think the most obstinate and egotistical of our opponents will assert that men possess a monopoly of these virtues, or even a moiety of them. As to their fighting capacities, of which we hear so much, I think they would have cut a sorry figure in the wars which they have been compelled to wage in order to establish and maintain this government, if they had not had the sympathy and coöperation of woman. I entirely agree with you that, while agitation in the States is necessary as a means of education, a sixteenth amendment to the national constitution is the quickest, surest and least laborious way to secure the success of this great work for human liberty. Any legislature of Indiana in the last six years would have ratified such an amendment. With highest regards for yourself and the best wishes for the success of the convention, I remain, Zerelda G. Wallace. Yours, etc.,
After several other speakers,[1] Madame Clara Neyman of New York city, delivered what was, without question, one of the best addresses of the convention. She spoke with a slightly German accent, which only served to enhance the interest and hold the attention of the audience. Her eloquence and argument could not fail to convince all of her earnest purpose. After showing the philosophy of reform movements, and every step of progress, she said:
Woman's enfranchisement will be wrought out by peaceful means. We shall use no fire-arms, no torpedoes, no heavy guns to gain our freedom. No precious human lives will be sacrificed; no tears will be shed to establish our right. We shall capture the fortresses of prejudice and injustice by the force of our arguments; we shall send shell after shell into these strongholds until their defective reasoning gives way to victorious truth. "Inability to bear arms," says Herbert Spencer, "was the reason given in feudal times for excluding woman from succession," and to-day her position is lowest where the military spirit prevails. A sad illustration of this is my own country. Being a born German, and in feeling, kindred, and patriotism attached to the country of my birth and childhood, it is hard for me to make such a confession. But the truth must be told, even if it hurts. It has been observed by those who travel in Europe, that Germany, which has the finest and best universities, which stands highest in scholarship, nevertheless tolerates, nay, enforces the subjection of woman. The freedom of a country stands in direct relation to the position of its women. America, which has proclaimed the freedom of man, has developed pari passu a finer womanhood, and has done more for us than any other nation in existence. A new type of manhood has been reared on American soil—a type which Tennyson describes in his Princess:
Man shall be more of woman, she of man;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the thews that wrestle with the world;
She, mental breadth, nor fail in childward care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind;
Till at the last they set them each to each,
Like perfect music unto noble words.
Then comes the statelier Eden back to man;
Then springs the crowning race of human kind.
At the evening session the time was divided between Lillie Devereux Blake and Phœbe W. Couzins. Mrs. Blake spoke on the question, "Is it a Crime to be a Woman?"
- ↑ Short speeches were made by Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. Lockwood, Mrs. McKinney, Mrs. Loder and others.
