ke here; that we, the mothers of
the land, should not be barred on every side in the cause of
reform. I pledged my father on his dying bed that I would never
cease work until woman stood with man equal before the law.

I beg of you, gentlemen, to consider this question seriously. We
stand precisely in the position of the colonies when they plead,
and, in the words of Patrick Henry, were "spurned with contempt
from the foot of the throne." We have been jeered and laughed at;
but the question has passed out of the region of ridicule. This
clamor for woman suffrage, for woman's rights, for equal
representation, is extending all over the land.

I plead because my work has been combated in the cause of reform
everywhere that I have tried to accomplish anything. The children
that fill the houses of prostitution are not of foreign blood and
race. They come from sweet American homes, and for every woman
that went down some mother's heart broke. I plead by the power of
the ballot to be allowed to help reform women and benefit
mankind.

MARY A. STEWART of Delaware said: The negroes are a race
inferior, you must admit, to your daughters, and yet that race
has the ballot, and why? It is said they earned it and paid for
it with their blood. Whose blood paid for yours? The blood of
your forefathers and our forefathers. Does a man earn a hundred
thousand dollars and lie down and die, saying, "It is all my
boys'"? Not a bit of it. He dies saying, "Let my children, be
they cripples, be they idiots, be they boys, or be they girls,
inherit all my property alike." Then let us inherit the sweet
boon of the ballot alike. When our fathers were driving the great
ship of State we were willing to sail as deck or cabin
passengers, just as we felt disposed; we had nothing to say; but
to-day the boys are about to run the ship aground, and it is high
time that the mothers should be asking, "What do you mean to do?"
In our own little State the laws have been very much modified in
regard to women. My father was the first man to blot out the old
English law allowing the eldest son the right of inheritance to
the real-estate. He took the first step, and like all those who
take first steps in reform he received a mountain of curses from
the oldest male heirs.

Si