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 tidings to the poor, to break every yoke and to set the prisoners free, had really come to rivet the chains with which sin had bound the women, and to forge a gag for them more cruel and silencing than that put into their mouths by heathen men; for in many heathen nations women were once selected to preside at their most sacred altars."

Miss Mary F. Eastman (Mass), in an impressive address, said:

I asked a friend what phase of the subject I should talk about tonight. She answered, "The despair of it." Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that "we, the people," should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?

Men tell us that they speak for us. There is no companionship of women as equals permitted in the State. A man can not represent a woman's opinion. It was in inspiration that magnificent Declaration of Independence was framed. Men builded better than they knew; they were at the highest perception of principles; but after declaring this magnificent principle they went back on it.

Although I hold the attitude of a petitioner, I come not with the sense that men have any right to give. Our forefathers erected barriers which exclude women. I want to press it into the consciousness of the legislator and of the individual citizen that he is personally responsible for the continuance of this injustice. We ask that men take down the barriers. We do not come to pledge that we will be a unit on temperance or virtue or high living, but we want the right to speak for ourselves, as men speak for themselves.

Mrs. Caroline Hallowell Miller (Md.) spoke strongly on A Case in Point. Mrs. Elizabeth Avery Meriwether, of St. Louis, devoted her remarks chiefly to a caustic criticism of Senator George G. Vest, who had recently declared himself uncompromisingly opposed to woman suffrage. He was made the target of a number of spicy remarks, and some of the newspaper correspondents insisted that the presence of the suffrage convention in the city was responsible for the Senator's severe illness, which followed immediately afterwards. Mrs. Meriwether's son, Lee, paid a handsome tribute to "strong-minded mothers."

Mrs. Harriette R. Shattuck (Mass.) addressed the convention on The Basis of Our Claim, the right of every individual to make his personality felt in the Government. Madame Clara