ed society,
patient, economical, industrious, monogamous and exclusive in
their family relations. The trouble is that where Western
civilization interferes with Oriental abuses it does not go far
enough. When in India the British government prohibited the
custom of burning widows on the funeral pyre of their deceased
husbands, widows became the slaves of their husband's relatives,
and were actually believed to be responsible for his death and
were ill treated accordingly. When infanticide was forbidden and
peace maintained, population multiplied until famine became
chronic. The only salvation for the women of our new possessions
lies in a legal recognition of their personal, industrial, social
and political equality. If, as seems too probable, their rights
shall be simply ignored in the reconstruction, women will suffer
all the disabilities of the law, without the practical
alleviations afforded by an enlightened public opinion. Such
women, even more than those of our own States, will need the
ballot as a means of self-protection....

MISS ANTHONY: I have been overflowing with wrath ever since the
proposal was made to engraft our half-barbaric form of government
on Hawaii and our other new possessions. I have been studying how
to save, not them, but ourselves from the disgrace. This is the
first time the United States has ever tried to foist upon a new
people the exclusively masculine form of government. Our business
should be to give this people the highest form which has been
attained by us. When our State governments were originally
formed, there was no example of woman suffrage anywhere, but now
we have a great deal of it, and everywhere it has done good. The
principle is constantly spreading....

We are told it will be of no use for us to ask this measure of
justice--that the ballot be given to the women of our new
possessions upon the same terms as to the men--because we shall
not get it. It is not our business whether we are going to get
it; our business is to make the demand. Suppose during these
fifty years we had asked only for what we thought we could
secure, where should we be now? Ask for the whole loaf and take
what you can get.

Mrs. Mary L. Doe (Mich.), brought greetings from the American
Federation of Labor. "Woman suffrag