ffice without being insulted by rowdies, her vote will be potent
to elect officials who should be able to secure for the community a
standard of reasonable civilisation. There is no case in which more
sentimentality is wasted. Lovely woman is urged not to allow her beauty,
her gentleness, her tender submissiveness to become the butt of the
lounger at the street corner; and in most instances lovely woman, like
the celebrated Maitre Corbeau, is cajoled effectively. Meanwhile the
brothel and the sweat-shop continue on their prosperous way. By a
curious inconsistency, man will permit woman to help him out of a
political dilemma and will then suavely remark that suffrage will
degrade her.

During the Civil War, Anna Dickinson by her remarkable lecture
entitled, "The National Crisis" saved New Hampshire and Connecticut for
the Republicans; Anna Carroll not only gave such a crushing rejoinder to
Breckinridge's secession speech that the government printed and
distributed it, but she also, as is now generally believed, planned the
campaign which led to the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson and opened
the Mississippi to Vicksburg. How many men realise these facts?

The theory that politics degrade women will not find much support in
such States as Colorado and Wyoming. Here, where equal suffrage obtains,
women have been treated with uniform courtesy at the polls; they have
even been elected to legislatures with no diminution of their
womanliness; and the House of Wyoming long ago made a special resolution
of its approval of equal rights and attested the beneficial results that
have followed the extension of the suffrage to women.[416] Judge Lindsey
of Colorado has said that his election, and consequent power to work out
his great reforms in juvenile delinquency, was due to the backing of
women at a time when men, for "business reasons," were averse to extend
their aid. "No one would dare to propose its repeal [i.e., the repeal of
equal suffrage], and if left to the men of the State any proposition to
revoke the rights bestowed on women would be overwhelmingly defeated."
Experience in Colorado and elsewhere has shown that any important moral
issue will bring out the women voters in great force; but after election
they are content to resume their domestic duties; and they have shown no
great desire for political office.[417]

Before I leave the discussion as to whether politics degrade women, it
will not be out of place to conside