Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/283

 whether woman suffrage will bring in everything good and abolish everything evil but if it will by all means let us have it." He closed with a tribute to the mothers in the State.

In an eloquent response Mrs. Villard reminded the Mayor that if a cause is just the consequences following in its path need not be feared and said: "I was early taught by my father that moral principle in vigorous exercise is irresistible. It has an immortal essence. It may disappear for a time but it can no more be trod out of existence by the iron foot of time or the ponderous march of iniquity than matter can be annihilated. It lives somewhere, somehow, and rises again in renovated strength. The women of this country who are advocating the cause of woman suffrage are animated by a great moral principle. They are armed with a spiritual weapon of finest caliber and one that is sure to win." She told of the great reception given in 1883 to her husband and his guests when they reached Seattle for the opening of the railroad after its completion; of his response and that of the Hon., Carl Schurz. She described an address made by a young girl, the daughter of Professor Powell of the university, the entire expenses of which Mr. Villard had paid for several years, in which she said he would be remembered more for what he had done for education than for the building of the railroad. "In the retrospect of time," said Mrs. Villard, "I can see her, sweetly modest and gracious, standing as it were with outstretched arms inviting the women who are gathered here today to come and help make the State of Washington free." Then in an appeal for the pending suffrage amendment she said: "Many tributes of respect and admiration have been paid to my noble companion' in the great northwest, which are carefully cherished by me and my children, but I crave one more and it is this—that Mr. Villard's keen sense of justice and fair play for women shall find echo in the hearts of the men of Washington, to whose extraordinary development he gave such powerful impetus, so that in November, 1910, they will proclaim with loud accord that the women: of Washington are no longer bond but free, no longer disfranchised but regenerated and disenthralled, equal partners in the unending struggle of the human race for nobler laws and higher moral standards."