st appropriately, as affecting the suffrage, has not
now before it, as I am informed, one single bill, resolution, or
proposition of any sort whatever. That committee is also open to
inquiry upon this subject.

But, Mr. President, out of all committees without business, and
habitually without business, in this body, there is one that
beyond any question could take jurisdiction of this matter and do
it ample justice. I refer to that most respectable and antique
institution, the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. For thirty
years it has been without business. For thirty long years the
placid surface of that parliamentary sea has been without one
single ripple. If the senator from Massachusetts desires a
tribunal for calm judicial equilibrium and examination, a
tribunal far from the "madding crowd's ignoble strife," a
tribunal eminently respectable, dignified and unique, why not
send this question to the Committee on Revolutionary Claims? When
I name the _personnel_ of that committee it will be evident that
any consideration on any subject touching the female sex would
receive not only deliberate but immediate attention, for the
second member upon that committee is my distinguished friend from
Florida [Mr. Jones], and who can doubt that he would give his
undivided attention to the subject? [Laughter.] It is eminently
proper that this subject should go to that committee because if
there is any revolutionary claim in this country it is that of
woman suffrage. [Laughter.] It revolutionizes society; it
revolutionizes religion; it revolutionizes the constitution and
laws; and it revolutionizes the opinions of those so
old-fashioned among us as to believe that the legitimate and
proper sphere of woman is the family circle as wife and mother
and not as politician and voter--those of us who are proud to
believe that--

A woman's noblest station is retreat;
Her fairest virtues fly from public sight;
Domestic worth--that shuns too strong a light.

Before that Committee on Revolutionary Claims why could not this
most revolutionary of all claims receive immediate and ample
attention? More than that, as I said before, if there is any
tribunal that could give undivided time and dignified attention,
is it not this committee? If ther