ent in behalf of their enfranchisement; they have
offered no petition or plea or even given sign that the extension of
suffrage to them would be acceptable. Yet American women, who have
conducted a persistent, intelligent movement for a half-century, which
has grown stronger and stronger with the years, appealing for their
own enfranchisement and supported now by a petition of 400,000
citizens of the United States are told that it is unnecessary to
consider their plea since all women do not want to vote!

Gentlemen, is it not manifestly unfair to demand of women a test which
has never been made in the case of men in this or any other country?
Is it not true that the attitude of the Government toward an
unenfranchised class of men has ever been that the vote is a privilege
to be extended and it is optional with the citizen whether or not he
shall use it? If any proof is needed it can be found in the fact that
the U. S. Government has no record whatever of the number who have
been naturalized in this country. It has no record of the number of
Indians who have accepted its offer of the vote as a reward for taking
up land in severalty. Manifestly the Government, as represented by
Congress and the State Legislatures, considers it entirely unnecessary
to know whether men who have had the suffrage "thrust upon them" use
it or not, but imperative that women must not only demand it in very
large numbers but give guaranty that they will use it, before its
extension shall be made to them.

Is it not likewise unfair to compel women to seek their
enfranchisement by methods infinitely more difficult than those by
means of which any man in this country has secured his right to a
vote? Ordinary fair play should compel every believer in democracy and
individual liberty, no matter what are his views on woman suffrage, to
grant to women the easiest process of enfranchisement and that is the
submission of a Federal Amendment.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XIV.

THE SHAFROTH-PALMER WOMAN SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT.

In 1914 the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman
Suffrage Association, of which Mrs. Medill McCormick was chairman and
Mrs. Antoinette Funk vice-chairman, caused to be introduced in
Congress, with the sanction of the National Board, a Federal Amendment
for woman suffrage radically different from the one for which the
association had been working since 1869. It was named for its
introducers in Senate and House. The merit