g: "America, far from being in the lead in the
universal application of the principle that every adult is entitled to
the ballot, is fast falling behind the rest of the world," and
continued:

As I have been engaged for a good many years in various
philanthropic undertakings, perhaps you will permit me, for only
a few moments, to speak from my experience. A good many women
with whom I have been associated have initiated and carried
forward philanthropic enterprises which were later taken over by
the city and thereupon the women have been shut out from the
opportunity to do the self-same work which they had done up to
that time. In Chicago the women for many years supported school
nurses who took care of the children, made them comfortable and
kept them from truancy. When the nurses were taken over by the
health department of the city the same women who had given them
their support and management were excluded from doing anything
more, and I think Chicago will bear me out when I say that the
nurses are not now doing as good work as they did before this
happened. I could also use the illustration of the probation
officers who are attached to the juvenile court. For a number of
years women selected and supported these probation officers.
Later, when the same officers, paid the same salary, were taken
over by the county and paid from the county funds, the women who
had been responsible for the initiation and beginning of the
probation system and for the early management of the officers,
had no more to do with them and at the present moment the
juvenile court has fallen behind its former position in the
juvenile courts of the world. I think the fair-minded men of
Chicago will admit that it was a disaster when the women were
disqualified by their lack of the franchise to care for it. The
juvenile court has to do largely with delinquent and dependent
children and there is no doubt that on the whole women can deal
with such cases better than men because their natural interests
lie in that direction. I could give you many other examples....
So it seems fair to say that if women are to keep on with the
work which they have done since the beginning of the world--to
continue with their humanitarian efforts which are so rapidly
being taken over into the Government,