il life the element of woman's right to
shape the laws, for all our social life copies largely from the
statute-book. Let woman dictate at the capital, let her say to
Wall Street, "My votes on finance are to make stocks rise and
fall," and Wall Street will say to Columbia College, "Open your
classes to woman; it needs be that she should learn." The moment
you give her the ballot, you take bonds of wealth and fashion and
conservatism, that they will educate this power, which is holding
their interest in its right hand. I want to spike the gun of
selfishness; or rather, I want to double-shot the cannon of
selfishness. Let Wall Street say, "Look you! whether the New York
Central stock shall have a toll placed upon it, whether my
million shares shall be worth sixty cents in the market or
eighty, depends upon whether certain women up there at Albany
know the laws of trade and the secrets of political economy"--and
Wall Street will say, "Get out of the way, Dr. Adams!--absent
yourself, Dr. Spring!--we don't care for Jewish prejudices; these
women must have education!" (Loud applause). Show me the
necessity in civil life, and I will find you forty thousand
pulpits that will say St. Paul meant just that. (Renewed
applause). Now, I am orthodox; I believe in the Bible; I
reverence St. Paul; I believe his was the most masterly intellect
that God ever gave to the race; I believe he was the connecting
link, the bridge, by which the Asiatic and European mind were
joined; I believe that Plato ministers at his feet; but, after
all, he was a man, and not God. (Applause). He was limited, and
made mistakes. You can not anchor this western continent to the
Jewish footstool of St. Paul; and, after all, that is the
difficulty--religious prejudice. It is not fashion--we shall beat
it; it is not the fastidiousness of the exquisite--we shall
smother it; it is the religious prejudice, borrowed from a
mistaken interpretation of the New Testament. That is the real
Gibraltar with which we are to grapple, and my argument with that
is simply this: You left it when you founded a republic; you left
it when you inaugurated Western civilization; we must grow out of
one root.

Let me, in closing, show you, by one single anecdote, how mean a
thing a man can be. You have hea