Page:The Woman Socialist - Snowden - 1907.djvu/109

 Nothing can prevent the coming of such a time eventually. And it will be well when it is so. The nation cannot afford to go on losing the intelligence, the energy, the culture, the affection, and the devotion of more than half its population. The country cannot prosper which does not properly represent in its domestic, its administrative, and its legislative life, the point of view of its womenkind. The State cannot spare from its high councils the deep wisdom of its mothers and the comradeship of its wives. Not for what it suffers, but because of what it is losing, will a wise community enfranchise its women and admit them to the ministry of their fellows from the seats of the elect.

In his book, "The Subjection of Women," John Stuart Mill expresses the nation's need in words of moving eloquence. "Is there," he asks, "so great a superfluity of men fit for high duties, that society can afford to reject the service of any competent person? Are we so certain of always finding a man made to our hands for any duty or function of social importance which falls vacant, that we lose nothing by putting