ivated men and women of today are above the
need of your book. Even the liberalized orthodox ministers are
coming to our aid and their conventions are passing resolutions in
favor of woman's equality, and I feel that these men and women who
are just born into the kingdom of liberty can better reach the
minds of their followers than can any of us out-and-out radicals.
But while I do not consider it my duty to tear to tatters the
lingering skeletons of the old superstitions and bigotries, yet I
rejoice to see them crumbling on every side.

Months after this Washington convention, when Miss Anthony was in the
midst of a great political campaign in California, she sent Mrs. Stanton
this self-explanatory letter:

You say "women must be emancipated from their superstitions before
enfranchisement will be of any benefit," and I say just the
reverse, that women must be enfranchised before they can be
emancipated from their superstitions. Women would be no more
superstitious today than men, if they had been men's political and
business equals and gone outside the four walls of home and the
other four of the church into the great world, and come in contact
with and discussed men and measures on the plane of this mundane
sphere, instead of living in the air with Jesus and the angels. So
you will have to keep pegging away, saying, "Get rid of religious
bigotry and then get political rights;" while I shall keep pegging
away, saying, "Get political rights first and religious bigotry
will melt like dew before the morning sun;" and each will continue
still to believe in and defend the other.

Now, especially in this California campaign, I shall no more thrust
into the discussions the question of the Bible than the manufacture
of wine. What I want is for the men to vote "yes" on the suffrage
amendment, and I don't ask whether they make wine on the ranches in
California or believe Christ made it at the wedding feast. I have
your grand addresses before Congress and enclose one in nearly
every letter I write. I have scattered all your "celebration"
speeches that I had, but I shall not circulate your "Bible"
literature a particle more than Frances Willard's prohibition
literature. So don't tell Mrs. Colby or anybody else to load me
down with Bible, social purity, temperance, or