nt day, I do not see
how woman can take part in it and maintain her self-respect.
Improvements no doubt will be made in the manner of voting. The ballot
will become secret, and the count will not be disclosed until after the
voting is finished. The rum stores will be closed on voting day and an
air of respectability will be given to it that it does not now possess.
It ought to be made a legal holiday."

"Granted," said Quincy, "but what has that to do with the question of
woman's right to vote?"

"Woman has no inherent right to vote," said Uncle Ike. "The ballot is a
privilege, not a right. Why, I remember reading during the war that
young soldiers, between eighteen and twenty-one years of age, claimed
the ballot as a right, because they were fighting for their country. If
voting is a right, what argument could be used against their claim?"

"I remember," added Quincy, "that they argued that 'bullets should win
ballots.' Do you think any one should vote who cannot fight?" asked
Quincy.

"If he does not shirk his duty between eighteen and forty-five," said
Uncle Ike, "he should not be deprived of his ballot when he is older;
but the question of woman's voting does not depend upon her ability to
fight. The mother at home thinking of her son, the sister thinking of
her brother, the wife thinking of her husband, are as loyally fighting
for their native land as the soldiers in the field, and no soldier is
braver than the hospital nurse, who, day after day and night after
night, watches by the bedsides of the wounded, the sick, and the dying.
No, Mr. Sawyer, it is not a question of fighting or bravery."

During the discussion Alice had dried her eyes and was listening to her
uncle's words. She now asked a question, "When will women vote, Uncle?"

"When it is deemed expedient for them to do so," replied Uncle Ike. "The
full privilege will not be given all at once. They will probably be
allowed to vote on some one matter in which they are deeply interested.
Education and the rum question are the ones most likely to be acted upon
first. But the full ballot will not come, and now I know Alice will
shake her head and say, 'No!' I repeat it--the full ballot will not come
for woman until our social superstructure is changed. Woman will not
become the political equal of man until she is his social and industrial
equal; and until any contract of whatever nature made by a man and a
woman may be dissolved by them by mutual consent