in.

It is said that the women do not want to vote. Every woman
sitting here wants to vote, and must we be debarred the privilege
of voting because some luxurious woman, rolling around in her
carriage in her little downy nest that some good, benevolent man
has provided for her, does not want to vote? There was a society
that existed up in the State of New York called the Covenanters
that never voted. Were all you men disfranchised because that
class or sect up in New York would not vote? Did you all pay your
taxes and stay at home and refrain from voting because the
Covenanters did not vote? Not a bit of it. You went to the
election and told them to stay at home if they wanted to, but
that you, as citizens, were going to take care of yourselves.
That was right. We, as citizens, want to take care of ourselves.

One more thought, and I will be through. The fourteenth and
fifteenth amendments, in my opinion, and in the opinion of a
great many smart men in the country, and smart women, too, give
the right to women to vote without any "if's" or "and's" about
it, and the United States protects us in it; but there are a few
who construe the law to suit themselves, and say that those
amendments do not mean that, because the congress which passed
the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments had no such intention.
Well, if that congress overlooked us, let the wiser congress of
to-day take the eighth chapter and the fourth verse of the
Psalms, which says, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?"
and amend it by adding, "What is woman, that they never thought
of her?"

NANCY R. ALLEN of Iowa said: _Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the
Judiciary Committee_: I am a representative of a large class of
women of Iowa, who are heavy taxpayers. There is now a petition
being circulated throughout our State, to be presented to the
legislature, praying that women be exempted from taxation until
they have some voice in the management of the affairs of the
State. You may ask, "Do not your husbands protect you? Are not
all the men protecting you?" We answer that our husbands are
grand, noble men, who are willing to do all they can for us, but
there are many who have no husbands and who own a great deal of
property in the State of Iowa. Particularly in great mora