vote resolutions; you can attend great demonstrations on the street; but, after all, the only occasion where the American citizen expresses his acts, his opinion, and his power is at the ballot-box; and that little ballot that he drops in there is the written sentiment of the times, and it is the power that he has as a citizen of this great Republic.”

That is the reason why we are here; that is the reason why we want to vote.  We are no seditious women, clamoring for any peculiar rights, but we are patient women.  It is not the woman question that brings us before you to-day; it is the human question that underlies this movement among the women of this nation; it is for God, and home, and native land.  We love and appreciate our country; we value the institutions of our country.  We realize that we owe great obligations to the men of this nation for what they have done.  We realize that to their strength we owe the subjugation of all the material forces of the universe which give us comfort and luxury in our homes.  We realize that to their brains we owe the machinery that gives us leisure for intellectual culture and achievement.  We realize that it is to their education we owe the opening of our colleges and the establishment of our public schools, which give us these great and glorious privileges.

This movement is the legitimate result of this development, of this enlightenment, and of the suffering that woman has undergone in the ages past.  We find ourselves hedged in at every effort we make as mothers for the amelioration of society, as philanthropists, as Christians.

A short time ago I went before the Legislature of Indiana with a petition signed by 25,000 women, the best women in the State.  I appeal to the memory of Judge McDonald to substantiate the truth of what I say.  Judge McDonald knows that I am a home-loving, law-abiding, tax-paying woman of Indiana, and have been for 50 years.  When I went before our Legislature and found that 100 of the vilest men in our State, merely by the possession of the ballot, had more influence with the law-makers of our land than the wives and mothers of the nation, it was a revelation that was perfectly startling.

You must admit that in popular government the ballot is the most potent means of all moral and social reforms.  As members of society, as those who are deeply interested in the promotion of good morals, of virtue, and of the proper protection of men from the consequences of their own vices, and of the protection of women, too, we are deeply interested in all the social problems with which you have grappled so long unsuccessfully.  We do not intend to depreciate your efforts, but you have attempted to do an impossible thing.  You have attempted to represent the whole by one-half; and we come to you to day for a recognition of the fact that humanity is not a unit; that it is a unity; and because we are one-half that go to