really more potent in the management of business affairs than the direct vote. In this I am doubtless as old-fashioned as were our grandmothers, who assisted to mold this vast republic. They knew that the greatest good for the greatest number was the only safe legislative law, and that to it all exceptional cases must submit.
Gentlemen, in conclusion, a sophism in legislation is not a mere abstraction; it must speedily bear fruit in material results of the most disastrous nature, and I implore your honorable committee, in behalf of our common country, not to open a Pandora's box by way of experiment from whence so much evil must issue, and which once opened may never again be closed.
Mrs. Dahlgren was ably reviewed by Virginia L. Minor of St. Louis, and the Toledo Woman Suffrage Association. Mrs. Minor said:
In assuming to speak for the "silent masses" of women, Mrs. Dahlgren declares that silence does not give consent; very inconsequently forgetting, that if it does not on one side of the question, it may not on the other, and that she may no more represent them than do we.
The Toledo society, through its president Mrs. Rose L. Segur, said:
We agree with you that this grave question is not one of expediency. It is simply one of right and justice, and therefore a most legitimate subject for agitation. As a moral force woman must have a voice in the government, or partial and unjust legislation is the result from which arise the evils consequent upon a government based upon the enslavement of half its citizens.
To this Mrs. Dahlgren replied briefly, charging the ladies with incapacity to comprehend her.
The week following the convention a hearing was granted by the House Judiciary Committee to Dr. Mary Walker of Washington, Mary A. Tillotson of New Jersey and Mrs. N. Cromwell of Arkansas, urging a report in favor of woman's enfranchisement. On January 28, the House sub-committee on territories granted a hearing to Dr. Mary Walker and Sara Andrews Spencer, in opposition to the bill proposing the disfranchisement of the women of Utah as a means of suppressing polygamy.
On January 30 the House Judiciary Committee granted Mrs. Hooker a hearing. Of the eleven members of the committee nearly all were present.[1] The room and all the corridors leading to it were crowded with men and women eager to hear Mrs.
- ↑ The members of the committee present were Hon. Proctor Knott (the chairman), General Benjamin F. Butler, Messrs. Lynde, Frye, Conger, Lapham, Culberson, McMahon. Among the ladies were Mesdames Knott, Conger, Lynde, Frye.
