ildren and orphans have invoked a benediction upon the voting
women for the home and education that their influence has induced
the State to provide. Suffrage has sent no girl astray but it has
gathered many wanderers and turned their feet into paths of
safety and built for them a model State home. Through the age of
consent law many a seducer has ended his career in jail. The most
efficient members of the State Board of Charities and Correction
are women and this is true of other boards. Their influence has
sent rays of light and hope into darkened cells and established
reforms in asylums and prisons.

In answer to the continued charges that the people of the State would
like to repeal the law he said: "I have too high a regard, too sincere
a faith in Colorado manhood to believe that any of the men who
voluntarily conferred the ballot upon their wives, sisters and mothers
would now repeal that just act. Common sense refutes the statement
regarding women themselves. Not 75 per cent., not 10 per cent., not 1
per cent. would today vote to relinquish that which belongs to them.
It is not an American trait to give up rights.... I challenge any one
to find 100 intelligent women in Colorado who will voluntarily request
that the word 'male' be restored in the constitution and statutes of
the State. Many women may not go to the polls but the man who would
try to take away their right to do so would need a bombproof conning
tower. There will be no repeal, it stands for all time. There never
will be less than four woman suffrage States--there should be
forty-five.... Since 1876 school affairs have practically been in the
hands of women. They have voted at school elections, held the office
of superintendent in a majority of the counties and taught most of the
schools. In these twenty-eight years neither politics nor scandals
have impaired our public school system and in efficiency we challenge
comparison with any State in the Union. What the women have done for
our schools they can do for our civic government. They have introduced
conscience into educational affairs and they will do the same in city
and State. That is the fear of those who make politics a
profession...."

Henry B. Blackwell was introduced and spoke briefly of having gone to
Colorado in 1876 to assist in getting full suffrage for women into the
constitution for statehood, but it was left for the voters to decide.
Mrs.