Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/868

830 Declaration of Independence belonged to men. Let them have their masculine celebration and masculine glory all to themselves, and let the women, wherever they can get a church, go there and hold solemn service and toll the bell. "It will give us a chance for moral protest," she continued, "such as we shall never have again, for before another hundred years it must surely be that the growth of public sentiment will sweep away all distinctions based solely on sex."

At the close of Mrs. Stone's remarks, the Chairman invited the representative of the parasol-makers to state her case, introducing her as Miss Leonard, of New York, President of the parasol-makers.

Miss advanced to the front of the platform, and appeared to be much embarrassed at fronting so large an audience. The hearty applause with which she was greeted assuring her of a kindly reception, she became a little more at ease, and in a low tone of voice spoke as follows:

said: This audience is composed mostly of men. I have a word to say to men especially. Why is it that labor is oppressed and that working women and working men are in some respects worse off than ever before? I answer; because our Government is Republican only in name. It is not even representative of men. The primary meetings which nominate the candidates and control the policy of parties are neglected by the voters. Not one man in fifty attends them. They are controlled in every locality by rings of trading politicians.

Now there is only one remedy for this. You must somehow contrive to interest the mass of the people in public business. You must reform the primary meetings by securing an attendance of the intelligent classes of the community. There is only one way to do this. The same way you have already adopted in the churches, in charitable associations, in society, everywhere except in politics, you must enlist the sympathy and co-operation of women. Then the men who now stay away will go with their wives and sisters. The reason the better class of men neglect to attend the primaries is this—civilized and refined men spend their evenings in the society of women; they go with them to church meetings, to concerts, to lectures. They do not break off these engagements to go down to some liquor saloon, or other unattractive locality, there, amid the fumes of tobacco and whisky, to find everything already cut and dried beforehand. They try it once or