them. There are men who do not care enough about the franchise to make
use of it; therefore, according to this argument, they should be
immediately disfranchised.

There is no compulsion in exercising the right to the vote--all can
let it alone who choose; and did every woman in the land choose to let
it alone, it would be no argument for withholding from her the power
to make use of it whenever disposed. But the statement that they are
opposed to it is untrue. No woman--whether teacher, or telegraph
operator, or government clerk, or dry-goods clerk, all the way down to
the poor needle-woman who lives under a reign of oppression as
frightful as that in the manufacturing districts of England--is paid
more than half or a third what she earns, or what a man would be paid
performing the same services, and performing them no better, in many
cases not so well; and the needle-women are paid no more than a tenth
part of what they earn. And yet women do not rise up against the
oppression that denies them the just compensation; therefore these
logicians of the _Nation's_ school must, to be consistent, argue that
women do not wish to have just wages paid them, and they should not
have just wages offered them--the right of accepting or refusing being
at their own option.

It seems to be full time for the women of this country to demand a
settlement of the question whether they are still to be treated as
infants or as intelligent adults. If the former treatment is to be
continued it would be very appropriate to present Congress with a
protest against having one-half the basis of representation composed
of those who are to remain in a state of perpetual infancy (which
needs and can have representation; whose government must be as
absolute as that of the Czar's, the very word "representative"
implying a substitute chosen by another)--a protest that if they are
too good--as often stated, too divine--to have any voice in such
earthly matters as governments, they are also too good to be thrust
just so far into the body politic as to swell the basis of
representation one-half, merely for the furtherance of the int