R SIR: I have sent the inclosed petitions and arguments to
every member on the Committee on Woman Suffrage, hoping if they
are read they may have some influence in securing a favorable
report for the passage of a sixteenth amendment, giving the ballot
to women.

Will you urge upon the members of the committee the importance of
their perusal?

Respectfully,

MRS. Z.G. WALLACE, _Sup't Dep't for Franchise of N.W.C.T.U._

Hon. H.W. BLAIR.

I will add in this connection a letter lately received by myself,
written by a lady who may not be so distinguished in the annals of the
country, yet, at the same time, she has attained to such a position in
the society where she lives that she holds the office of postmaster by
the sanction of the Government, and has held it for many years. She
seems, as other ladies have seemed, to possess the capacity to perform
the duties of this governmental office, so far as I know, to universal
satisfaction. At all events, it is the truth that no woman, so far as
I have ever heard, holding the office of postmaster, and no woman who
has ever held the position of clerk under the Government, or who has
ever discharged in State or in Nation any executive or administrative
function, has as yet been a defaulter, or been guilty of any
misconduct or malversation in office, or contributed anything by her
own conduct to the disgrace of the appointing or creating official
power. This woman says:

NEW LONDON, WIS., _January 18, 1887_.

Hon. H.W. BLAIR, _Washington, D.C._:

DEAR SIR: Thank you for the address you sent; also for your
kindness in remembering us poor mortals who can scarcely get a
hearing in such an august body as the Senate of these United
States, though I have reason to believe we furnished the men to
fill those seats.

There is something supremely ridiculous in the attitude of a man
who tells you women are angelic in their nature; that it is his
veneration for the high and lofty position they occupy which hopes
to keep them forever from the dirty vortex of politics, and then
to see him glower at her because she wishes politics were not so
dirty, and believes the mother element, by all that makes humanity
to her doubly sacred, is just what is needed for its purification.

We have become tired of hearing and reiterating the same old
theories and are pleased that you branched out in a ne