That is the reason why we are here; that is the reason why we want
to vote. We are no seditious women, clamoring for any peculiar
rights, but we are patient women. It is not the woman question
that brings us before you to-day; it is the human question that
underlies this movement among the women of this nation; it is
for God, and home, and native land. We love and appreciate our
country; we value the institutions of our country. We realize that
we owe great obligations to the men of this nation for what
they have done. We realize that to their strength we owe the
subjugation of all the material forces of the universe which give
us comfort and luxury in our homes. We realize that to their
brains we owe the machinery that gives us leisure for intellectual
culture and achievement. We realize that it is to their education
we owe the opening of our colleges and the establishment of our
public schools, which give us these great and glorious privileges.

This movement is the legitimate result of this development, of
this enlightenment, and of the suffering that woman has undergone
in the ages past. We find ourselves hedged in at every effort
we make as mothers for the amelioration of society, as
philanthropists, as Christians.

A short time ago I went before the Legislature of Indiana with a
petition signed by 25,000 women, the best women in the State. I
appeal to the memory of Judge McDonald to substantiate the truth
of what I say. Judge McDonald knows that I am a home-loving,
law-abiding, tax-paying woman of Indiana, and have been for 50
years. When I went before our Legislature and found that 100 of
the vilest men in our State, merely by the possession of the