dy to learn if a competitor for the
highest honors has revealed that truly noble nature that
entitled him to a place in the hearts of a nation.

We believe that in that determining of public policies by the
collective judgment of the State which constitutes
self-government, the contribution of woman will be of great
importance and value. To all questions into the determination of
which considerations of justice or injustice enter, she will
bring a more refined moral sense than that of man. The most
important public function of the State is the provision for the
education of youths. In those States in which the public school
system has reached its highest excellence, more than ninety per
cent. of the teachers are women. Certainly the vote of the women
of the State should be counted in determining the policy that
shall regulate the school system which they are called to
administer.

It is seldom that particular measures of government are decided
by direct popular vote. They are more often discussed before the
people after they have taken effect, when the party responsible
for them is called to account. The great measures which go to
make up the history of nations are determined not by the voters,
but by their rulers, whether those rulers be hereditary or
elected. The plans of great campaigns are conceived by men of
great military genius and executed by great generals. Great
systems of finance come from the brain of statesmen who have made
finance a special study. The mass of the voters decide to which
party they will intrust power. They do not determine particulars.
But they give to parties their general tone and direction, and
hold them to their accountability. We believe that woman will
give to the political parties of the country a moral temperament
which will have a most beneficent and ennobling effect on
politics.

Woman, also, is specially fitted for the performance of that
function of legislative and executive government which, with the
growth of civilization, becomes yearly more and more
important--the wise and practical economic adjustment of the
details of public expenditures. It may be considered that it
would not be for the public interest to clothe with the suffrage
any class of persons who are so dependent t