e
woman-suffragists and some other woman organizations of the city
of Philadelphia, have condemned in resolution the action of the
governor a year ago, I think, in vetoing a bill which passed
largely both houses of the Legislature to appoint women inspectors
of prisons. On such questions woman feels the need of the ballot.

The mothers of this land, having breathed the air of freedom and
received the benefits of education, have come to see the necessity
of better conditions to fulfill their divinely appointed and
universally recognized office. The mothers of this land claim that
they have a right to assist in making the laws which control the
social relations. We are under the laws inherited from barbarism.
They are not the conditions suited to the best exercise of the
office of woman, and the women desire the ballot to purge society
of the vices that are sure to disintegrate the home, the State,
the nation.

I shall not occupy your time further this morning. I only present
briefly the mother's claim, as it is so universally conceded. We
now have in our schools a very large majority of women teachers,
and it seems to me no one can but recognize the fact that mothers,
through their experience in the family, mothers who are at all
competent and fit to fulfill their position as mothers in the
family, are best fitted to understand the needs and at least
should have an equal voice in directing the management of the
schools, and also the management of penal and reformatory
institutions.

I was in hopes that Mrs. Wallace would give you the testimony she
gave us in the convention of the wonderful, amazing good that was
accomplished in a reformatory institution where an incorrigible
woman was taken from the men's prison and became not only very
tractable, but very helpful in an institution under the influence
and management of women. That reformatory institution is managed
wholly by women. There is not a man, Mrs. Wallace says, in the
building, except the engineer who controls the fire department.
Under a management wholly by women, the institution is a very
great success. We feel sure that in many ways the influence and
power that the mothers bring would tend to convert many conditions
that are now tending to destruction through vices, would tend
to elevate us morally, purif