As bearing simply upon the question whether there is a demand by a respectable number of people to be heard on this issue, I desire to read one or two documents in my possession.  I offer in this connection, in addition to the innumerable petitions which have been placed before the Senate and before the other House, the petition of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.  I take it that no Senator will raise the question whether this organization be or be not composed of the very elite of the women of America.  At least two hundred thousand of the Christian women of this country are represented in this organization.  It is national in its character and scope; it is international, and it exists in every State and in every Territory of the Union.  By their officers, Miss Frances E. Willard, the president; Mrs. Caroline B. Buell, corresponding secretary; Mrs. Mary A. Woodbridge, recording secretary; Mrs. L.M.N.  Stevens, assistant recording secretary; Miss Esther Pugh, treasurer; Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace, superintendent of department of franchise, and Mrs. Henrietta B. Wall, secretary of department of franchise, they bring this petition to the Senate.  It has been indorsed by the action of the body at large.  They say: 

Believing that governments can be just only when deriving their powers from the consent of the governed, and that in a government professing to be a government of the people, all the people of a mature age should have a voice, and that all class-legislation and unjust discrimination against the rights and privileges of any citizen is fraught with danger to the republic, and inasmuch as the ballot in popular governments is a most potent element in all moral and social reforms: 

We, therefore, on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Christian women engaged in philanthropic effort, pray you to use your influence, and vote for the passage of a sixteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting the disfranchisement of any citizen on the ground of sex.

I have also just received, in addition to other matter before the Senate, the petition of the Indianapolis Suffrage Association, or of that department of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union which has the control of the discussion and management of the operations of the union with reference to the suffrage.  I shall not take the time of the Senate to read it.  The letter transmitting the petition is as follows: 

    INDIANAPOLIS, IND., January 12, 1886.

DEAR SIR:  I have sent the inclosed petitions and arguments to every member on the Committee on Woman Suffrage, hoping if they are read they may have some influence in securing a favorable report for the passage of a sixteenth amendment, giving the ballot to women.

    Will you urge upon the members of the committee the importance of
    their perusal?

    Respectfully,