tion occupy the same political plane as
insane persons, idiots, infants and others laboring under
disabilities. To say I regret to be forced to address you thus is
no mere lip service, contradictory of real sentiment and
conviction, for I was one of the three Southern Senators who were
sufficiently impressed with the absolute necessity of woman
suffrage to step beyond the sacred portals of State rights and
vote for the amendment to the constitution of the United States,
removing from the electoral franchise the limitation of sex, and
I am glad to have an opportunity to express the reasons for my
faith.

These two twofold: First, the wholesome effect upon our
Government of extending the privilege of voting to women; and
second, the far-reaching results upon womanhood of granting this
right. The first reason is justified by the statement which will
be conceded by all, even the "antis," that an overwhelming
majority of women are good rather than bad and have the highest
ideals of government and politics. Therefore, to give the right
to vote to this class is to increase overwhelmingly the number of
good voters and to multiply the number of citizens with these
highest ideals.

In answer to this, some "anti," who, by her opposition to woman
suffrage, pleads guilty to the threadbare charge that women have
not sufficient intelligence to vote, comes forward and says: "But
the good women won't vote; only the bad women will exercise the
privilege." This argument is answered by the contrary experience
in States where women vote. If woman suffrage only increased the
number of bad voters, then instead of spreading like a prairie
fire from coast to coast it would be repealed in the States where
it was originally tried as an experiment. The results in the
States where the franchise has been granted are an absolute and
irrefutable argument in favor of national woman suffrage. In
these States it has removed the polling places from the dives to
the churches and has opened more schools and closed more saloons
than all other political movements combined. The ideals of
government and the standard of right and wrong by which public
officials are measured have been raised without lowering one iota
the standard of motherhood, of wifehood and of womanhood, a