the Immortals. Do you spoze that if women formed half the committee of
selection--which they should since it wuz a woman's gift that made such a
place possible--do you spoze that if she had an equal voice with men, the
names of noble wimmen would be tucked away in a remote unroofed corner?

"Edgar Allan Poe's genius wuz worthy a place among the Immortals, no doubt;
his poems and stories excite wonder and admiration. But do they move the
soul like Mrs. Stowe's immortal story that thrilled the world and helped
free a race?--yes, two races--for the curse of slavery held the white race
in bondage, too. Yet she and her three or four woman companions face the
stormy winds in an out-of-the-way corner, while Poe occupies his honorable
sightly place among his fifty or more male companions.

"Wimmen have always been admonished to not strive for right and justice
but to lean on men's generosity and chivalry. Here wuz a place where that
chivalry would have shone, but it didn't seem to materialize, and if wimmen
had leaned on it, it would have proved a weak staff, indeed.

"Such things as this are constantly occurring and show plain that wimmen
needs the ballot to protect her from all sorts of wrongs and indignities.
Men take wimmen's money, as they did here, and use it to uplift themselves,
and lower her, like taxin' her heavily and often unjustly and usin' this
money to help forward unjust laws which she abominates. And so it goes on,
and will, until women are men's equals legally and politically."

"Ahem--you present things in a new light. I never looked at this matter
with your eyes."

"No, you looked at 'em through a man's eyes; such things are so customary
that men do 'em without thinkin', from habit and custom, like hushin' up