ct, we have every reason to hope that you will give your
influence and your vote in favor of the petition contained
herein.

In the Democratic letter was enclosed an Open Letter from Gov. Charles
S. Thomas (Dem.) of Colorado, setting forth in the strongest manner
the advantages of woman suffrage, and in all was placed favorable
testimony from prominent men of the respective States, accompanied by
the following Memorial. The latter was mailed also to every member of
the Resolutions Committees, and 10,000 copies were sent to editors and
otherwise circulated throughout the country.

MEMORIAL

TO THE NATIONAL PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTION OF 1900.

GENTLEMEN: You are respectfully requested by the
National-American Woman Suffrage Association to place the
following plank in your platform:

_Resolved_, That we favor the submission by Congress, to the
various State Legislatures, of an Amendment to the Federal
Constitution forbidding disfranchisement of United States
citizens on account of sex.

The chief contribution to human liberty made by the United States
is the establishment of the right of personal representation in
government. In other countries suffrage often has been called
"the vested right of property," and as such has been extended to
women the same as to men. Our country at length has come to
recognize the principle that the elective franchise is inherent
in the individual and not in his property, and this principle has
become the corner-stone of our republic. Up to the beginning of
the twentieth century, however, the application of this great
truth has been made to but one-half the citizens.

The women of the United States are now the only disfranchised
class, and sex is the one remaining disqualification. A man may
be idle, corrupt, vicious, utterly without a single quality
necessary for purity and stability of government, but through the
exercise of the suffrage he is a vital factor. A woman may be
educated, industrious, moral and law-abiding, possessed of every
quality needed in a pure and stable government, but, deprived of
that influence which is exerted through the ballot, she is not a
factor in affairs of State. Who will claim that our government is
purer, wiser, stronger and more lasting by the rigid exclusion of
what men themselves term "the bet