such as boarding-house keepers, millinery, dressmaking,
cash girls, clerks, sales-women, stenographers,
type-writers, book-keepers, teachers, factory girls, and
slaves of the clothing trade, as well as the artists,
musicians, actresses, public speakers, physicians, lawyers,
and the many other professions or vocations filled by
women, that the number would be swelled to the millions.
The last census returns for New York City reveal the fact
that there are twenty-seven thousand married men in New
York who are supported by their wives, who are mainly
dressmakers, milliners, boarding-house keepers, artists,
teachers, musicians, and actresses. Here we have an army of
shiftless, dependent men, more than a quarter of one
hundred thousand strong, having each a vote to cast or
perchance to sell to the highest bidder, while the real
bread-winners, the actual wealth-producers, in this case
have no voice in the legislative halls.

In the various spheres of activity in which woman has engaged, her
influence has been that of a purifying, refining, and ennobling power,
and barring rare instances where the spirit of intolerance has flashed
forth,[18] her presence in public affairs has been uniformly
beneficent.

[18] At times woman has shown a spirit of intolerance born
of the intensity of her conviction which has led many
thoughtful men and women to seriously question whether the
right of suffrage might not prove a curse rather than a
blessing, ending in repressive legislation and religious
persecutions. I do not, however, fear these evils. The
intensity of convictions is a compliment to her heart; and
her innate love of justice and fair-play, would, I think,
in a reasonably short time, expand the intellectual vision
which prejudice and ancient thought has long obscured. Let
the outcome, however, be it what it may, we have no right
to argue on lines of policy, when a question of right or
justice is involved. It is simple justice for every woman
to exercise the right of franchise who desires to so enjoy
it, and this should be sufficient to settle the question in
the minds of those who believe in according to others wh