urrill Curtis, daughter of George William Curtis,
on Universal Suffrage. She said in part:

I find many people in my native State of New York who are leaning
toward a limited suffrage, and therefore I am beginning to ask,
"What does it mean? Is democratic government impossible after
all?" For a government in order to be democratic must be founded
on the suffrages of all the people, not a part. A republic may
exist by virtue of a limited suffrage, but a democracy can not,
and a democratic government has been our theoretical ideal from
the first. Are we prepared, after a hundred and twenty years, to
own ourselves defeated?... Universal suffrage, to me, means the
right of every man and woman who is mentally able to do so, and
who has not forfeited the right by an ill use of it, to say who
shall rule them, and what action shall be taken by those rulers
upon questions of moment....

This brings me to what I wish to say about those who desire a
limited suffrage. Who are they, and to what class do they belong?
For the most part, as I know them, they are men of property, who
belong to the educated classes, who are refined and cultivated,
and who see the government about them falling into the hands of
the unintelligent and often illiterate classes who are voted at
the polls like sheep. Therefore these gentlemen weep aloud and
wail and say: "If we had a limited suffrage, if we and our
friends had the management of affairs, how much better things
would be!"

Do not misunderstand me here. I am far from decrying the benefits
of education. Nobody believes in its necessity more sincerely
than I do. In fact I hold that, other things being equal, the
educated man is immeasurably in advance of the uneducated one;
but the trouble is that other things are often very far from
being equal and it is utterly impossible for the average man,
educated or not, to be trusted to decide with entire justice
between himself and another person when their interests are
equally involved....

The intelligent voter in a democratic community can not abdicate
his responsibility without being punished. He is the natural
leader, and if he refuses to fulfil his duties the leadership
will inevitably fall into the hands of those who are unfitted for
the high and holy task--and