Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/433

 There are a few fanatics who, if.they could, would force the women of this generation back into the spheres of their. grandmothers. There are some pessimists who imagine they see all natural order coming to a speedy end because of the enlarged liberties and opportunities of women. There are sentimentalists who believe that the American home, that most sacred unit of society, is seriously imperiled by the tendencies of women to adopt new duties and interests. But this is not the thought of the average American. There are few intelligent men who would be willing to provide their daughters no more education than was deemed proper for their grandmothers, or who would care to restrict them to the old-time limited sphere of action. Thinking men and women realize that the American home was never more firmly established than at the present time, and that it has grown nobler and happier as women have grown more self-reliant. The average man and woman recognize that the changes which have come have been in the interest of better womanhood and better manhood, bringing greater happiness to women and greater blessings to men. They recognize that each step gained has rendered women fitter companions for men, wiser mothers and far abler units of society.

The public acknowledges the wisdom, the common sense, the practical judgment of the woman movement until it asks for the suffrage. In other words, it approves every right gained because it is here, and condemns the one right not yet gained because it is not here.

Had it been either custom or statutory law which forbade women to vote, the suffrage would have been won by the same processes which have gained every other privilege. A few women would have voted, a few men and women would have upheld them, and, little by little, year after year, the number of women electors would have increased until it became as general for women to vote as it is for men. Had this been possible the women would be voting to-day in every State in the Union; and undoubtedly their appearance at the polls would now be as generally accepted as a matter of fact as the college education. But, alas, when this step of advancement was proposed, women found themselves face to face with the stone wall of Constitutional Law, and they could not vote until a majority of men should first give their consent. Indeed the experiment was made to gain this sacred privilege by easier means. The history of the voting of Susan B. Anthony and others is familiar to all, but the Supreme Court decided that the National Constitution must first be amended. It therefore becomes a necessity to convert to this reform a majority of the men of the whole United States.

When we recall the vast amount of illiteracy, ignorance, selfishness and degradation which exists among certain classes of our people the task imposed upon us is appalling. There are whole precincts of voters in this country whose united intelligence does not equal that of one representative American woman. Yet to such Classes as these we are asked to take our cause as the court of final resort. We are compelled to petition men who have never heard of