y a vote of 453
to 78, but it was no thanks to us. No, indeed! If it weren't for the
women where would our schools be?

We've had women's suffrage in our midst for almost twenty years, as I
say, and looking back over it I can't see a single dull moment
politically. From the day when an indulgent State gave them permission,
our women have guarded the schools at the ballot box. They've done a
thorough and painstaking job, and I must say the schools have improved a
lot. But they have sprung a lot of political ideas which have made the
old-timers sit up with startled looks and scratch their heads
hopelessly.

That's what you are going to find out, Jim, when woman begins to vote
for herself around here and to vote you into the bargain. She isn't
going to play the game according to the old rules. She has no use for
them. She has her own way of going about things politically, and while
it is effective, its wear and tear on mankind is terrific. When the
Homeburg women first attempted to place a woman on the school board,
about fifteen years ago, most of the men objected, and they decided to
hold a town caucus and call the women in. There were a great many
reasons why a woman shouldn't leave her home and sit around on a school
board, and they felt sure that if they were to talk it over frankly in
meeting they could show them these reasons. And, anyway, the chairman
would be a man, which would of course take care of the situation.

So a caucus was called, and the Grand Opera House, which holds six
hundred human beings, and about a hundred boys in the front seats, was
jammed until it bulged. We knew that no woman could out-argue our
seasoned old politicians, and when Calvin Briggs, who has planned all
the inside work in the congressional district for twenty years, got up
and showed just why woman ought not to intrude, there was an abashed
silence all over the house, until Emma Madigan, who is a town character
and does just as she pleases, got up. She stood up about fifty-nine
seconds after Briggs had got a good start, and she argued with him as
follows:

"That's all right, Mr. Briggs--You can't make me sit down, Mr.
Chairman, you nor any of you politicians--You're a fine man to talk
about schools, Mr. Briggs. No, I won't stop. You know a lot about
children, don't you, coming up here with tobacco juice all over your
shirt front; and why don't you pay some taxes before you get up here and
tell how to run a town? All right, Chai