g of democracy? It is that the citizens who are
expected to obey the law are those who make the law. But that is not
true of Great Britain. At least half the adult citizens whose lives are
deeply affected by every law that is carried on the statute-books have
absolutely no voice in making that law. They have no more influence in
the matter than the horses that drag their lords and masters to the
polling-booth.

The drunken loafer who has not earned a living for years is consulted
by the Constitution on questions like the training and upbringing of
children, the national settlement of religion in Wales and elsewhere,
and as to the best method of dealing with the licensing problem. But
the wife whose industry keeps him and his household from beggary, who
pays the rent and taxes which constitute him a voter, who is therefore
really responsible for his qualification to vote, is not taken into
account in the slightest degree. I came in contact not long ago with a
great girls' school in the south of England. It was founded by women,
and it is administered by women. It is one of the most marvelous
organizations in the whole country, and yet, when we had, in the year
1906, to give a national verdict on the question of education, the man
who split the firewood in that school was asked for his opinion about
it, while those ladies were deemed to be absolutely unfit to pass any
judgment on it at all. That is a preposterous and barbarous
anachronism, and so long as it lasts our democracy is one-sided and
incomplete. But it will not last long. No franchise bill can ever again
be brought forward in this country without raising the whole problem of
whether you are going to exclude more than half the citizens of the
land. Women have entered pretty nearly every sphere of commerce and
industry and professional activity and public employment; and there
never was a time when the nation stood more in need of the special
experience, instincts, and sympathy of womanhood in the management of
its affairs. When women get the vote the horizon of the home will be
both brightened and expanded, and their influence on moral and social
and educational questions, especially on the temperance question, and
possibly on the peace of nations, will be constant and humanizing.

Those are a few of the reasons why I favor woman suffrage. But because
I favor it I do not therefore hold myself bound to either speak or vote
for any and every suffrage bill that may