we asked for a room, in the
Capitol, where our committee could meet, undisturbed, whenever they saw
fit. Though these points were debated a long time, our demands were
acceded to at last. We now have our special committee, and our room,
with "Woman Suffrage" in gilt letters, over the door. In our struggle
to achieve this, while our champion, the senior Senator from
Massachusetts, stood up bravely in the discussion, the opposition not
only ridiculed the special demand, but all attempts to secure the civil
and political rights of women. As an example of the arguments of the
opposition, I give what the Senator from Missouri said. It is a fair
specimen of all that was produced on that side of the debate. Mr. Vest's
poetical flights are most inspiring:

"The Senate now has forty-one committees, with a small army of
messengers and clerks, one-half of whom, without exaggeration, are
literally without employment. I shall not pretend to specify the
committees of this body which have not one single bill, resolution,
or proposition of any sort pending before them, and have not had
for months. But, Mr. President, out of all committees without
business, and habitually without business, in this body, there is
one that, beyond any question, could take jurisdiction of this
matter and do it ample justice. I refer to that most respectable
and antique institution, the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. For
thirty years it has been without business. For thirty long years
the placid surface of that parliamentary sea has been without one
single ripple. If the Senator from Massachusetts desires a tribunal
for a calm, judicial equilibrium and examination--a tribunal far
from the 'madding crowd's ignoble strife'--a tribunal eminently
respectable, dignified and unique; why not send this question to
the Committee on Revolutionary Claims? It is eminently proper that
this subject should go to that committee because, if there is any
revolutionary claim in this country, it is that of woman suffrage.
(Laughter.) It revolutionizes society; it revolutionizes religion;
it revolutionizes the Constitution and laws; and it revolutionizes
the opinions of those so old-fashioned among us as to believe that
the legitimate and proper sphere of woman is the family circle, as
wife and mother, and not as politician and voter--those of us who