Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/286

 year. In pointing out the work that should be done in the United States for peace she said:

A great campaign of education is needed in the schools and colleges, in the press and pulpit and in every organization of men and women that stands for progress. Pre-eminently among women's organizations, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which opposes the injustice of refusing the ballot to women, should stand against the grossest of all injustices which leaves innocent women widowed and children orphaned by war, and which in time of peace diverts nearly two-thirds of the federal revenue from constructive work to payment for past wars and preparation for future wars. Thus far this association has been so absorbed in its direct methods of advancing suffrage that it has not perhaps sufficiently realized the power of many agencies that are furthering its cause by indirect means. I firmly believe that substituting statesmanship for battleship will do more to remove the electoral injustices that still prevent our being a democracy than any direct means used to obtain woman suffrage, important and necessary as these are. Women, though hating war, quite as frequently as men are deluded by the plea that peace can be ensured only by huge armaments. It is a question whether woman suffrage would greatly lessen the vote for these supposed preventives of war, but there is no question that more reliance on reason and less on force would exalt respect for woman and would remove the objection that woman's physical inferiority has anything to do with suffrage.

Several delegates expressed the need and the right of. mothers to strive to prevent war. Mrs. Duniway, Mrs. Philena Everett Johnson and Mrs. DeVoe spoke on the pending amendment campaigns in their respective States of Oregon, South Dakota and Washington. Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby's subject was the American Situation vs. the English Situation and she described the conditions in England which caused the "suffragette' or "militant" movement. Mrs. Florence Kelley, chairman of the Industrial Committee, spoke on the Wage Earning Woman and the Ballot. "Because of the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Oregon case," she said, "fourteen State Legislatures in the past year have considered bills for shortening the workday for women and six have enacted laws for it. South Carolina has taken a step backward by changing the hours from ten to twelve. Child labor is constantly increasing in spite of our efforts. I have seen the evolution of modern industry and it has meant the sacrifice of thousands of young lives." At the