obsolete law and custom,
shall we say that England leads the van in integrity of principle and
devotion to human rights? Although the doctrine of divine right was
exploded long ago, England loyally holds to her Queen.

As long as it pleases the English people to maintain a royal line, it
makes no difference to them whether its representative be a man or a
woman. England never had a salic law. But America--when a grand woman
comes to her for her deliverance at the crisis of her fate, crowned
with heaven's own prerogative of genius, what America does for her in
return for her accepted services is to stamp her under foot and bury
her out of sight, that her well-earned glory may fall by default upon
the ruling class.

Can America continue to be so unjust to women? Can it continue to hold
them down as a disfranchised class?

Owing to continued petitions, Military Committees were appointed
during this last Congress to investigate Miss Carroll's claim.

I have not heard the result, but again Congress has adjourned without
taking action. About March 27 I had the opportunity of looking over
the file which had just come back from the Senate Committee. First of
all came a surprising number of petitions sent in during this past
year; then the documents in evidence of the claim. They were a meager
lot compared to what they should have been. In a case of this
importance one would suppose that a copy of every memorial and of
every report should have been on the file. Not at all. Quite early in
the history of the case "supply exhausted" was the answer given to
every request for these documents, and Miss Carroll herself was unable
to obtain them.

The reprint of a few of the earlier ones by no means represents them,
and owing to the universal exclusion from the Congressional indexes of
the later and more important ones, especially the memorial of 1878 and
Bragg's report thereon, much important evidence was wanting. Still
considering that all that has been printed by "order of Congress" is
guaranteed, I should have thought that the evidence given before the
Military Committee of 1871 would have been sufficient. Certain I am
that if a woman had been on that committee the matter would have
assumed more prominence, and there would have been a research for the
additional documents that have been omitted. It is the old, old story
that every intelligent woman is coming to understand, that you cannot
leave to others the interests of a dis