it of keen interest in the great propaganda which is being
thus conducted. There was a time, not so very long ago, when the
plea for suffrage was ridiculed far and wide; but the women have
worked ahead undaunted by the scoffings of the world, until they
have actually won the battle in such a marked degree as to give
them unbounded assurance for the future....

The world is beginning to take a new view of this suffrage
question. The advent of women into the professions and even the
trades, their appearance as wage-earners in virtually every
branch of modern activity, and their success in these various
enterprises which they have entered, have worked a reform even
more significant than the absolute and universal grant of the
suffrage would have been. It can not be denied by men to-day that
the women have become economic factors of marked importance, and
this appreciation has had a great influence in softening the
sentiments of the male population toward the suffragists.

One of the foremost arguments formerly urged against the
extension of the suffrage to women was that it would be harmful
to woman's moral nature to thrust her into contact with the rough
conditions of campaigning. The women answered that their entrance
would perhaps redeem the immoral character of the politics of
many communities. In the minds of impartial observers the
argument was a stand-off. But this economic, professional
tendency of the women has done much to destroy the force of the
men's plea to preserve the women from contaminating contact with
harsh conditions. The security of the average woman worker in the
various lines of honest activity which the sex has fearlessly
entered has worked a revelation. The close of the century is
witnessing a great change in public sentiment in this regard. The
demand of the suffragists can not but be strengthened by the
demonstrated fact that women can become workers in competition
with men without becoming demoralized.

Just where this new tendency will lead in an economic direction
is a serious question, to be answered by facts rather than by
theories. Some students of the science believe that it is working
a revolution and is affecting the whole business fabric. There
may be a reaction against it, affecting in turn the now moderat