and thereby have greater financial and larger social, as well
as industrial and business interests at stake in our own
commonwealth, and in the manner in which the administration of
national affairs is conducted--because of all these privileges we
the more need the power which shall emphasize our influence upon
political action.

You know that industrial and property rights are in the hands of
the law-makers and the executors of the laws. Therefore, because
of our advanced position in that matter, we the more need the
recognition of our political equality. I say the recognition of
our political equality, because I believe the equality already
exists. I believe it waits simply for your recognition; that were
the Constitution now justly construed, and the word "citizens," as
used in your Constitution, justly applied it would include us, the
women of this country. So I ask for the recognition of an equality
that we already possess.

Further, because of what we have we ask for more. Because of the
duties that we are commanded to do, we ask for more. My friend has
said, and it is true in some respects, that men have always kept
us just a little below them where they could shower upon us
favors, and they have always done that generously. So they have,
but, gentlemen, has your sex been more generous in its favors
to women than women have been generous toward your sex in their
favors? Neither one can do without the other: neither can dispense
with the service of the other; neither can dispense with the
reverence of the other, with the aid of the other in domestic
life, in social life. The men of this nation are rapidly finding
that they can not dispense with the service of women in business