ate to-day whether, for instance, all
who did not pay taxes should be disfranchised, and only taxpayers were
allowed to vote upon it, it would be carried by a large majority. If
it were submitted whether all owning property above a certain amount
should be disfranchised, and only those who owned less than this, or
nothing, were allowed to vote, it would be carried unanimously. No
class of men could get any electoral right whatever if it depended
wholly on the consent of another class whose interests supposedly lay
in withholding it. Political, not moral influence removed the property
restrictions from the suffrage in order to build up a great party--the
Democratic--which because of its enfranchisement of wage-earning men
has received their support for eighty years. After the Civil War,
although the Republican party was in absolute control, amendments to
the State constitutions for striking out the word "white," in order
to enfranchise colored men, were defeated in one after another of the
Northern States, even in Kansas, the most radical of them all in its
anti-slavery sentiment. It finally became so evident that this
concession would not be granted by the voters that Congress was
obliged to submit first one and then a second amendment to the Federal
Constitution to secure it. But even then the ratification of the
necessary three-fourths of the Legislatures could be obtained only
because it was positively certain that through this action an immense
addition would be made to the Republican electorate. Now after a lapse
of thirty years this same party looks on unmoved at the violation of
these amendments in every Southern State because it is believed that
thus there can be, through white suffrage, the building up of the
party in that section which the colored vote has not been able to
accomplish.

The most superficial examination of the conditions which govern the
franchise answers the question why, after fifty years of effort, so
little progress has been made in obtaining it for women. Of late years
every new or "third" party which is organized declares for woman
suffrage. This is partly because such parties come into existence to
carry out reforms in which they believe women can help, and partly
because in their weak state they are ready to grasp at straws. While
giving them full credit for such recognition, whatever may be its
inspiring motive, it is clearly evident that the franchise must come
to women through the do