The attitude of men towards suffrage has undergone an enormous change
within the past two years. A large number of the thinking men of the
country have openly enlisted in the Suffrage ranks. It is said that
almost every member of the faculty of Columbia University signed the
Suffrage petition presented to the Congress of 1909. Well-known
professors of many Western universities and colleges have spoken and
written in favor of equal suffrage. In New York City a flourishing
Voters' League for Equal Suffrage has been formed, with a membership
running into the hundreds.

[Illustration: THE "QUIET WALK" OF THE NEW YORK SUFFRAGISTS, WHOM THE
POLICE WOULD NOT PERMIT TO PARADE]

To the average unprejudiced man the old arguments against political
equality have almost entirely lost weight. The theory that women should
not vote because they cannot fight is now rarely argued. Municipal
governments certainly no longer rest on physical force. The same is true
of state governments, and it is probably true of national governments.
At all events we are sincerely trying to make it true. For the rest it
would be extremely difficult to prove that women would make undesirable
citizens. To the anxious inquiry, What will women do with their votes?
the answer is simple. They will do with their votes precisely what they
do, or try to do, without votes. This has been proven in every country
in the world where they have received the franchise. In Australia, New
Zealand, Finland, and in the English municipalities the ideal of the
common good has been reflected in the woman vote. Social legislation
alone interests women, and so far they have confined their efforts to
matters of education, child labor, pure food, sanitation, control of
liquor traffic, and public morals. The organized non-voting women of
this country have devoted themselves for years to precisely these