stage of development the
gross inequality became apparent of giving representation to
capital and denying it to labor; therefore the right of suffrage
was extended to the workingman. Now we demand for the 4,000,000
wage-earning women of our country the same protection of the
ballot as is possessed by the wage-earning men.

The founders took an even broader view of human rights when they
declared that government could justly derive its powers only from
the consent of the governed, and for 125 years this grand
assertion was regarded as a corner-stone of the republic, with
scarcely a recognition of the fact that one-half of the citizens
were as completely governed without their consent as were the
people of any absolute monarchy in existence. It was only when
our government was extended over alien races in foreign countries
that our people awoke to the meaning of the principles of the
Declaration of Independence. In response to its provisions, the
Congress of the United States hastened to invest with the power
of consent the men of this new territory, but committed the
flagrant injustice of withholding it from the women. We demand
that the ballot shall be extended to the women of our foreign
possessions on the same terms as to the men. Furthermore, we
demand that the women of the United States shall no longer suffer
the degradation of being held not so competent to exercise the
suffrage as a Filipino, a Hawaiian or a Porto Rican man.

The remaining Territories within the United States are insisting
upon admission into the Union on the ground that their citizens
desire "the right to select their own governing officials, choose
their own judges, name those who are to make their laws and levy,
collect, and disburse their taxes." These are just and
commendable desires but we demand that their women shall have
full recognition as citizens when these Territories are admitted
and that their constitutions shall secure to women precisely the
same rights as to men.

When our government was founded the rudiments of education were
thought sufficient for women, since their entire time was
absorbed in the multitude of household duties. Now the number of
girls graduated by the high schools greatly exceeds the number of
boys in every State and the percen