d have that right. But the fact is
that only men are allowed to exercise it. So of the special
interests of women, their right to settle the laws which regulate
their relation to their children, their right to earn and own, to
buy and sell, to will and deed, the application of the simple
principles of fair play, would have given women equal voice with
men in these questions of personal and common interest. But as
it is men control it all, whether it is the child we bear, the
dollar we earn or the will we wish to make.

One would suppose that under a government whose fundamental
principle affirms that "the consent of the governed" is the just
basis, the consent of the governed women would have been asked
for. The only form of consent is a vote and that is denied to
women. As a result they are at a disadvantage everywhere. The
stigma of disfranchisement cheapens the respect due to their
opinions, diminishes their earnings and makes them subjects in
the home as they are in the State. The woman suffrage movement
means equal rights for women. It proposes to secure fair play and
justice.

At this convention valuable reports were presented from twenty-six
States. Of especial interest was that from Texas, where Mrs. Mariana
T. Folsom had done seven months' work under the auspices of the
American W. S. A., giving nearly 200 public addresses in advocacy of
equal rights. Texas was virgin soil on this subject, and Mrs. Folsom's
description of the conditions she found there was both entertaining
and instructive.

The old officers were re-elected with but few changes. Among the
resolutions adopted were the following:

The American Woman Suffrage Association, at its seventeenth
annual meeting, in this beautiful city of the new Northwest,
reaffirms the American principle of free representative
government, and demands its application to women. "Governments
derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," and
women are governed; "taxation without representation is tyranny,"
and women are taxed; "all political power inheres in the people,"
and one-half of the people are women.

_Resolved_, That women, as sisters, wives and mothers of men,
have special rights to protect and special wrongs to remedy; that
their votes will represent in a special sense the interests of
the home