ecade that the time has
seemed ripe for systematic effort in this direction. The lack of
effective organization has been a serious but unavoidable weakness
which henceforth will be remedied as speedily and thoroughly as
possible.

It is a favorite argument of the opponents of woman suffrage that the
many gains of various kinds have not been due to the efforts of women
themselves. Under the head of Legislative Action will be found the
dates and figures to prove that, year after year, in almost every
State, women have gone to the Legislatures with appeals for every
concession which has been granted and many more which have been
refused. The bills presented by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union
have not been specifically included because they are fully recorded in
the publications of that body, and because this volume is confined
almost exclusively to the one subject of enfranchisement. While the
Suffrage Associations have directed their legislative efforts
principally to secure action for this purpose, individual members have
joined the W. C. T. U. innumerable times in its attempts to obtain
other bills of advantage to women and children, and in some instances
this has been done officially by the associations.

Among various measures in which the two organizations have united may
be mentioned the raising of the "age of protection" for girls; the
securing of women physicians in all institutions where women and
children are confined, and women on the boards of all such; women city
physicians; matrons at jails and station houses; better conditions for
working women; the abolition of child-labor; industrial schools for
girls. Measures which have been especially championed by the W. S. A.,
but which the W. C. T. U. has aided officially or individually, have
been those asking for every form of suffrage; equal property laws for
wives; the opening of all educational institutions to women; their
admission to all professions and occupations; the repeal of laws
barring them from office; the enactment of laws giving father and
mother equal guardianship of children.[152]

The W. C. T. U. alone has secured temperance measures of many kinds,
including a law in every State requiring scientific temperance
instruction in the public schools; in many States curfew laws, and
statutes prohibiting the sale of cigarettes and of liquor on or near
fair grounds, Soldiers' Homes and school-houses, and preventing
gambling devices, immoral exh