Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/387

 you to remember that the important thing is not that women succeed in this kind of work but that where they do succeed it is at tremendous and needless expenditure of energy and vital strength and at the cost of dignity and self-respect.

The dominant thought in the world today is that of conservation; the tendency of the whole business world is toward economy. How to lessen the cost of production; how to improve the machinery of business so as to reduce friction—these are the questions that are being asked not only in the business world but in the affairs of state. No intelligent man in this scientific day would try to do anything by an indirect and wasteful method if he could accomplish his purpose by a direct and economic method. Even the bricklayer is taught how to handle his bricks so that the best results may be secured at the least possible expenditure of time and energy. Women alone seem to represent a great body of energy, vitality and talent which is unconserved, unutilized and recklessly wasted. If a man wants reforms he goes armed with a vote to the ballot box and even to the Legislature with that power of the vote behind him; but if women want these things they are asked to take the long, questionable, roundabout route of personal influence, of petition, of indirection. 'Women have accomplished a great deal in this way but it has required a long timeTake, for instance, one class of work—the establishment of manual training, domestic science, openair schools, school gardens and playgrounds—all once just "women's notions" but now established institutions. Women have had to found and finance and demonstrate them before municipalities would have anything to do with them, but when city or State adopts these institutions the management is immediately and entirely taken out of the hands of women and placed in the hands of men

Among thinking women there is a growing consciousness of being cut off, shut out from the civic life in which they have an equal stake with men. We ask you to recognize that the time is here for you to submit an amendment to the States for ratification which will give women the influence and power of the suffrage.

In closing Dr. Shaw asked that her association might have some printed copies for distribution and was assured that it might have fifteen or twenty thousand if it desired them. She also urged that the committee would report the resolution to the Senate for discussion and as a third request said: "We are told that men are afraid to grant women suffrage lest fearful results should come to the Government and to the women. We have asked for years that Congress would appoint a committee to investigate its practical working in the States where it exists —there are now six of them—and we are entirely willing to risk our case on that investigation. We feel that its results would be