Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/811

Rh ters and drop them into the letter-box at the corner," and your daughter does it. There is much more trouble in doing that than to drop a ballot in the ballot-box. Nobody thinks anything of it, although there are men there, too. Is a woman demeaned by dropping her ballot into the box? Does the act injure her? "Oh, no; it is not the act—it is the scenes that she would have to meet. Go to the polls, and see what voting means." Yes; go and see what bachelor voting means. It is exactly the thing that we want to improve. Did you ever see a crowd of men, the rudest in the world, who, when a lady walked among them, did not open spontaneously and let her pass through as if she was an angel? It is asked sometimes, "Would you like to have your wife or daughter go to the polls and vote?" Yes—on my arm; yes. I venture to say that there is not a precinct in the city where well-bred ladies will not only be allowed to vote themselves, but would carry peace in the exercise of the right to others. "Would you have a woman participate in the scenes preliminary to an election?" I will tell you that the moment that women begin to vote there will be no scenes "preliminary" in which women may not appear. It is this very jointure of the family influence that we look to as a part of the influence that should bring reformation into our politics; for if our politics are to be masculine forever I despair of the republic. No! whatever thing on God's earth a woman's conscience tells her to do, she can do it, though she stood in the gates of hell, and be every particle a woman just as much. Is there anything in this world that has so great a reputation for lawlessness as a camp? And yet, when our armies went into this conflict, how many hundreds of women went, not as companions, but to minister to the boys. They went down into the camps, and through the whole war consorted with the rudest of men, and not one single syllable did they ever hear from the lips of those men that a pure ear should not hear. They ate the soldiers' fare—they performed the most menial services; but it was love that inspired and sustained them in their toils. And will any man say that after these four years had passed, and these ministers of mercy came back again, that because they had been mixed up with this rabble crew, they were the less women? Were they not the more women? These are sisters of charity—these are heroines without a record in any human literature. Have they been injured by mixing with the rude affairs of war in camps and among soldiers? When women take upon themselves such necessary duties they take vulgarity from vulgarity, and coarseness becomes refined, for it is the heart of woman that brings life among men, and restores Paradise.

But it is said that it would do women no good to have the vote, because they would vote as their husbands would. Well, I am very glad to hear that you are all so happily mated. I have a pretty large flock, and my observation has been that there was not such perfect unanimity. The tidings brought to me are that there are women who have minds of their own, and I don't think a woman would make up her mind to vote with her husband unless she conscientiously believed that he voted the right way. It is said again that it would introduce division into the family, and that a division about politics is the most bitter thing in the world. No; there is one thing in which a difference is more bitter than politics. What? Religion. There is no such diverging influence in this world as a difference in religion. Yet