of any State, in the determination to bar out Hawaiian women from voting and holding office. It was declared that only "male" citizens should fill any office or vote for any officer, a sweeping restriction which is not made in a single State of our Union. Not satisfied with this infamous abuse of power, our Congress refused to this new Territory a privilege enjoyed by every other Territory in the United States—that of having the power vested in its Legislature to grant woman suffrage—and provided that this Territorial Legislature must submit the question to the voters. It took care, however, to enfranchise every male being in the Islands—Kanaka, Japanese and Portuguese—and it will be only by their permission that even the American and English women residing there ever can possess the suffrage.
The members of the commission who drafted this constitution were President Sanford B. Dole and Associate Justice W. F. Frear of Hawaii; Senators John T. Morgan, Ala.; Shelby M. Cullom, Ills.; Representative Robert R. Hitt, Ills. Justice Frear said over his own signature, Feb. 11, 1899: "I proposed at a meeting of the Hawaiian Commission that the Legislature be permitted to authorize woman suffrage, and President Dole supported me, but the other members of the commission took a different view." In other words, the Hawaiian members favored the enfranchisement of their women but were overruled by the American members. If but one of the latter had stood by those from Hawaii its women would not have been placed, as they now are, under greater subjection even than those of the United States, and far greater than they were before the annexation of the Islands. Yet after the consummation of this shameful act the world was asked to rejoice over the creation of a new republic!
There is not the slightest reason to hope that the appeals for justice to the women of the Philippines will meet with any greater success, as it is the policy of our Government to give to men every incentive to study its institutions and fit themselves for an intelligent voice in their control, but to discourage all interest on the part of women and to prevent them absolutely from any participation. Having held American women in subjection for a century and a quarter, it now shows a determination
