Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/344

 woman suffrage for neither party was committed to it but purely for the sake of the welfare of the country, as they understood it. I can not agree that they were lacking in self-respect


 * I have made only one party speech in my life. That was ten years ago, for the Prohibition Party; and if the Lord will forgive me, I will never do it again till women vote.

In spite of the lively difference of opinion, the meeting adjourned in great good humor and amid considerable laughter.

The last session of the convention was a celebration of the suffrage victory in Idaho, conducted by representatives of what the association liked to call "the free States." Mrs. Colby said in behalf of Wyoming:

No matter if we fill the field of blue with stars, one will always shine with peculiar lustre, the star of Wyoming, who opened the door of hope for women.

There is a beautiful custom in Switzerland among the Alpine shepherds. He who, tending his flock among the heights, first sees the rays of the rising sun gild the top of the loftiest peak, lifts his horn and sounds forth the morning greeting, "Praise the Lord." Soon another shepherd catches the radiant gleam, and then another and another takes up the reverent refrain, until mountain, hill and valley are vocal with praise and bathed in the glory of a new day.

So the dawn of the day that shall mean freedom for woman and the ennobling of the race was first seen by Wyoming, on the crest of our continent, and the clarion note was sounded forth, "Equality before the law." For a quarter of a century she was the lone watcher on the heights to sound the tocsin of freedom. At last Colorado, from her splendid snow-covered peaks, answered back in grand accord, "Equality before the law." Then on Utah's brow shone the sun, and she, too, exultantly joined in the trio, "Equality before the law." And now Idaho completes the quartette of mountain States which sing the anthem of woman's freedom. Its echoes rouse the sleepers everywhere, until from the rock-bound coast of the Atlantic to the golden sands of the Pacific resounds one resolute and jubilant demand, "Equality before the law," and lo, the whole world wakes to the sunlight of liberty!

Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, in speaking for Colorado, said: Civilization means self-realization. The level is being slowly but surely raised and the atmosphere improved. Freedom for the individual, properly guarded, is the ideal to-day. When woman is free, the eternal feminine shows itself to be also the truly human. Witness Wyoming, with its magnificent school system, its equal pay for equal work. Witness Colorado, where women cast 52 per cent, of the total vote though the State contains a large majority of men. What does this show if not that women wish to vote? We women