grown nobler and happier as women have grown more self-reliant.
The average man and woman recognize that the changes which have
come have been in the interest of better womanhood and better
manhood, bringing greater happiness to women and greater
blessings to men. They recognize that each step gained has
rendered women fitter companions for men, wiser mothers and far
abler units of society.

The public acknowledges the wisdom, the common sense, the
practical judgment of the woman movement until it asks for the
suffrage. In other words, it approves every right gained because
it is here, and condemns the one right not yet gained because it
is not here.

Had it been either custom or statutory law which forbade women to
vote, the suffrage would have been won by the same processes
which have gained every other privilege. A few women would have
voted, a few men and women would have upheld them, and, little by
little, year after year, the number of women electors would have
increased until it became as general for women to vote as it is
for men. Had this been possible the women would be voting to-day
in every State in the Union; and undoubtedly their appearance at
the polls would now be as generally accepted as a matter of fact
as the college education. But, alas, when this step of
advancement was proposed, women found themselves face to face
with the stone wall of Constitutional Law, and they could not
vote until a majority of men should first give their consent.
Indeed the experiment was made to gain this sacred privilege by
easier means. The history of the voting of Susan B. Anthony and
others is familiar to all, but the Supreme Court decided that the
National Constitution must first be amended. It therefore becomes
a necessity to convert to this reform a majority of the men of
the whole United States.

When we recall the vast amount of illiteracy, ignorance,
selfishness and degradation which exists among certain classes of
our people the task imposed upon us is appalling. There are whole
precincts of voters in this country whose united intelligence
does not equal that of one representative American woman. Yet to
such classes as these we are asked to take our cause as the court
of final resort. We are compelled to petition men who have