City of
Rochester and County of Monroe."

They have also issued this memorial and protest, addressed

_To the Board of Supervisors of the County of Monroe, and to the
Hon. the Common Council of the City of Rochester_:

The payment of taxes is exacted in direct violation of the
principles that "Governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed," and that "there shall be no taxation
without representation." Therefore we earnestly protest against the
payment of taxes, either Municipal, County, or State, until the
ballot secures us in the right of representation, just and equal
with other citizens.

By order of "THE WOMEN TAX PAYERS' ASSOCIATION of the City of
Rochester and County of Monroe."

Thus women are everywhere going back to fundamental principles, and this
action of the women of Rochester is but the commencement of a protest
which will soon become a resistance, and which will extend from the St.
Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The
women of the city of Rochester pay taxes on seven millions of property,
and yet not one of these tax payers is consulted as to how, or when that
tax shall be raised, or for what purpose used. This seven millions is
but a small proportion of property on which the women of that city
really pay taxes, as it does not include that much larger amount of
property of which they have been robbed, and over which they are assumed
to have no control. The foundation of a new city hall has recently been
laid in that city. Women's property, without their consent, has been
used for this purpose. Water is soon to be brought in from Hemlock Lake,
and a dozen other projects are on foot, all of which require money, and
towards all of which, the money of tax-paying women will be taken
without their consent.

To illustrate the extreme injustice with which women are treated in this
matter of taxation, to show you how contrary it is to all natural right,
let us suppose that all the taxable property in the city of Rochester
belonged to women, with the exception of a single small house and lot,
which were owned by a man. As the law is now interpreted, the man who
owned that house and lot could vote a tax upon the property of all those
women at his own will, to build CITY HALLS, COURT HOUSES, JAILS, could
call an election and vote an extraordinary tax to bring in water from a
dozen different lak