rican ideals and absolutely essential to the establishment of
true democracy. A democratic form of government is right or it is
not right--it is either right that the people should be
self-governed or that they should not. If it is not right, then
we ought to know it; the whole people ought to know it. If it is
right, then the whole people ought to have equal opportunities in
self-government. It is not that we women wish to dictate in
regard to men or that we assume any superior ability for
government, any superior wisdom, but it is that we do assume that
whether we are wise or not, whether we have a grasp of all the
affairs of state or not, whether we are earning and producing
equally with men or not, we are human beings and as a part of
the Government we should have at least a chance to exercise
whatever powers we possess equally with all other citizens. It is
because we believe that this Government should be true to its
fundamental principles that we make these demands.

Some one asked Wendell Phillips if Christianity were not a
failure and he replied, "It has not yet been tried." So we can
say in regard to democracy. We hear the cry everywhere that
democracy is a failure. A speaker in New York said that our
democracy was the laughing stock of all the civilized nations of
the world. It is the laughing stock because of the failure of
this democracy to dare to be democratic. We have never tried
universal suffrage but if that which we have is a failure the
cure for it is not to restrict it but to extend it, because no
class of men is able to represent another class and it is much
truer that no class nor all classes of men are capable of
representing any class or all classes of women. Believing this,
we have come as citizens of the United States to this Mecca of
all the people for more than forty years and we are ready to come
for as many years more as may be necessary until our plea is
granted.

Dr. Shaw then said: "I desire to introduce speakers from the
professions and lines of work represented in our petitions: Mrs.
Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago, who has been a practicing lawyer
for twenty-four years and was recently re-elected to the office of
justice of the peace."

Mrs. McCulloch. There may be a woman school-teacher somewhere who
does not wa