Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/68

 the first in which women ever had taken a prominent part and it had attracted wide attention, a revolt against Tammany corruption under Richard Croker. Mr. Villard told of the remarkable work done by the Women's Municipal League under direction of the Citizen's Union for the election of Seth Low as Mayor and a reform ticket. He paid a sarcastic tribute to the assistance of the women anti-suffragists. "To have been really consistent," he said, "they should have urged upon their more emancipated sisters that woman's sphere is the home and any steps that lead beyond it tend in the long run to the destruction both of the home and of the eternal feminine." He closed by declaring that "the Titanic struggle between right and wrong in the great cities can not be won without the cooperation of that half of the nation's citizens in whose hearts are ever found the truest ideals of family and society, of city life and State life and of national existence." At its conclusion Mrs. Catt said: "And yet after Mr. Low was elected Mayor of Greater New York a large number of the women who had helped him win the victory urged him to appoint some women on the school board and he refused. So we must suppose that he is willing to have women pull the chestnuts out of the fire for men but is not willing to give them a share of the chestnuts."

A feature of the evening was the scholarly address of the Hon. William Dudley Foulke (Ind.), president of the U. S. Civil Service Commission. He objected to being classed as a "new man," since long ago he was for several years president of the American Suffrage Association. 'Men would not be satisfied with indirect influence," he declared and continued: "It is often said that woman suffrage is just but that there is no need of it, because women have no interests separate from those of men. That argument was used to me only lately by an eminent political economist. I said: 'Suppose a railroad runs through a town and a woman owns a large property in that town and yet cannot vote on the question of raising a subsidy; are her interests necessarily the same as those of every man in the town?' My friends, that case is universal. Suppose a widow is trying to bring up her son in the principles of morality and a saloon is opened on the corner opposite her home. I do not speak as