Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/893

Rh to it, and in her church and out of it she remembers the rights of women; Mrs. Morse, of Walnut Hills, and other ladies co-operated, so that as delegates arrived they were assigned to pleasant homes. At the appointed hour on Tuesday evening a full hall greeted the speakers. The Cincinnati Gazette said:

Rev. W. C., the first speaker of the evening, said: Woman should not only be allowed a fair chance so far as business and the administration of an estate is concerned; every woman ought to have the ballot. Many will say, I believe woman ought to have the right to equal education, wages, carry on business, and choose any vocation she wants, but doubt after all whether it is best to put upon her the responsibility of the ballot. We have not a very exalted opinion of our right to vote, and this objection is often made with a kindly, honest, and earnest fear that she will drag herself down to the low filth of politics. Leave out the ballot, and woman's rights is like a pyramid without the apex, or, better still, like building a temple without the corner stone. I have no Utopian notions concerning the immediate effect of woman's voting. I do not think the millennium is coming when she can vote. But if women could vote it would not be possible for those disreputable shows on Vine street, the foulest and filthiest that ever disgraced a Christian city, to continue one day longer. They would be put down by the overwhelming power of moral sentiment of the mothers, sisters, wives, and sweethearts, expressed at the ballot-box; and the men who are now so derelict, careless and indolent, will be wakened up to some earnestness against those exhibitions.

I will say, in conclusion, that I most heartily welcome these women among us, some of whom, like Mrs. Lucy Stone, have labored long and faithfully. I would say that you may come up like Moses of old, and see the promised land, and unlike him, unless all signs fail, you shall enter and receive the just reward of all your toil. The time is coming when women will have the ballot. State after State is wheeling into the line. In Massachusetts they have the right of the ballot for school committee. Step by step they are climbing up, and soon the time will come when the American people will rise up in new-found manhood and say: "My sister, we will not ask you to receive the ballot from our hands as a condescending privilege, but will ask you to go forward and take it as your inalienable right."

Mrs., of St. Louis, President of the Association, spoke as follows: As one after another the milestones are reached which mark the progress of our cause, we pause to examine the ground upon which we stand. If to our impatient vision in looking forward the journey seems long, we have only to look back to see how much of the way has been left behind. To those who have borne the burdens of this undertaking the work may appear to move slowly. But this is always the case where enduring principles are to be planted. "What the ancients said of the avenging gods, that