universal suffrage in this country, the injecting into our
suffrage of all the women of the United States would be the
greatest calamity that could possibly happen to our institutions
and people.... If there were no other reason with me, I would
vote against the admission of Wyoming because it has that feature
in its constitution. I will not take the responsibility as a
senator of indorsing in any way, directly or indirectly, woman
suffrage. I repeat that in my judgment it would be not only a
calamity but an absolute crime against the institutions of the
people of the United States....

In an extended speech John H. Reagan of Texas said:

But what are we going to do, what are the people of this
Territory going to do, by the adoption of this constitution? They
are going to make men of women, and when they do that the
correlative must take place that men must become women. So I
suppose we are to have women for public officers, women to do
military duty, women to work the roads, women to fight the
battles of the country, and men to wash the dishes, men to nurse
the children, men to stay at home while the ladies go out and
make stump speeches in canvasses.... Mr. President, when the
Almighty created men and women He made them for different
purposes, and six thousand years of experience have recognized
the wisdom and justice of the Almighty in this arrangement. It is
only latterly that people have got wiser than their Creator and
wiser than all the generations which have preceded them.... The
constitution of society, the necessity for the existence of
society, the necessity of home government, which is the most
important of all the parts of government, can only be preserved
and perpetuated by keeping men in their sphere and women in their
sphere....

It is a wholesome thing to reflect that after a hard day's
struggle and of rough contacts which men must have with each
other, they can go to a home presided over by one there who
soothes the passions of the day by the sweetness of her temper,
the gentleness of her disposition and the happiness which she
brings around the family circle. But if the wife and the husband
are both out in the bitter contests of the day, making speeches,
electioneering with voters, pushing their way to the polls, they