is to emphasize more than heretofore has been done the thought of what women have to do with the ballot. Heretofore we have had a great deal to say of abstract right,but of late we are coming to think more of what the ballot is an instrument to be used for; and the temperance women have found out, a great many of them, what the ballot is good for. The liquor interest has found out what the ballot in the hands of women means and coming fresh from our experience in Rhode Island, I feel bound to bear my testimony on that point. The year before our suffrage amendment was submitted a prohibitory amendment was submitted and adopted, and it was generally conceded that although the women did not have a vote it was through their influence and their exertions in indirect ways that that amendment was adopted; but the fact to-day is that although the amendment has been adopted it has never been honestly enforced, and in this last election when the suffrage question came up many temperance women, under the advice of that wise and great woman Frances Willard, threw their influence in favor of this Woman Suffrage amendment in order that they might secure the ballot and so take the next step towards the success of Prohibition. The women of Rhode Island, are powerless to push on the enforcement of the law unless they can get the ballot in their hands, and the striking point about it is that the liquor traffic which never lacks wisdom in regard to where its true interest lies saw it in the same way and the votes which defeated Woman Suffrage in our State were largely the votes of the men who were interested in the sale of intoxicating liquors in Rhode Island. It was well recognized on the part of the wisest of the temperance women and on the part of the entire liquor interest that it was a question of the home against the saloon and Woman Suffrage was defeated by the saloon in Rhode Island because it was well-known that Woman Suffrage once granted would defeat the saloon. Another thought-A great deal has been said about the demoralization which go ing into politics will bring upon women. Well, if the condition of politics is so bad that it demoralizes those who go into it, for Heaven's sake let somebody in who will make it better. For myself I do not want to go anywhere where it is improper for my wife to go, and if there is any place on earth so full of profanity and immorality and the fumes of liquor and the smoke of tobacco that square voting and honest upright doing is impossible there, if there is such a place as that, it seems to me that we ought, first of all, to invoke the pure influence of every womanly character to come there and purify the atmosphere. It was my prividischarge of my In our election it was my privilege for the first time to sit side by side in my ward room with my wife. lege during the day in going about in the duties in connection with the campaign in the other ward rooms of Providence to meet there women by whose friendship I am honored, and it seemed to me that I never felt so well in the ward room as I did during that election. There was nothing there to offend, other than the surroundings of the ward room inevitably offend as at present constituted. To be sure, the floor was sanded which was made necessary by the filth of some male human mouths; to be sure, there was occasionally a cigar smoked; but in some of the ward rooms the wardens forebade it and it was stopped, and in all of the ward rooms there was less of it than common. I feel sure the one thing that is to purify the atmosphere of the ward room is for the upright men who go there in discharge of their duties to take side by side with them their wives. One point more-Not only are Temperance women finding out the use of the ballot, but within a very few years there has been revealed a depth of degradation concerning our statute books and common law such as few people ever realized. Perhaps some of you do not know it now, but, friends, in most of the states in this Union a depraved, bad man can seduce a girl ten years old and yet if it can be shown that the girl, through any advice or counsel or pleading of his, consented to the operation that man can not be convicted of the crime, and in some of the States the attempt has been made and successfully made to raise the age of consent. I do not know what the age is here in Pennsylvania or whether there is any statute provision concerning it. I have heard within a few weeks something about a state which is not very far from here, a state which comes the nearest of any state in the Union to being as small as my own. In the State of Delaware today, unless I am misinformed, a libertine can seduce a little girl seven years old and if she consents to the transaction the law cannot touch him. Now, I bring this matter up because it seems to me that of all the arguments of any nature which I have ever heard brought forward in behalf of Woman Suffrage this is the strongest. During all these years men have been making the statute books and it is only until very recent times that this condition of things has been revealed in all its hideousness, and although it has been revealed, the majority of the Legislatures of the United States have up to this time failed to remedy it. Why, friends, if there is any man in this house who can believe for a moment that if the mothers of these United States had a hand in making the laws which should govern that thing that it would remain over one week of one session of any Legislature in the land I pity him; and if there is any one argument irresistibly strong to my mind in favor of pressing the matter of Woman Suffrage to the speediest possible conclusion it is found in such a damning fact as this. For one I will never rest until the mother of my daughter can come to the ballot box and help me and help other good men who are moved on this subject in making the streets which my daughter is to tread, and other men's daughters are to tread, reasonably safe. And so 1 feel that whenever this question comes up it comes to us not only as a matter of abstract right but it come to us as a means of removing these tremendous wrongs under which the world exists. We have had ideals painted for us during these days of our meeting here, large, beautiful ideals; it is at once an ideal and a practical thing, very practical, that the fathers and mothers of this nation should insist that the same standard of morality shall be applied to their boys that is applied to their girls, and that there shall be nothing on their statute books which shall say to the libertine “Go on in your work; these fathers and mothers cannot touch you; if you only exercise the wisdom of the serpent." I would have the statute book represent the purity of the home. Don't talk about the home with only the father; don't talk about the home with only the mother; the home is a place where all are equals; where the father and the mother mutually respecting each other and respecting themselves meet as equals to counsel together in all which concerns themselves, their children, and the world. Let us carry that same thought into politics. Let us carry it to our statute books and I tell you friends, even the state of Delaware with the laws which now disgrace it will rise with all the rest of the states of our Union to the level of Nineteenth Century Civilization. But I ought not to have detained you for these few brief words. The time has come when this meeting should draw to a close. Through these three days I think you will agree with me we have been considering pretty serious questions. We began with the question of Heredity which indeed goes back to the very beginning of life; we followed that with a broad and comprehensive view of Education, which was defined to be co-extensive with life itself and to touch every phase of human living; we have been treating to-day of this great question of equal rights and equal suffrage which means the uniting of all the men and women in this country in behalf of such education. We have not agreed on all points, but I am sure we have agreed in the main thought. We shall be stronger, shall we not, for having come here this year; for having realized here a large spirit of humanity. Let us adjourn then in the spirit of that and all women and all children as parts of one great family, unity which takes in all men |