s speech was one of a symposium on the question: Would an
educational qualification for all voters tend to the growth of
civilization and facilitate good government? Mrs. Hackstaff discussed
The Relation which Government Bears to Civilization, saying: "The
government which will increase social and individual development most
is the best. Progress depends on whether the government will give the
opportunity for such development. The one that serves the people best
is the one that strengthens them by letting them take part in it."
Mrs. Eleanor C. Stockman (Iowa) spoke strongly on Suffrage a Human
Right, not a Privilege; Mrs. Clara B. Arthur (Mich.) on A
Disfranchised Class a Menace to Self Government; Mrs. Mary Wood Swift
(Calif.) on Abolishment of Illiteracy, Its Ultimate Influence. After
calling attention to "the mass of ignorant immigrants who almost go
from the steerage to the polls"; to the enfranchisement of the
half-civilized Indian; to that of paupers, delinquents and defectives,
she said:

All this great mass of ignorance goes into the electoral hopper
and the marvel is that no worse quality of grist is turned out.
It is true that the chief political schemers are by no means
illiterate but it is upon illiteracy in the mass that they must
depend to carry out their plans. An ignorant voter may be an
honest one but unless he is intelligent enough to study public
questions for himself he is an easy prey for the political
sharper. It is beyond the power of the pen to portray what a
magnificent government would be possible with an educated
electorate. The idea can be approximated only when we consider
how much we have been able to accomplish even with all the
inefficiency, vice and ignorance which are permitted to express
their will at the polls.

It is because we have a noble ideal for the future of our
government that we make our demand for woman suffrage. We point
to the official statistics for proof that there are more white
women in the United States than colored men and women together;
that there are more American-born women than foreign-born men and
women combined; that women form only one-eleventh of the
criminals in the jails and penitentiaries; that they compose more
than two-thirds of the church membership, and that the percentage
of illiteracy is very much less among women than among men.
The