ve to thank the
Kaiser for is that we have something now whereby we can express what
women owe to the liquor traffic. We know now that women owe to the
liquor traffic the same sort of a debt that Belgium owes to Germany.
Women have never chosen the liquor business, have never been consulted
about it in any way, any more than Belgium was consulted. It has been
wished on them. They have had nothing to do with it, but to put up
with it, endure it, suffer its degradation, bear its losses, pay its
abominable price in tears and heartbreak. Apart from that they have
had nothing to do with it. If there is any pleasure in it--that has
belonged to men; if there has been any gain in it, men have had that,
too.

And yet there are people who tell us women must not invade the realm of
politics, where matters relating to the liquor traffic are dealt with.
Women have not been the invaders. The liquor traffic has invaded
woman's place in life. The shells have been dropped on unfortified
homes. There is no fair dealing in that.

A woman stooped over her stove in her own kitchen one winter evening,
making food for her eight-months-old baby, whom she held in her arms.
Her husband and her brother-in-law, with a bottle of whiskey, carried
on a lively dispute in another part of the kitchen. She did not enter
into the dispute, but went on with her work. Surely this woman was
protected; here was the sacred precincts of home, her husband, sworn to
protect her, her child in her arms--a beautiful domesticated Madonna
scene. But when the revolver was fired accidentally it blew off the
whole top of her protected head; and the mother and babe fell to the
floor! Who was the invader? and, tell me, would you call that a fair
deal?

The people who oppose democratic principles tell us that there is no
such thing as equality--that, if you made every person exactly equal
today, there would be inequality tomorrow. We know there is no such
thing as equality of achievement, but what we plead for is equality of
chance, equality of opportunity.

We know that absolute equality of opportunity is hardly possible, but
we can make it more nearly possible by the removal of all movable
handicaps from the human race. The liquor traffic, with its resultant
poverty, hits the child in the cradle, whose innocence and helplessness
makes its appeal all the stronger. The liquor traffic is a tangible,
definite thing that we can locate without difficulty. Ma