Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/155

 in all these years of hope deferred; whose heart has continually glowed with perennial youth; whose soul has burned with a vivid flame of love and freedom; whose brain has been the inspirer of herculean service; whose industry has never flagged; whose quenchless hope for humanity has carried us from victory to victory? May her spirit of devotion to freedom ever lead us on!

It means fifty-seven years nearer to victory than when the first invincible band of pioneers of universal freedom met in that little church in Seneca Falls, N. Y., in 1848. It means that in this body are women from four States of our Union already crowned with full citizenship; that delegates from more than two-score States have crossed the borderland of freedom, and that representatives from nearly every State and Territory are banded together in an unfaltering purpose to become politically free. It also means that more has been accomplished for the betterment of the condition of women, for their physical, economic, intellectual and religious emancipation, by these fifty-seven years of evolutionary progress, than by all the revolutions the world has known; and it means that in every civilized nation of the earth, more and more the most patriotic, the most law-abiding, the most intelligent and the most industrious people are coming to see the justice of our claim, that in a representative government "the people who bear the burdens and responsibilities should share its privileges also—not excepting women."

The recent attacks of Cardinal Gibbons and former President Cleveland, who had protested against women taking part in the Government lest it interfere with the home, she answered with keen analysis, saying in part:

The great fear that the participation of women in public affairs will impair the quality and character of home service is irrational and contrary to the tests of experience. Does an intelligent interest in the education of a child render a woman less a mother? Does the housekeeping instinct of woman, manifested in a desire for clean streets, pure water and unadulterated food, destroy her efficiency as a home-maker? Does a desire for an environment of moral and civic purity show neglect of the highest good of the family? It is the "men must fight and women must weep" theory of life which makes men fear that the larger service of women will impair the high ideal of home. The newer ideal that men must cease fighting and thus remove one prolific cause for women's weeping, and that they shall together build up a more perfect home and a more ideal government, is infinitely more sane and desirable. Participation in the larger and broader concerns of the State will increase instead of decrease the efficiency of government and tend to develop that self-control, that more perfect judgment which are wanting in much of the home training of today.