“The Senate now has forty-one committees, with a small army of messengers and clerks, one-half of whom, without exaggeration, are literally without employment.  I shall not pretend to specify the committees of this body which have not one single bill, resolution, or proposition of any sort pending before them, and have not had for months.  But, Mr. President, out of all committees without business, and habitually without business, in this body, there is one that, beyond any question, could take jurisdiction of this matter and do it ample justice.  I refer to that most respectable and antique institution, the Committee on Revolutionary Claims.  For thirty years it has been without business.  For thirty long years the placid surface of that parliamentary sea has been without one single ripple.  If the Senator from Massachusetts desires a tribunal for a calm, judicial equilibrium and examination—­a tribunal far from the ’madding crowd’s ignoble strife’—­a tribunal eminently respectable, dignified and unique; why not send this question to the Committee on Revolutionary Claims?  It is eminently proper that this subject should go to that committee because, if there is any revolutionary claim in this country, it is that of woman suffrage.  (Laughter.) It revolutionizes society; it revolutionizes religion; it revolutionizes the Constitution and laws; and it revolutionizes the opinions of those so old-fashioned among us as to believe that the legitimate and proper sphere of woman is the family circle, as wife and mother, and not as politician and voter—­those of us who are proud to believe that

    “Woman’s noblest station is retreat: 
    Her fairest virtues fly from public sight;
    Domestic worth—­that shuns too strong a light.

“Before that Committee on Revolutionary Claims why could not this most revolutionary of all claims receive immediate and ample attention?  More than that, as I said before, if there is any tribunal that could give undivided time and dignified attention, is it not this committee?  If there is one peaceful haven of rest, never disturbed by any profane bill or resolution of any sort, it is the Committee on Revolutionary Claims.  It is, in parliamentary life, described by that ecstatic verse in Watts’ hymn—­

    “There shall I bathe my wearied soul
     In seas of endless rest. 
    And not one wave of trouble roll
     Across my peaceful breast.

“By all natural laws, stagnation breeds disease and death, and what could stir up this most venerable and respectable institution more than an application of the strong-minded, with short hair and shorter skirts, invading its dignified realm and elucidating all the excellences of female suffrage.  Moreover, if these ladies could ever succeed in the providence of God in obtaining a report from that committee, it would end this question forever; for the public at large and myself included, in view of that miracle