met, the association
of which I am president inaugurated last year a sort of canvass,
which I believe never had been attempted before, whereby we
obtained the proportion of women in favor and opposed to suffrage
in different localities of our State. We took four localities in
the city of Boston, two in smaller cities, and two in the country
districts, and one also of school teachers in nine schools of one
town. Those school teachers were unanimously in favor of suffrage,
and in the nine localities we found that the proportion of women
in favor was very large as against those opposed. The total of
women canvassed was 814. Those in favor were 405; those opposed,
44; indifferent, 166; refused to sign, 160; not seen, 39. This,
you see, is a very large proportion in favor. Those indifferent,
and those who were not seen, were not included, because we claim
that nobody can yet say that they are opposed or in favor until
they declare themselves; but the 405 in favor against the 44
opposed were as 9 to 1. These canvasses were made by women who
were of perfect respectability and responsibility, and they swore
before a justice of the peace as to the truth of their statements.

So we have in Massachusetts this reliable canvass of the number of
women in favor as to those opposed, and we find that it is 9 to 1.

These women, then, are the class whom I represent here, and they
are women who can not come here themselves. Very few women in the
country can come here and do this work, or do the work in their
States, because they are in their homes attending to their duties,
but none the less are they believers in this cause. We would not
any more than any man in the country ask a woman to leave her home
duties to go into this work, but a few of us are so situated that
we can do it, and we come here and we go to the State Legislatures
representing all the women of the country in this work.

What we ask is, not that we may have the ballot to obtain any
particular thing, although we know that better things will come
about from it, but merely because it is our right, and as a matter
of justice we claim it as human beings and as citizens, and as
moral, responsible, and spiritual beings, whose voice ought to be
heard in the Government, and who ought to take hand with men and
help the world to become b