their family relations. The trouble is that where Western civilization interferes with Oriental abuses it does not go far enough. When in India the British government prohibited the custom of burning widows on the funeral pyre of their deceased husbands, widows became the slaves of their husband's relatives, and were actually believed to be responsible for his death and were ill treated accordingly. When infanticide was forbidden and peace maintained, population multiplied until famine became chronic. The only salvation for the women of our new possessions lies in a legal recognition of their personal, industrial, social and political equality. If, as seems too probable, their rights shall be simply ignored in the reconstruction, women will suffer all the disabilities of the law, without the practical alleviations afforded by an enlightened public opinion. Such women, even more than those of our own States, will need the ballot as a means of self-protection....
Miss Anthony: I have been overflowing with wrath ever since the proposal was made to engraft our half-barbaric form of government on Hawaii and our other new possessions. I have been studying how to save, not them, but ourselves from the disgrace. This is the first time the United States has ever tried to foist upon a new people the exclusively masculine form of government. Our business should be to give this people the highest form which has been attained by us. When our State governments were originally formed, there was no example of woman suffrage anywhere, but now we have a great deal of it, and everywhere it has done good. The principle is constantly spreading....
We are told it will be of no use for us to ask this measure of justice—that the ballot be given to the women of our new possessions upon the same terms as to the men—because we shall not get it. It is not our business whether we are going to get it; our business is to make the demand. Suppose during these fifty years we had asked only for what we thought we could secure, where should we be now? Ask for the whole loaf and take what you can get.
Mrs. Mary L. Doe (Mich.), brought greetings from the American Federation of Labor. "Woman suffrage would find its most hopeful and fertile field among the labor organizations," she said; "the workingmen stood for weak and defenseless women even before they did for their own rights." From Samuel Gompers, president of the Federation, she read the following letter:
The American Federation of Labor, at every convention where the subject has been brought up and discussed, has unfalteringly declared for equal legal, political and economic rights for women. At the convention held in Detroit, some thirteen years ago, a resolution to that effect was unanimously adopted. A petition to Congress for the submission of a constitutional amendment enfranchising women was circulated among our various unions, and within two months it received nearly 300,000 signatures and indorsements.
At the Kansas City convention last December, the question of woman's work was discussed, and the following declaration was unanimously adopted: "In view of the awful conditions under which woman is compelled to toil, this, the eighteenth annual convention of the American Federation of Labor, strongly urges the more general formation of trade unions of wage-working women, to the end that they may scientifically and permanently abolish the terrible evils accompanying their weakened, because unorganized state; and we emphatically reiterate the trade-union demand that women receive equal compensation for equal service performed."
You will see that there ought to be no question as to the attitude of the organized labor movement on this subject, notwithstanding the designing misrepresentations of enemies of our cause, who seek to place our movement in a false light. Let me say, too, that the declaration just quoted is not for compliment merely, for members of many of our organizations have been involved in long and sacrificing contests in order to secure to women equal pay for equal work. Please convey fraternal greetings to our friends who will meet at Grand Rapids.
When Mrs. Loraine Immen came forward with a greeting from the Michigan Elocutionists' Association, Miss Anthony spoke of the great change which had taken place in women's voices in the last twenty-five years. At an early Woman's Rights Convention, when she insisted that they should speak louder, one of them answered, "We are not here to screech; we are here to be ladies."
Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.) spoke entertainingly on The Hope of the Future:
The lessons of the past year have brought home to many of us more forcibly than any other recent events the injustice and cruelty of denying to women their proper share in deciding questions for the public good. We have seen the republic plunged into war in which women have borne a heavy share of the burdens. It should be the rule of all nations that no contest of arms should be entered into without the consent of the women....
Another significant object lesson grew out of the war. When the time of election approached, the governmental authorities became much exercised over the means of providing for the voting of the soldiers. It is astonishing how much men think of their own right to vote. Extra sessions of the Legislatures were called to provide means of meeting this emergency. In this dilemma I ventured to write to the Governor of my State and suggest that he recommend the passing of a law empowering each soldier and sailor to send to some woman at home a proxy permitting her to vote for him. You can see how simple a plan this would be. Every man would have a beloved mother, a dear sister or some adored damsel whom he would be proud to have represent him at the polls, and the amount of money which this scheme would have saved to the State is enormous. The counting of the soldiers' votes when at last they were sent to New York cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. In one instance, in a certain county where the board of supervisors had to be called together in two special sessions and the county officials summoned as if at a regular election, to count six votes, the amount reached $100 per vote!
Miss Frances A. Griffin (Ala.), a new speaker on the national platform, captured the audience with her rich voice and southern intonation as she discussed The Effects of Our Teaching:
The thanksgiving of the old Jew, "Lord, I thank Thee that Thou didst not make me a woman," doubtless came from a careful review of the situation. Like all of us, he had fortitude enough to bear his neighbors' afflictions....
Miss Anthony deals recklessly with years, apportioning them to her friends as liberally as Napoleon dealt out kingdoms and duchies to his brothers and other relations. Her example has strengthened me; you never would have had this next remark but for Miss Anthony: Thirty-five years ago I read a graduating essay. I knew I was doing an unwomanly thing, and in order to preserve what little womanliness I might have left, when I got up to read it I whispered the whole essay. I've quit that. Since I made up my mind to be heard, I have been heard.... A great progress of women has gone on and is going on. Men for the most part are manageable; women are the converts needed. When women have their minds made up to vote, it will be with them as it was with me about being heard....
This is a new era for woman. If the larger sphere now open to her is not a new discovery, it is at least a new testament. The day will come that people will look back with shame on the time when brains and virtue were shut away from the ballot-box, if they belonged to a woman....
Miss Anna Caulfield (Mich.) pointed out The Achievements of Woman in Art. Mrs. May Wright Sewall (Ind.) spoke eloquently on The True Civilization of the World, saying in part:
In the new civilization the sense of personal responsibility is strong; it respects the child's individuality and also recognizes the unity of all educational agencies—kindergarten, school, college and university.
There is also a new theology, in which individual conscience is substituted for the dictates of authority, and which distinguishes between metaphysical doctrine and practical principle. It seeks the higher unity, all embracing.
The new political economy recognizes the right of the individual, and the body politic as composed of units, each one of which must be respected. Its whole effort is to preserve the rights of employers and to give equal recognition to the employed; to unify all those classes that have heretofore been kept divided.
The new civilization results from all these. The difficulties in realizing this perfect unit arise from selfishness. We have long recognized that individual selfishness is a defect, but national selfishness has been for a long time extolled under the name of patriotism, and has gone on cleaving great chasms between different peoples. In the new civilization the individual will recognize himself at his best in his relation to the whole. The