and death for every woman who is rushed into her grave by work in
the laundries and other sweat shops of that State.

Mrs. Kelley gave some tragic instances of occurrences during her eight
years in Hull House with Miss Jane Addams, where the working of women
overtime caused death and permanent invalidism, and continued:

During the fifteen years since that Illinois court so decided,
the miners who work underground in sixteen States, from Missouri
to Nevada and from Montana to Texas and Arizona, have been able
to change the constitutions of their States so that they work but
eight hours a day. They are voters, they have power, they have
intelligence and organization; they obtained from the Supreme
Court of the United States the famous decision of Holden vs.
Hardy, in which it held that it is not only the right but the
duty of the State to restrict the hours of those who work
underground. In Illinois the women must have unlimited hours
because they are not voting citizens....

For twelve years a body of influential women of New York City
appeared before the board of estimate and apportionment to ask
for the pitiable sum of $18,000 to be appropriated to pay the
salaries of eighteen inspectors to look after the welfare of
60,000 women and girls in retail stores but we never got it. One
candid friend, Mayor Van Wyck, in listening to our plea, told us
the whole trouble. Said he: "Ladies, why do you waste your time
year after year in coming before us and asking for this
appropriation? You have not a voter in your constituency and you
know it and we know it and you know we know it," and they never
did give it to us....

A spirited discussion ensued here between Representative Robert L.
Henry (Tex.) and Mrs. Kelley as to whether Congress has the power to
coerce a State through a Federal Amendment into giving women the right
to vote. Representative Edwin Y. Webb (N. C.) asked if the majority of
women wanted to vote and she answered that there was not the slightest
doubt of it, that as reasoning beings women could not help desiring a
full share in the Government under which they live. Representative
Goebel (O.) said that at any time man might be called on to uphold the
laws and the Constitution and asked: "Do you think that woman is
physically and temperamentally fitted to give any return to the
Government for