et the provision for
so amending the Constitution was adopted by the states and has stood
unchallenged in the Constitution for more than a century. If it be
unfair, undemocratic or even unsatisfactory, it is curious that no
movement to change the provision has ever developed. The Constitution
has been twice amended recently and it is interesting to note that it
happened under a Democratic Administration. More, the child labor and
eight-hour bills, while not constitutional amendments, are subject to
the same plea that no state shall have laws imposed upon it without
its consent. Both measures were introduced by Southern Democrats.
The pending Federal Prohibition Amendment was also introduced by a
Southern Democrat and is supported by many others. Upon consideration
of these facts, it would seem that "states rights" is either a theory
to be invoked whenever necessary to conceal an unreasoning hostility
to a measure or that those who advance it are guilty of extremely
muddy thinking.

The Constitution of the United States as now amended provides that no
male citizen subject to state qualifications shall be denied the
vote by any state. Were all the state constitutions amended so as to
enfranchise women, the word male would still stand in the National
Constitution. Men and women would still be unequal, since the National
Constitution can impose a penalty upon a state which denies the vote
to men, but none upon the state which discriminates against women.
A woman comes from Montana to represent that state in Congress.
The State of Montana has done its utmost to remove her political
disabilities, yet should she cross the border of her state and live
in North Dakota, she loses all that Montana gave her. Not so the male
voter. Enfranchised in one state, he is enfranchised in all (subject
to difference of qualification only). The women of this nation will
never be content with less protection in their right to vote than
is given to men and there is no other possible way to secure that
protection except through amendment to the National Constitution.
No single state, nor the forty-eight collectively, can grant that
protection except through the Federal Constitution.

As granting to half the population of our country the right of
consent to their own government, whose expenses they help to pay, is
a question of fundamental human liberty, Congress and the legislatures
should be proud to act and to add one more immortal chapter to