her weakness and
lack of character, according to others, and her unpreparedness and
deficient culture, according to still others, will make female suffrage
a mere farce and will convert it into a tool for certain elements
and interests. My opinion is that all these impulses, sentiments,
weaknesses, and imperfections of woman are due to nothing but to
the seclusion in which she has been kept. They are the effects of an
educational and social system tottering to decay, of a system that does
not give the natural faculties of woman that room for expansion and
development which is as necessary to life as steam is to electricity
and electricity to light. And those defects and imperfections can
not be cured by continuing the system under which they have formed
and developed, but there must be a radical reform, a regeneration,
in order that, as a bird on its first flight stretches its wings and
soars forth into space, where there is an abundance of air and light,
woman may have an opportunity to develop to their fullest extent her
faculties and instincts and to show the graceful essence of her being.

We must give woman new objectives in life and lofty occupations in
which she can test her aptitude, in order that everything defective
and ill-developed in her character and education may be eliminated
in the atmosphere of liberty and publicity, where all defects can
be brought to light without fear or pity and all vices crushed with
iron heel. This is why I desire and demand political rights for our
women. I am convinced that one of the results of this concession
will be to enrich, improve, and develop her aptitude and aspiration
to serve the high ideals of life and society. Woman will devote less
time to dress, fashions, gossip and all the other petty and trifling
things that are generally the subject of their conversation and will
endeavor to study and discuss the more serious questions of social
betterment and welfare.

Politics is not a permanent occupation that absorbs all the time of
a person who has other regular business to attend to. As a matter
of fact, not speaking of political officers and a few professional
politicians, most of the citizens devote to politics only the time
strictly necessary and which they can spare. Any man or woman depending
for his or her living or future upon politics will soon come to the
conviction that politics bring starvation instead of bread.

Politics are perfectly compatible with the