the open market as a
writer, protected by the national copyrights; she maintains a house
where she is protected in person and property by the city of London, the
organization and administration of which calls for the constant
attention of all intelligent citizens; and yet she urges women to take
what they can get, but to refrain from doing their fair share of the
city and national housekeeping, lest they lose their feminine charm.
Surely those who profit by government should give their share of
service.

It is idle to claim that equal suffrage will make no change in women. It
will certainly accentuate the changes already made by higher education
and by a freer business life. Some loss there must inevitably be in any
such far-reaching change. We lost something of chivalry and of the
spirit of _noblesse oblige_ in the transition from feudalism to
democracy. In transferring causes of personal difference from the
dueling field to the courts of law, we lost a degree of poetic feeling
and tragic exaltation, of personal initiative and physical courage. So
when women passed from slavery to serfdom we lost something of male
dominance and of female submission. We shall lose something in the
present transition; but one must be content to lose Louis XIV and
Versailles if one thereby finds modern France; one must be satisfied to
lose an institution which gave us the tragically pathetic death of
Alexander Hamilton, if it increases human justice and saves fathers to
their families. We must even be content to lose the languishing and
weeping lady of chivalry, and the coquetting, crocheting and confiding
maiden of the eighteenth century if we gain in return fair minded
comrades in daily living, devoted partners in family life, and strong,
intelligent mothers for the coming generations. The sex instinct needs
no fostering; it has led us to our best developments in civilization;
and its work has only begun.

So far we have taken the popular position, and have discussed this
matter as though it were still in the period of debate. The fact is, it
long ago passed from the field of theory; it is now a condition. In six
of our States, women have now full participation in managing public
affairs. In Wyoming, since 1869; in Colorado, since 1893; in Idaho,
since 1896; in Washington, beginning in 1910; and in California, since
1911, women have been sharing the vote with men. In twenty-nine States
they have school suffrage, and in many places mu