he moral quality of our commercial and political
transactions. It is not too much to say that the revelations of
corruption in our American cities, the use of town councils, State
legislatures, and even of the Federal Government in the interests of
private business, have discredited the democratic system throughout
the world. It has given more material for those of other lands who
despise democracy to sneer at us than anything that has yet happened
in this land. And _this has come about under the regime of the
emancipated woman_. Is she in no way responsible for it? If she had
kept the early ideals of the woman's part in democracy as clearly
before her eyes as she has kept some of her personal wants and needs,
could there have been so disastrous a condition? Would she be the
Uneasy Woman she is if she had kept faith with the ideals that forced
her emancipation?--if she had not substituted for them dreams of
personal ambition, happiness, and freedom!

The failure to fulfill your function in the scheme under which you
live always produces unrest. Content of mind is usually in proportion
to the service one renders in an undertaking he believes worth while.
If our Uneasy Woman could grasp the full meaning of her place in this
democracy, a place so essential that democracy must be overthrown
unless she rises to it--a part which man is not equipped to play and
which he ought not to be asked to play, would she not cease to
apologize for herself--cease to look with envy on man's occupations?
Would she not rise to her part and we not have at last the "new woman"
of whom we have talked so long?

Learning, business careers, political and industrial activities--none
of these things is more than incidental in the national task of woman.
Her great task is to prepare the citizen. The citizen is not prepared
by a training in practical politics. Something more fundamental is
required. The meaning of honor and of the sanctity of one's word, the
understanding of the principles of democracy and of the society in
which we live, the love of humanity, and the desire to serve,--these
are what make a good citizen. The tools for preparing herself to give
this training are in the woman's hands. It calls for education, and
the nation has provided it. It calls for freedom of movement and
expression, and she has them. It calls for ability to organize, to
discuss problems, to work for whatever changes are essential. She is
developing this ability.