en account it his folly
as much as they will. God bless the dreamers of all just and
perfect dreams! The great wheel of the ages with ever-increasing
motion is sure to roll out their accomplishment.

The Rev. Louis A. Banks, lately of Washington Territory, spoke of
woman suffrage there. He said:

The first fact proved by experience is that women do vote. Before
the law was enacted, the old objection used to meet us on every
hand, "The women do not want to vote"--as though that, if true,
were a valid reason. They ought to want to. It is my business to
urge men to repent, and I have never supposed it a reason to
cease preaching to them because they did not want to repent; they
ought to want to. But our experience has proved that women do
want to vote. It was universally conceded that in our first
general Territorial election fully as many women voted in
proportion to their numbers as men....

Woman's influence as a citizen has been of equal value in the
jury-box. Experience shows that she is peculiarly fitted for that
duty. Woe to the gambler who enriches himself by the folly or
innocence of the ignorant, and the rum-seller who lures boys into
his backroom! Woe to the human vultures who prey upon young
lives, when they fall into the hands of a jury of mothers!...

You who have not hitherto been woman suffragists, why not espouse
this cause now, when it is in the full flush of its heroic
struggle? When John Adams went courting Abigail Smith, her proud
father said to her: "Who is this young Adams? Where did he come
from?" Abigail answered: "I do not know where he came from and I
do not care, but I know where he is going and I am going with
him." Ladies and gentlemen, you know where we are going; we
invite your company for the journey.

State Senator R. W. Blue said: "One of the greatest questions of the
day is how to counteract the influence of the vicious vote cast every
year in the large cities. I believe the only way to do that is to
enfranchise the women." He added that he had worked for the Municipal
Suffrage Bill in the preceding Legislature, and should do so in the
next. President Foulke complimented him on his bold and outspoken
remarks, and said he thought a man in politics never lost anything by
telling the people exactly where he stood on vital issues.[141]

James G. Clark,