ple of our Government, not an article or
section of our Constitution, from the preamble to the last
amendment, which we have not elucidated and applied to woman
suffrage before the various committees in able arguments that
have never been answered. Our failure to secure justice thus far
has not been due to any lack of character or ability in our
advocates or of strength in their propositions, but to the
popular prejudices against woman's emancipation. Eloquent,
logical arguments on any question, though based on justice,
science, morals and religion, are all as light as air in the
balance with old theories, creeds, codes and customs.

Could we resurrect from the archives of this Capitol all the
petitions and speeches presented here by women for human freedom
during this century, they would reach above this dome and make a
more fitting pedestal for the Goddess of Liberty than the
crowning point of an edifice beneath which the mother of the race
has so long pleaded in vain for her natural right of
self-government--a right her sons should have secured to her long
ago of their own free will by statutes carved indelibly on the
corner-stones of the Republic.

As arguments have thus far proved unavailing, may not appeals to
your feelings, to your moral sense, find the response so long
withheld by your reason? Allow me, honorable gentlemen, to paint
you a picture and bring within the compass of your vision at once
the comparative position of two classes of citizens: The central
object is a ballot box guarded by three inspectors of foreign
birth. On the right is a multitude of coarse, ignorant beings,
designated in our constitutions as male citizens--many of them
fresh from the steerage of incoming steamers. There, too, are
natives of the same type from the slums of our cities. Policemen
are respectfully guiding them all to the ballot box. Those who
can not stand, because of their frequent potations, are carefully
supported on either side, each in turn depositing his vote, for
what purpose he neither knows nor cares, except to get the
promised bribe.

On the left stand a group of intelligent, moral,
highly-cultivated women, whose ancestors for generations have
fought the battles of liberty and have made this country all it
is to-day. These