st.... The
foundation of our institutions throughout the West is this
fundamental law, not to be changed, that if there is any
advantage to be had, women shall have it now and forever.

Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, national recording secretary, and Miss
Jane Campbell, secretary of the Pennsylvania Association, responded.
The Hon. Oliver W. Stewart spoke on The Logic of Popular Government.
He pointed out that there has been a steady movement of mankind toward
government by the people for the people and said in part:

In our own country we can see this growth clearly. Take the
election of the President. There was at first no thought that the
people should elect him but do you not see how quickly they
assimilated the machinery which was provided? We have not changed
the machinery but we have changed the spirit, so that instead of
the electoral college deliberating and choosing a President, it
is scarcely more than a stenographer to take the dictation of the
public. The people have absorbed the power themselves, and you
can write it as true that they do not surrender any power which
they have acquired as the result of their own struggles. If any
change should come it would be to give the people a more direct
voice rather than a more indirect voice. Take the change in the
convention system toward direct primaries. Do you not see how, in
spite of politicians, the people have been writing direct primary
laws? It is a part of the general movement toward popular
government....

There is a steady drift in this direction the world over and it
would be an anomalous condition if that movement could exist and
there could be at the same time a retrograde movement as to the
rights of women.... I have grown philosophical with reference to
the temporary defeats that we suffer. The thing to do is to
commiserate those who bring about the defeats. I look at the
black disgrace with which they will live in history who said they
would die for their own rights and yet were tyrants enough to
deny the rights of others.... The hour is quickly coming when the
genius of our government, where it is true to itself, will have
to give the ballot to womankind. May that day come speedily!

This was Dr. Shaw's 60th birthday and many pleasant references had
been made to it by the delegates. She began her pr