canvass that has been so wisely and judiciously taken in
Massachusetts, so that I can present to you the exact number of
women who would to-day appeal for suffrage, I know that I can,
far within the bounds of possible truth, state that while I
represented seventy thousand women in my State two years ago,
who desired the adoption of the sixteenth amendment, I represent
to-day twice that number.

Should any one come up from Indiana, pivotal State as it has been
long called in national elections, saying that he represented the
wish of one hundred and forty thousand Indiana men, gentlemen,
would you scorn his appeal? Would you treat it lightly? Not at
all. You know that it would receive the most candid consideration.
You know that it would receive not merely respectful
consideration, but immediate and prompt and just action upon your
part.

I have been told since I have reached Washington that of all women
in the country Indiana women have the least to complain of, and
the least reason for coming to the United States Capitol with
their petitions and the statement of their needs, because we have
received from our own Legislature such amendments and amelioration
of the old unjust laws. In one sense it is true that we are the
recipients in our own State of many civil rights and of a very
large degree of civil equality. It is true that as respects
property rights, and as respects industrial rights, the women of
my own State may perhaps be the envy of all other women in the
land, but, gentlemen, you have always told men that the greater
their rights and the more numerous their privileges the greater
their responsibilities. That is equally true of woman, and simply
because our property rights are enlarged, because our industrial
field is enlarged, because we have more women who are producers
in the industrial world, recognized as such, who own property in
their own names, and consequently pay taxes upon that property,
and thereby have greater financial and larger social, as well
as industrial and business interests at stake in our own
commonwealth, and in the manner in which the administration of
national affairs is conducted--because of all these privileges we
the more need the power which shall emphasize our influence upon
political action.

You know that industrial and p