ower added that will drag the
firebrand out of his hand, and when sense and reason return,
when the fire is extinguished, then, I say, let us have the
power of love to interfere. I think keeping a man out of sin
is better than trying to drag him out afterward by love.

Mr. COLLIER said he was placed in a false position of
prominence because, unfortunately, he was the only gentleman
on the platform who entertained serious convictions on the
negative side of the subject. The only question was, would
the ballot cure these wrongs? If so, he would like to hear
the reasons, philosophical and logical, set forth. The
appeals that had been made to the convention were illogical
and sympathetic. He believed the persecutors of women were
women. Fashion and the prejudice in the minds of women had
been the barriers to their own elevation. That the ballot in
the hands of women would cure these evils he denied.

Miss DICKINSON: Mr. Collier says, "The worst enemies of
women are women"; that the worst opponents of this measure
are fashion, dress and idleness. I confess there are no
bitterer opponents or enemies of this measure than women. On
that very ground I assert that the ballot will prove woman's
best friend. If woman has something else to think about than
simply to please men, something else than the splendor of
her diamonds, or the magnificence of her carriage, you may
be sure, with broader fields to survey, it would be a good
thing for her. If women could earn their bread and buy the
houses over their heads, in honorable and lucrative
avocations; if they stood in the eye of the law men's
equals, there would be better work, more hopeful hearts,
more Christian magnanimity, and less petty selfishness and
meanness than, I confess with sorrow and tears, are found
among women to-day.

One of the ablest speeches of the convention was made by Judge
Chas. B. Waite, on woman's position before the law. Immediately
after this enthusiastic convention[356] the Illinois State
Suffrage Association was formed, a committee[357] appointed to
visit Springfield and request the legislature to so "change the
laws th