Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/525

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Mrs. Hooker's Report.
497

ency would receive serious consideration at the hands of president-makers in both the great parties of the country.

2. Women should study the question of their present rights and duties, and make their views known in public and in private to the utmost extent of their ability. In a time like this, when the interests of our whole beloved country are at stake; when political corruption is appalling, and men are paralyzed with fear because of the threatened failure of republican institutions, ignorance and indifference on the part of women, who are the natural protectors of purity and honor, whether in the family or the State, are sins against God, their country, and their own souls.

3. Men and women should pour out money like water for the propagation of these views. A copy of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution of the United States, together with an argument on the fair interpretation of these documents, should be put into every family in the United States which has a reading member in it. Your committee are able and willing to send these documents directly into these homes—one at a time, carefully directed and franked by members of Congress, who believe they are making a patriotic and legitimate use of the franking privilege by thus educating their constituents in the first principles of a constitutional government—a government founded upon personal liberty and personal responsibility. Half a million dollars appropriated by Congress itself for this simple purpose would inaugurate a reign of patriotism and purity scarcely dreamed of as yet by the most powerful lovers of their country. But Congress has not yet even printed the able reports from the Judiciary Committee of the House, and the few copies we have been able to send out have been the gift of a private individual. Women must educate themselves—men must help them. The latter hold the purse-strings; and so surely as they desire peace, plenty, and the perpetuity of republican institutions, they must see to it that women are supplied with the sinews of war. Moral warfare costs not only heart's blood, but treasure. Women are offering their very souls in behalf of mankind. Can men do less than empty their pockets for the good of the race?

And there is one thing more that men can and must do before the reign of justice and equality can be inaugurated. They, being voters, must pledge themselves in their own breasts, and to one another, that they will vote for such candidates in either party as are in favor of woman suffrage, and for no others. Such proceedings would settle the question in less than a year, and the peaceful working of a new regime would prove the wisdom and patriotism of these faithful souls before the whole world. We confidently believe that there are at least 300,000 voters to-day who desire to share the burdens and responsibilities of government with their mothers, wives, and sisters. Let them combine and speak the sovereign words, "Principle before party," and the day is won.

Mrs. Hooker and other ladies united in a memorial, which was presented in the Senate and referred to the Judiciary Committee, asking for a recognition of the rights of women under the XIV. Amendment, and asking further that the advocates of the cause be heard at the bar of the Senate. Mr. Trumbull, the chairman of the committee, was not willing for this; but, at Mrs. Hooker's solicita-