Page:The Woman Socialist - Snowden - 1907.djvu/36

 qualify, in any circumstances, for the elementary right of citizenship, because of an accident of birth.

It is not, at present, the concern of the women as to how many of their sex shall be enfranchised. A new principle has to be declared, a new relationship to be established, between men and women. We say to the men, "You have the power. Make your qualification for citizenship exactly what you please. We cannot interfere whatever you choose to do. We are powerless. But we demand that that which qualifies a man, whatever it may be, shall also qualify a woman. We desire the stain removed from our womanhood. The power of the vote is important, but it is a secondary consideration. Remove the hateful stigma from your mothers, your wives, and your daughters, which places the noblest and the best of them in a lower position than the most uncultured and immoral specimen of the male sex who pays his rates and taxes."

On these lines must the Socialist woman of the present agitate, in and out of season, if she be true to her Socialist principle of equality. Not turned aside by arguments