islate in their favor and employers to grant them justice.

The law of capital is to extort the greatest amount of work for the
least amount of money; the rule of labor is to do the smallest amount of
work for the largest amount of money. Hence there is, and in the nature
of things must continue to be, antagonism between the two classes;
therefore, neither should be left wholly at the mercy of the other.

It was cruel, under the old regime, to give rich men the right to rule
poor men. It was wicked to allow white men absolute power over black
men. It is vastly more cruel, more wicked to give to all men--rich and
poor, white and black, native and foreign, educated and ignorant,
virtuous and vicious--this absolute control over women. Men talk of the
injustice of monopolies. There never was, there never can be, a monopoly
so fraught with injustice, tyranny and degradation as this monopoly of
sex, of all men over all women. Therefore I not only agree with Abraham
Lincoln that, "No man is good enough to govern another man without his
consent;" but I say also that no man is good enough to govern a woman
without her consent, and still further, that all men combined in
government are not good enough to govern all women without their
consent. There might have been some plausible excuse for the rich
governing the poor, the educated governing the ignorant, the Saxon
governing the African; but there can be none for making the husband the
ruler of the wife, the brother of the sister, the man of the woman, his
peer in birth, in education, in social position, in all that stands for
the best and highest in humanity.

I believe that by nature men are no more unjust than women. If from the
beginning women had maintained the right to rule not only themselves but
men also, the latter today doubtless would be occupying the subordinate
places with inferior pay in the world of work; women would be holding
the higher positions with the big salaries; widowers would be doomed to
a "life interest of one-third of the family estate;" husbands would "owe
service" to their wives, so that every one of you men would be begging
your good wives, "Please be so kind as to 'give me' ten cents for a
cigar." The principle of self-government can not be violated with
impunity. The individual's right to it is sacred--regardless of class,
caste, race, color, sex or any other accident or incident of birth. What
we ask is that you shall cease to imagine that women