hen women will have the ballot.
State after State is wheeling into the line. In Massachusetts
they have the right of the ballot for school committee. Step by
step they are climbing up, and soon the time will come when the
American people will rise up in new-found manhood and say: "My
sister, we will not ask you to receive the ballot from our hands
as a condescending privilege, but will ask you to go forward and
take it as your inalienable right."

Mrs. REBECCA N. HAZARD, of St. Louis, President of the
Association, spoke as follows: As one after another the
milestones are reached which mark the progress of our cause, we
pause to examine the ground upon which we stand. If to our
impatient vision in looking forward the journey seems long, we
have only to look back to see how much of the way has been left
behind. To those who have borne the burdens of this undertaking
the work may appear to move slowly. But this is always the case
where enduring principles are to be planted. "What the ancients
said of the avenging gods, that they are shod with wool," says
Lieber, "is true of great ideas in history. They approach softly.
Great truths always dwell a long time in small minorities."
Growing in unobserved places, they take root and become strong
before their spreading branches attract the public gaze.

To many the pursuit of an abstract principle under so many
difficulties seems an absurdity. They therefore impute motives
more or less unworthy to those who are willing to immolate
themselves for an idea. There are always at least two ways of
looking at any question, and I have sometimes placed myself in
the position of those who take an unfavorable view of woman
suffrage, and who reason in this wise: "These women are
discontented. They must have been unfortunate. They seek to
overstep the limits which nature and circumstance have placed
about them. Not content with the round of domestic duties which
has hitherto constituted the sum total of woman's life, they seek
to perform the functions which custom has allotted to man. They
desire to be independent, self-sustaining--strong, while the more
attractive ideal woman is fragile, clinging, dependent. Why
should they desire to overturn the existing order of things? The
world gets on pleasantly enough,