efects will incapacitate a man under the usual
recruiting rules. Many lawyers, judges, physicians, ministers,
merchants, editors, authors, legislators and Congressmen are
exempt on the ground of physical incapacity. A citizen's ability
to help govern by voting is in no manner proportioned to ability
to bear arms....

In the finest conception of government not only is there room for
women to take part, but it can not be realized without help from
them. Men alone possess only a half of human wisdom; women
possess the other half of it, and a half that must always be
somewhat different from men's, because women must always see from
a somewhat different point of view. The wisdom of men must be
supplemented by that of women to discover the whole of
governmental truth. Women's help is equally indispensable in
persuading society to love and obey law. This help is very
largely given now, or civilization as we know it would be
impossible. But the best interests of society demand that women's
present indirect and half-conscious influence shall be
strengthened by the right of suffrage, so that their sense of
duty to government may be stimulated by a clear perception of the
connection which exists between power and responsibility.

Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch (Eng.) treated of Woman as an Economic
Factor.

It is often urged that women stand greatly in need of training in
citizenship before being finally received into the body
politic.... As a matter of fact women are the first class who
have asked the right of citizenship after their ability for
political life has been proved. I have seen in my time two
enormous extensions of the suffrage to men--one in America and
one in England. But neither the negroes in the South nor the
agricultural laborers in Great Britain had shown before they got
the ballot any capacity for government; for they had never had
the opportunity to take the first steps in political action. Very
different has been the history of the march of women toward a
recognized position in the State. We have had to prove our
ability at each stage of progress, and have gained nothing
without having satisfied a test of capacity....

The public demand for "proved worth" suggests what appears to me
the chief and most convincing argument upon whic