to require from him a suitable
preparation. Ability to read and write is absolutely necessary as
a means of obtaining accurate political information. Without it
the voter is almost sure to become the tool of political
demagogues. With free schools provided by the States, every
citizen can qualify himself without money and without price.
Under such circumstances there is no infringement of rights in
requiring an educational qualification as a pre-requisite of
voting. Indeed, without this, suffrage is often little more than
a name. "Suffrage is the authoritative exercise of rational
choice in regard to principles, measures and men." The comparison
of an unintelligent voter to a "trained monkey," who goes through
the motion of dropping a paper ballot into a box, has in it an
element of truth. Society, therefore, has a right to prescribe,
in the admission of any new class of voters, such a qualification
as every one can attain and as will enable the voter to cast an
intelligent and responsible vote.

In the development of our complex political society we have
to-day two great bodies of illiterate citizens: In the North,
people of foreign birth; in the South, people of the African race
and a considerable portion of the native white population.
Against foreigners and negroes, as such, we would not
discriminate. But in every State, save one, there are more
educated women than all the illiterate voters, white and black,
native and foreign.

The convention proper closed on Saturday night, but the exercises
Sunday afternoon may be said to have been a continuation of it. The
official report said:

The services began at 3 o'clock and more than half an hour before
this time the theatre was filled almost to its fullest capacity.
When the opening hour arrived there was not an empty chair in the
house, every aisle was crowded, and people anxious to hear the
sermon of the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw had invaded the stage. So
dense became the crowd that the doors were ordered closed and
people were refused admission even before the services began.
After the doors were closed the disappointed ones stood on the
stairs and many of them remained in the streets. The vast
congregation was made up of all classes of citizens. Every chair
that could be found in the theatre had