Page:Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil - Elizabeth Blackwell (1883).djvu/80

70 A great work is before our Anglo-Saxon race, which leads the van of human progress. The immediate practical step to be taken is organization.

It must always be remembered that the law which introduces a new code of morality into England—teaching women that disease, not vice, is a crime—was made by a Liberal Government; also that this same destructive law was accepted and confirmed by a Conservative Government. To neither of these parties, therefore, can we look for just moral legislation.

But it is not necessary to wait for the granting of the Parliamentary franchise, for England to carry on a strong moral warfare in a practical shape.

In the municipal vote women possess an aid whose power they have not yet realized. It is a power which, if organized into a moral municipal league, would prove more permanently efficient than even the Parliamentary franchise, for the election of councilmen is the first link in the great chain of free government. It is the first step taken in either a right or a wrong direction. It is the education of the municipalities which will ultimately determine the action of the General Government. Free, enlightened, representative municipalities furnish the elements out of which a future wise State must be built up. The future action of the municipalities, therefore, will decide whether the Government of England shall grow into representation of a strong, free, and virtuous