eteen
years of which we have had equal suffrage in Colorado....

When I came to Congress I did not realize and I have not yet been
able fully to understand the deep-seated prejudice, bias and even
vindictiveness against woman suffrage and the astounding amount
of misinformation there is everywhere here in the East concerning
its practical operation. I have been equally amazed and indignant
at the many brazen assertions I have seen in the papers and heard
that are perfectly absurd and without the slightest foundation in
fact, and I have had many heated discussions on the subject
during the past three years. When I hear men and women who have
never spent a week and most of them not an hour in an equal
suffrage State attempt to discuss the subject from the standpoint
of their own preconceived prejudices and idle impressions, I feel
like saying: "May the Lord forgive them for they know not what
they do." Let me say to them and to my colleagues in the House
that it will not be ten years before the women of this country
from the Pacific to the Atlantic will have the just and equal
rights of American citizenship.[77]

Since coming here I have been frequently asked by friends what we
think of woman suffrage in Colorado, and when I tell them that it
is an unqualified success and that I doubt if even five per cent.
of the people of the State would vote to repeal it, they ask me
what it has accomplished. I believe it is generally conceded by
enlightened people that the laws of a State are a true index of
its degree of civilization. I will, therefore, give a brief
catalogue of some of the most important of the 150 legislative
measures that have been either introduced by the women or at the
request of the various women's organizations and enacted into
law.

Then followed under the head of different years, beginning with 1893,
that in which women were enfranchised, a roster of Colorado's
unequalled laws. These were followed by a complete analysis of the
practical working of woman suffrage during the past eighteen years,
with comprehensive answers to all the stereotyped questions and
objections.

Several who had addressed the Senate Committee came over to the House
office building and spoke to the Judiciary Committee. Mrs. William
Kent, wife of a Representative from California, was intro