We may not be able to bring about that Utopian form of government which we all desire, but we can at least make an effort.  Under our form of government the ballot is our right; it is just and proper.  When you debate about the expediency of any matter you have no right to say that it is inexpedient to do right.  Do right and leave the result to God.  You will have to decide between one of two things:  either you have no claim under our form of Constitution for the privileges which you enjoy, or you will have to say that we are neither citizens nor persons.

Realizing this fact, and the deep interest that we take in the successful issue of this experiment that humanity is making for self-government, and realizing the fact that the ballot never can be given to us under more favorable circumstances, and believing that here on this continent is to be wrought out the great problem of man’s ability to govern himself—­and when I say man I use the word in the generic sense—­that humanity here is to work out the great problems of self-government and development, and recognizing, as I said a few minutes ago, that we are one-half of the great whole, we feel that we ought to be heard when we come before you and make the plea that we make to-day.

    REMARKS BY MRS. JULIA SMITH PARKER, OF GLASTONBURY, CONN.

Mrs. PARKER.  Gentlemen:  You may be surprised, and not so much surprised as I am, to see a woman of over four-score years of age appear before you at this time.  She came into the world and reached years of maturity and discretion before any person in this room was born.  She now comes before you to plead that she can vote and have all the privileges that men have.  She has suffered so much individually that she thought when she was young she had no right to speak before the men; but still she had courage to get an education equal to that of any man at the college, and she had to suffer a great deal on that account.  She went to New Haven to school, and it was noised that she had studied the languages.  It was such an astonishing thing for girls at that time to have the advantages of education that I had absolutely to go to cotillon parties to let people see that I had common sense. [Laughter.]

She has suffered; she had to pay money.  She has had to pay $200 a year in taxes without the least privilege of knowing what becomes of it.  She does not know but that it goes to support grog-shops.  She knows nothing about it.  She has had to suffer her cows to be sold at the sign-post six times.  She suffered her meadow land to be sold, worth $2,000, for a tax of less than $50.  If she could vote as the men do she would not have suffered this insult; and so much would not have been said against her as has been said if men did not have the whole power.  I was told that they had the power to take any thing that I owned if I would not exert myself to pay the money.  I felt that fought to have some little