evanescent influence in all departments
of human interest until coined into law by the hand that holds
the ballot. Then only do they become a direct and effective power
in the Government....

The popular objection to woman suffrage is that it would "double
the ignorant vote." The patent answer to this is, "Abolish the
ignorant vote." Our legislators have this power in their own
hands. There have been serious restrictions in the past for men.
We are willing to abide by the same for women, provided the
insurmountable qualification of sex be forever removed. Some of
the opponents talk as if educated suffrage would be invidious to
the best interests of the laboring masses, whereas it would be
most beneficial in its ultimate influence.... Surely when we
compel all classes to learn to read and write and thus open to
themselves the door to knowledge, not by force, but by the
promise of a privilege which all intelligent citizens enjoy, we
are benefactors and not tyrants. To stimulate them to climb the
first rounds of the ladder that they may reach the divine heights
where they shall be as gods, knowing good and evil, by
withholding the citizen's right to vote for a few years is a
blessing to them as well as to the State.

We must inspire our people with a new sense of their sacred
duties as citizens of a republic, and place new guards around our
ballot-box. Walking in Paris one day I was greatly impressed with
an emblematic statue in the square Chateau d'Eau, placed there in
1883 in honor of the republic. On one side is a magnificent
bronze lion with his fore paw on the electoral urn, which answers
to our ballot-box, as if to guard it from all unholy uses.... As
I turned away I thought of the American republic and our
ballot-box with no guardian or sacred reverence for its contents.
Ignorance, poverty and vice have full access; thousands from
every incoming steamer go practically from the steerage to the
polls, while educated women, representing the virtue and
intelligence of the nation, are driven away. I would like to see
a monument to "educated suffrage" in front of our national
Capitol, guarded by the goddess Minerva, her right hand resting
on the ballot-box, her left hand on the spelling book, the
Declaration of Rights and the Federal Con