publicity, and which may have
been of advantage to society, was never considered as an
equivalent to my own heart for the loss of such retirement. In
the name of my sainted sister, Emma Willard, and of my friend
Lydia Sigourney, and I think I might say in the name of the women
of the past generation, who have been prominent as writers and
educators (the exception may be made of Mary Wollstonecraft,
Frances Wright, and a few licentious French writers) in our own
country and in Europe, let me urge the high-souled and honorable
of our sex to turn their energies into that channel which will
enable them to act for the true interests of their sex.

Yours respectfully,
ALMIRA LINCOLN PHELPS.

To which Mrs. Hooker, through _The Post_, replied:

WASHINGTON, January 15, 1878.

Mrs. DAHLGREN--_Dear Madam_: Permit me to thank you for the
opportunity to exonerate myself and the women of the suffrage
movement all over the United States from the charge of favoring
immorality in any form. I did not know before that Mrs. Phelps,
whom I have always held in highest esteem as an educator and as
one of the most advanced thinkers of her day, had so misconceived
the drift of our movement; and you will pardon me, dear madam,
for saying that it is hardly possible that Mrs. Sherman and
yourself, in your opposition to it, can have been influenced by
any apprehension that the women suffragists of the United States
would, if entrusted with legislative power, proceed to use it for
the desecration of their own sex, and the pollution of the souls
of their husbands, brothers and sons. But having been publicly
accused through your instrumentality of sympathy with the
licentious practices of men, I shall take the liberty to send you
a dozen copies of a little book entitled, "Womanhood; its
Sanctities and Fidelities," which I published in 1874 for the
specific purpose of bringing to the notice of American women the
wonderful work being done across the water in the suppression of
"State Patronage of Vice." * * * It is with a deep sense of
gratitude to God that I am able to say that, according to my
knowledge and belief, every woman in our movement, whether
officer or private, is in symp