364
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
traitor in the United States, can be trusted with that patent of sovereignty, the ballot, without fear of danger. Even the anarchist is not disfranchised. In Michigan, my own state, after years of bombarding our legislature with hearings, petitions, letters and arguments, the women, denying themselves the pleasure and advantages of society and study, giving time, strength and money to secure the right of the franchise, which means protection, respect, power, that right from which no male, except him whose fratricidal hand is lifted to betray his country, is excluded, at least the half measure of municipal suffrage has been conceded by the legislature of Michigan and become a law. But the women are such dangerous creatures, they must be guarded; and female ignorance is most dangerous, so they are required to read the state constitution in the English language.* Was it that the women might be able to read the ballots for the illiterate male voters of their families?
Though this recognition be but in half measures, the women of .Michigan have risen to the occasion, and a carefully-outlined plan of study has been prepared, and a constitution and by-laws to meet the requirements of all, that a uniform system may be adopted. Thousands of copies have been printed, as also a circular letter, with earnest appeal from the state president and careful instruction from the organizers, and sent to every incorporated city and village in the state. Two organizers have been sent into the field, the expenses to be paid, largely, by contributions and pledges from these dangerous women. The printed plan is so plain that any ordinary woman who knows anything of committee or club work can call a meeting at her home and organize a Municipal Franchise League. By this method, every city and village is to be organized into a central committee and ward leagues to study municipal government and parliamentary law. When in the near future full suffrage shall be extended to the women, which, as our own Thomas W. Palmer says, “is sure to be,” they will be the best equipped for intelligent self-government of any class that ever exercised the right of franchise.
For the passage of the municipal suffrage bill, we owe a debt of gratitude to Senator Hopkins and Representative Newkirk, who undertook, with manly sincerity and determination, to champion our bill, and they made it a study to win. The pity of thus defrauding the women of political rights and power, is not alone to those excluded, but the great loss of moral and uplifting conditions from which the state and government have suffered.
Material prosperity cannot save a nation whose heart and life are eaten out by cancerous physical and spiritual conditions, that consume manhood, deprave childhood and destroy the nation.
*Bill referred to, after being passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, was finally lost by a decision of the courts.