“Forgetting my dear, that there are millions of women who haven’t such fathers and brothers as you have.  No my dear, when you examine the matter, a little more closely, you will find there are some painful inequalities in the law for women.”

“But mother, I do think it would be a dreadful thing for women to vote Oh! just think of women being hustled and crowded at the polls by rude men, their breaths reeking with whiskey and tobacco, the very air heavy with their oaths.  And then they have the polls at public houses.  Oh mother, I never want to see the day when women vote.”

“Well I do, because we have one of the kindest and best fathers and husbands and good brothers, who would not permit the winds of heaven to visit us too roughly, there is no reason we should throw ourselves between the sunshine and our less fortunate sisters who shiver in the blast.”

“But mother, I don’t see how voting would help us, I am sure we have influence I have often heard papa say that you were the first to awaken him to a sense of the enormity of slavery.  Now mother if we women would use our influence with our fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, could we not have everything we want.”

“No, my dear we could not, with all our influence we never could have the same sense of responsibility which flows from the possession of power.  I want women to possess power as well as influence, I want every Christian woman as she passes by a grogshop or liquor saloon, to feel that she has on her heart a burden of responsibility for its existence, I hold my dear that a nation as well as an individual should have a conscience, and on this liquor question there is room for woman’s conscience not merely as a persuasive influence but as an enlightened and aggressive power.”

“Well Ma I think you would make a first class stump speaker.  I expect when women vote we shall be constantly having calls, for the gifted, and talented Mrs. Gladstone to speak on the duties and perils of the hour.”

“And I would do it, I would go among my sister women and try to persuade them to use their vote as a moral lever, not to make home less happy, but society more holy.  I would have good and sensible women, grave in manner, and cultured in intellect, attend the primary meetings and bring their moral influence and political power to frown down corruption, chicanery, and low cunning.”

“But mother just think if women went to the polls how many vicious ones would go?”

“I hope and believe for the honor of our sex that the vicious women of the community are never in the majority, that for one woman whose feet turn aside from the paths of rectitude that there are thousands of feet that never stray into forbidden paths, and today I believe there is virtue enough in society to confront its vice, and intelligence enough to grapple with its ignorance."[6]

Chapter XVIII