Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/142

 inasmuch as we have come here year after year claiming that woman suffrage had wrought none of the ills which its enemies said it would and that it had brought many benefits, we asked that Congress, through a commission, should investigate it in the western States. You are aware that no such commission resulted from our petition. When Mahomet commanded the mountain to come to him and the mountain did not come he said: 'Then Mahomet will go to the mountain.' We have therefore this year brought Colorado to you and the speakers who will address you this morning are all from that State."

The speeches largely followed the lines of those given before the convention. Mrs. Katherine Cook showed the relation between the women's vote and the home and family welfare. Mrs. Ellis Meredith, introduced as on the editorial staff of the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, gave a summary of the excellent legislation that had been effected since women began voting in 1894 and said: "I have read a compilation of the laws in regard to the protection of children in every State and I know that in no other have they such ample protection and in no other are the laws so well enforced. This is partly due to the fact that our Humane Society is a State institution and has the free voluntary services of six hundred men and women acting as agents over this big State of 104,000 square miles." Answering questions she said: "In my district, one of the best, 571 women registered and 570 voted. There are as many men as women in the district but only 235 voted. Men form 55 per cent. of our population and women 45. Women cast over 43 per cent. of the total vote."

Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs, extended the account of the remarkable work it had accomplished as described to the convention, a success, she said, due to the fact that it represented a large body of well-informed voters. She ridiculed the danger at the polling places. "Who are the evil creatures we are supposed to meet there on election day? We vote in the precinct in which we live and we meet our husbands, our brothers, our sons In Colorado the environment in which the supreme right of citizenship is