olutely the power to withhold the
suffrage from women. A large part of it is composed of foreign-born
men, bringing from the Old World the most primitive ideas of the
degraded position which properly belongs to woman. Another part is
addicted to habits with which it never would give women the chance to
interfere. Boys of twenty-one form another portion, fully imbued with
a belief in woman's inferiority which only experience can eradicate.
Men of the so-called working classes vote against it because they fear
to add to the power of the so-called aristocracy. The latter oppose it
because they think the suffrage already has been too widely extended
and ought to be curtailed instead of expanded. The old fogies cast a
negative ballot because they believe woman ought to be kept in her
"sphere," and the strictly orthodox because it is not authorized by
the Scriptures. A large body who are "almost persuaded," but have some
lingering doubts as to the "expediency," satisfy their consciences for
voting "no" by saying that the women of their family and acquaintance
do not want it. Thus is the most valuable of human rights--the right
of individual representation--made the football of Legislatures, the
shuttlecock of voters, kicked and tossed like the veriest plaything in
utter disregard of the vital fact that it is the one principle above
all others on which the Government is founded.

Nevertheless there is abundant reason for belief that, in the face of
all the forces which are arrayed against it, this measure could be
carried in almost any State where the women themselves were a unit or
even very largely in the majority in favor of it. In the indifference,
the inertia, the apathy of women lies the greatest obstacle to their
enfranchisement. Investigation in States where a suffrage amendment
has been voted on has shown that practically every election precinct
where a thorough canvass was made and every voter personally
interviewed by the women who resided in it, was carried in favor. Some
men of course can not be moved, but many who never have given the
subject any thought can be set to thinking; while there is in the
average man a latent sense of justice which responds to the persuasion
of a woman who comes in person and says, "I ask you to grant me the
same rights which you yourself enjoy; I am your neighbor; I pay taxes
just as you do; our interests are identical; give me the same power to
protect mine which you possess to prote