sight of the fact that women of American birth, education and ideals
must appeal to these men for their enfranchisement. No humiliation
could be more complete, unless we add the amazing fact that political
leaders in Congress and legislatures are willing to drive their wives
and daughters to beg the consent of these men to their political
liberty.

The makers of the Federal Constitution foresaw the necessity of
referring important and intricate questions to a more intelligent body
than the masses of the people and so provided for the amendment of the
Constitution by referendum to the legislatures of the several states.
Why should women be denied the privilege thus established? The United
States is one land and one people. All the states have the same
institutions, customs and ideals.

Woman suffrage has been caught in a snarl of state constitutional
obstructions, inefficient election laws and the misapplied theory
of States Rights. It is a combination which has so far retarded the
normal progress of the movement in this democratic land that other
countries have already outstripped it. Under these circumstances
Congress should extricate the woman suffrage question from this tangle
by way of honorable reparation for the injustices unintentionally put
upon the only unenfranchised citizens left in our Republic, and women
should insist upon their enfranchisement by amendment to the Federal
Constitution as their self-respecting duty.




CHAPTER IV.