es of a great State and see the
suffering just of the children and not want the women who create human
life to have the power to protect that life."

Mrs. Ella S. Stewart (Ills.), Mrs. John Rogers, Jr. (N. Y.), Mrs.
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (Conn.), Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer (Penn.) and
Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton (O.) spoke briefly but strongly and an
effective letter was read from Miss Constance Leupp (D. C.). The women
present from the South were deeply incensed at the long, opposing
speech of Representative Heflin, who claimed to represent the women of
that section, and he was severely answered by Mrs. Pattie Ruffner
Jacobs, Mrs. Oscar Hundley and Mrs. Felix Baldwin of his own State;
Mrs. S. D. Meehan of Louisiana; Mrs. L. Crozier French and Miss
Catharine J. Wester of Tennessee and Mrs. Lulu Loveland Shepherd of
Utah, formerly of Tennessee. Mrs. Harper cited the three classes
enfranchised since the founding of the Government, the working men,
the negroes and the Indians, and said: "There was never any question
as to whether they would improve things or hurt things; now, in the
President's Message, he asks you to bring in the Porto Rican men. Are
you going to do this because you think they are needed in the
electorate and because they will make conditions better? We women are
the only class who have ever asked for suffrage in this country to
whom all these objections have been made and in regard to whom all
these fears have been expressed. There is not a class of voters in the
United States today which has lifted one finger to get the ballot, yet
the women of this country have been struggling sixty-five years for
the right to a voice in the Government. You must admit that they are
the best-equipped class that have ever asked this privilege and yet
you have kept them out. All we ask of you is to make it a little less
hard than it has been by giving us a committee from whom we can get
some consideration."

Mrs. Frank W. Mondell, wife of the Representative from Wyoming, said
in the course of a very comprehensive address: "We do not desire to
base our request for the appointment of a Committee on Woman Suffrage
solely on the proposition that the subject is one of greater
importance than those included within the jurisdiction of many
committees of the House but rather on the ground that it has never, so
far as my recollection and information go, failed to provide by
general or special committee for the study and considerat