= ~i Another objection raised is the exact antithesis of this last one; It is not. that women will endanger our civic institutions, but that our institutions will ruin the womenthat the mud and mire of politics will soil the women and make them unwomanly. This argument was advanced by a member of this committee when some Buffalo women called upon him to ask his support of this measure. I bow to his superior knowledge of the political conditions, but women are famous house-cleaners; they will not tolerate the conditions of filth, material or political, that men sit patiently under. If there is filth or corruption in the back yard or the cellar, the woman who goes heroically to work to clean it up is the truly womanly woman, not the woman who holds her nose and runs away. Indeed, women are so famous for this house-cleaning faculty that those who  raise this objection lay themselves open to the suspicion that their anxiety is not. so much to save the women from being soiled, as to prevent, the political house from being cleaned.    .    .    .
There is one great cause of prostitution that woman suffrage would remove, and that is injustice to women. One manifestation of such injustice' is the starvation wages paid to ' women, the vicious half-pay [ principle which is in full operation in every department of the State and municipal governments where women are employed. Another, and I believe a more demoralizing, manifestation of this injustice is the systematic discouragement of every honorable or legitimate ambition on the part of young women.
The young girl, loving pleasure, gayety, and luxury, as normal young creatures do, is faced by this strange paradox, that the hand of every man is against her when she seeks honorable advancement, and her way is almost impossibly hard, but, if she will accept dishonor, all the luxuries of life are hers for the asking. This vicious contrast of injustice to the woman who toils and indulgence to the woman who surrenders her virtue is forever before her.
It so happens that the polling place of the election district in which I live is almost directly across the street from my home. I have a good opportunity to ob-ss-rve what goes on around that Temple of Freedom, though I have never crossed its sacred precincts. It is usually surrounded during polling hours by little groups of interested gentlemen with whom I happen to b'2 acquainted. So far as I can judge from a superficial acquaintance, they are extremely respectable persons. About three-quarters of them are members of my own profession, with whom I have associated without conscious moral deterioration. Early in the morning there is a little rush, | which is repeated shortly before the polls are closed. In the middle of the day a Sabbath calm reigns, and any woman who would hesitate or fear to go in there and vote should have a nurse to take her shopping. That bogey will not scare any woman who keeps her eyes open in her own neighborhood on election day.
We are here to-day to ask you to report this measure out of committee, regardless of your personal felings or prejudices in the matter. This is a great question of public pol cy; it, is a change de-maMed by thousands upon thousands of th women of the SU;te. and we feel that we are entitled to have the question fairly and fully consider?! on i's merits by the Legislature. It cannot t smothered In committee much longer in any case; the demand is too insistent, and it will never relax until justice is accorded to the women of the State of New York.
WOMKX  WHO   WANT THIS   FRAXCHHSK. Mrs. Ella H.  Crossett   of Warsaw,  president of the New York State  Woman Suffrage Association, said in part;                        I
Thinking men no longer question the justice of extending the  Jrancnise  to women. They realize  the  power  of  the  ballot ami know it will be safe in  the  hands  of women.    The   point  made   now   is   when   the      j women want, the  ballot they  will  have  it.      ! In no party of men did all ever want  the      j
same thing at the same time; why do you expect all women to have the same opinion in regard to this question?
Does it mean nothing to you that there are in New York State over 40,000 women organized to secure the franchise? That a few years ago over 600,000 people endorsed our petition at the time of the constitutional convention? That associations organized for other purposes representing hundreds of thousands of people have endorsed our bill, including the State Grange, with a membership of 80,000, the National Federation of Labor, the State Letter Carriers' Association, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and others, whose representatives are here to-day?
Our opponents claim that women do not want the vote. We challenge them to prove this by marshalling them in such array of supporting organizations or active membership as we have represented here to-day.
VOICE OF THE  WOMEN'S CLUBS.
Mrs. Frank J. Shuler of Buffalo, president of the Western Federation of Women's Clubs, said she represented the largest sectional federation in the United States, the Federation's territory extending frorfc Buffalo to Syracuse, with a membership   of  32,000  women.    She   said:
A diversity of interests is represented in our   organizations,     literary    and    philanthropic,     musical,     and    academical,     library      and        historical,       parliamentary law    and    sunshine,     Women's     Christian Temperance Union and suffrage.    And  ye-t with this diversity six-eighths of our membership   are  active   suffragists;   one-eighth are inactive, and only one-eighth, while not opposing, are indifferent to the question. I     I  have been  asked  recently how  to  ac-! count  for  the  large  increase  of those  ln-: terested  in  this  question.    My answer  is: Woman  has  ever   found  her   best  expression in service.    As she has been able  to , improve her own conditions  she sought to I better  conditions  of those about her.    To ! do  this she was forced to employ indirect ! methods which in the end were ineffectual and   involved   a   great  waste   of   time   and energy.    The repeated attempts to accomplish good measures have decided our women  far suffrage.
I want the suffrage for two reasons: First, as a matter of justice as a property owner, taxpayer, and wage earner. We are told that every woman is represented in politics by some man. I should dislike to have any one think that 1 was represented in politics, as my husband never has voted the way I should like to have him. He is a Democrat while I am a Republican.
My second reason is to economize time. I believe it will take less time to deposit the ballot on election day than it takes to attend the Federation meetings, a suffrage convention, or a hearing at Albany. As a class we are debarred from the franchise. Because a woman was a woman did not save her from being beheaded. Because a woman was a woman did not save her from being burned at the stake. Woman has always had to suffer the penalty for crime and always had to conform to the law. Being amenable to the law she should share in any privileges which that law  can  grant.                              ;
SPEAKER AIDS SUFFRAGISTS
WADSWOitTH    SHOWS   'EM    HOW TO  MAKE  ASSEMBLY  ACT.
He's an Anti, but His Tip Will Get Tlieir Resolution   Out   of    CommitteeAn I                Army of Women Invade Albany With
a E'looil of Argument Pro ami Con. j
Albany,   Feb.   24.  As   the   result   of I         fifteen   minutes    coaching   by   Speaker
|         Wads ;vcrth in the niceties of true political j
|         tacli<s   the   fighters   for   franchise   who1,