; but grant me my
life." The Duke of Tuscany, Elizabeth Barrett Browning has told
us, swore to a dozen constitutions when the Tuscans stood armed
in the streets of Florence, and he forgot them when the Austrians
came in and took the rifles out of the Tuscans' hands. You must
force the upper classes to do justice by physical or some other
power. The age of physical power is gone, and we want to put
ballots into the hands of women....

Political economy puts in every man's hand, by the labor of half
a day, money enough to be drunk a week. There is one temptation,
dragging down the possibility of self-government into the pit of
imbruted humanity; and on the other side, is that hideous problem
of modern civilized life--prostitution--born of orthodox scruples
and aristocratic fastidiousness--born of that fastidious denial
of the right of woman to choose her own work, and, like her
brother, to satiate her ambition, her love of luxury, her love of
material gratifications, by fair wages for fair work. As long as
you deny it, as long as the pulpit covers with its fastidious
orthodoxy this question from the consideration of the public, it
is but a concealed brothel, although it calls itself an orthodox
pulpit. (Applause and hisses). I know what I say; your hisses can
not change it. Go, clean out the Gehenna of New York! (Applause).
Go, sweep the Augean stable that makes New York the lazar-house
of corruption! You know that on one side or the other of these
temptations lies very much of the evil of modern civilized life.
You know that before them, statesmanship folds its hands in
despair. Here is a method by which to take care of at least one.
Give men fair wages, and ninety-nine out of a hundred will
disdain to steal. The way to prevent dishonesty is to let every
man have a field for his work, and honest wages; the way to
prevent licentiousness is to give to woman's capacity free play.
Give to the higher powers activity, and they will choke down the
animal. The man who loves thinking, disdains to be the victim of
appetite. It is a law of our nature. Give a hundred women honest
wages for capacity and toil, and ninety-nine out of the hundred
will disdain to win it by vice. _That_ is a cure for
licentiousness. (Applause).

I wish to put into our civ