new Territory of Hawaii the word "male" be
omitted.

The declared intention of the United States in annexing the
Hawaiian Islands is to give them the benefits of the most
advanced civilization, and it is a truism that the progress of
civilization in every country is measured by the approach of
women toward the ideal of equal rights with men.

Under barbarism the struggle for existence is entirely on the
physical plane. The woman freely enters the arena and her failure
or success depends wholly upon her own strength. When life rises
to the intellectual plane public opinion is expressed in law.
Justice demands that we shall not offer to women emerging from
barbarism the ball and chain of a sex disqualification while we
hold out to men the crown of self-government.

The trend of civilization is closely in the direction of equal
rights for women. [Then followed a list of the gains for woman
suffrage.]

The Hon. John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy, calls the
opposition to woman suffrage a "slowly melting glacier of
bourbonism and prejudice". The melting is going on steadily all
over our country, and it would be most inopportune to impose upon
our new possessions abroad the antiquated restrictions which we
are fast discarding at home.

We, therefore, petition your Honorable Body that, upon whatever
conditions and qualifications the right of suffrage is granted to
Hawaiian men, it shall be granted to Hawaiian women.[119]

Notwithstanding this appeal, and special petitions also from the
Suffrage Associations of the forty-five States, our Congress provided
a constitution in which the word "male" was introduced more frequently
than in the Constitution of the United States or of any State, in the
determination to bar out Hawaiian women from voting and holding
office. It was declared that only "male" citizens should fill any
office or vote for any officer, a sweeping restriction which is not
made in a single State of our Union. Not satisfied with this infamous
abuse of power, our Congress refused to this new Territory a privilege
enjoyed by every other Territory in the United States--that of having
the power vested in its Legislature to grant woman suffrage--and
provided that this Territorial Legislature must submit the question to
the voters. It took care, however, to enfranchise every male being in