come from the schools and colleges as teachers
and professors; from the press and pulpit as writers and
preachers; from the courts and hospitals as lawyers and
physicians; and from happy and respectable homes as honored
mothers, wives and sisters. Knowing the needs of humanity
subjectively in all the higher walks of life, and objectively in
the world of work, in the charities, in the asylums and prisons,
in the sanitary condition of our streets and public buildings,
they are peculiarly fitted to write, speak and vote intelligently
on all these questions of such vital, far-reaching consequence to
the welfare of society. But the inspectors refuse their votes
because they are not designated in the Constitution as "male"
citizens, and the policemen drive them away.

Sad and humiliated they retire to their respective abodes,
followed by the jeers of those in authority. Imagine the feelings
of these dignified women, returning to their daily round of
duties, compelled to leave their interests, public and private,
in the State and the home, to these ignorant masses. The most
grievous result of war to the conquered is wearing a foreign
yoke, yet this is the position of the daughters of the
Puritans....

What a dark page the present political position of women will be
for the future historian! In reading of the republics of Greece
and Rome and the grand utterances of their philosophers in paeans
to liberty, we wonder that under such governments there should
have been a class of citizens held in slavery. Our descendants
will be still more surprised to know that our disfranchised
citizens, our pariahs, our slaves, belonged to the most highly
educated, moral, virtuous class in the nation, women of wealth
and position who paid millions of taxes every year into the State
and national treasuries; women who had given thousands to build
colleges and churches and to encourage the sciences and arts.
From the dawn of creation to this hour history affords no other
instance of so large a class of such a character subordinated
politically to the ignorant masses.

FOOTNOTES:

[105] Letters and telegrams of greeting were received from the Hon.
Mrs. C. C. Holly, member Colorado Legislature, Mrs. Henry M. Teller,
Mrs. Francis E. Warren, Mrs. Foster, from the National Woman