The Press., 1894-05-31
connection with such high and distinct
 expression of personality as the exercise

connection with such high and distinct expression of personality as the exercise of sovereignty in the right of suffrage.
 To-day, IS every one knows--thoueh not all over the world, yet in the state of New York k-the personality of the woman has been liberated from the flaw of cov- erture," and affirmed in the most distinct and solemn manner. As this is an entire ly new fact in the European world, where for centuries the personality of the wo- man has been more effaced than in the antique republics, its significance has not yet been fully appreciated. But the sig nificance Is enormous, and means, indeed, nothing less than revolution of ideas concerning woman, and, with these ideas, of woman's entire social status and of the admitted view of her political nonentity. Correlatively with this mighty change, women, also for the first time in the his- tory of the world, have been admitted, with almost perfect freedom, and first, and most especially, in the state of New York, to the privileges of education. First the primary and grammar school; then the high school (the Troy seminary was the first institution of the kind ever established for women); then the college and the university, as Vassar, Cornell, and Columbia testify. The bulk of the education of the youth of the state is in women's hands, even for boys during the primary and grammar school years. I of ha oat ,fx,A Axya years.
 Correlatively again, and also with the establishment of the legal right of women to their own earnings, of which formerly even & drunken or gambling husband could deprive them, the earning power of women has enormously increased. "The entrance of women into the industrial feld," says Carroll Wright, twas assured when the factory system of labor dis placed the hand labor system" "A study of census statistics leads to the broad statement that there are but few lines of remunerative employment not now open to women." "The social and intellectual emancipation of woman being an estab- lished fact, should industrial equality be secured, political equality must surely follow"
 This is what we maintain. Quite apart from any question of advantage or disad- vantage, or expediency or the reverse, the argument Is absolutely complete in the foregoing brief statement. Whenever, since the inauguration of modern repre- sentative government, any class of people have arrived at a sufficient degree of act ual strength in the community to demand a share in the sovereignty, 1t has, sooner or later, been accorded to them. As matter of fact, even the successive exten- sions of the electorate in England, where the evolution of representative govern ment has been most gradual and normal, and free from the shock of such sudden lenfranchisements as that of the French peasantry in 1S48 and of our own southern lnegroes-even in England the strength of the classes demanding the suffrage at and since 1882 has been far inferior in many respects to that of the American women of New York state today If some hun- dreds protest against the claim, or if some thousands remain indifferent, this proves absolutely nothing against the conspicu- lous fact of such an unprecedented rise in the general level of education, intelli- gence, independence, and power, as ren- ders the enunciation of the claim even possible, and secures for it hearing that is not in any way lacking in respect.
 AS it is desired that also state what ] specific advantages l believe will accrue from the enfranchisement of women, I , will note: -!'.t First, relief from the Intense vulgariza ton of political life which has crept over ] America with the advent of universal manhood suffrage. It is an absolute in- novation in the history of the world-at least since the antique republics-the po- litical sovereignty should be based on sex alone, apart from any consideration of birth, fortune, position, or education. The effect of this innovation is intensified when all these attributes, formerly con- considered essential now remain and are conspicuously recognized in the women who remain withouG political power, and who are, politically speaking, dominated by masses of men who are without such attributes of @ ruling class. True, the Ienfranchisement of all women would in clude an illiterate vote of women, though this is really small. But in that case the sovereignty would be shared by all in ex- ,] change for the advantage of general representation. Here the non-represent- ed women do not even share the sover- eighty with the men who are so greatly their mental and moral interiors; they are obliterated by these. No wonder they come to consider political or public life l0ao, and no wonder that their apathy or contempt affects the men of their fam flies, and the reins of power tend con- stantly to slip into the meanest hands.
 Second, the very increase in the person. al privileges accorded to women to-day is a serious danger when unbalanced by sense of public responsibilities, and even a share in their discharge. The average
 New York woman of the day knows less, and cares less, about the civic life of our imperial city than did the women of re- publican Rome, where it finally happened
 that women acquired much personal lib- , erty and much wealth-a tenth part of
 the real estate of Rome is said to have
 been in their hands at the time of the em- [ pire. But as political life increased in
 complexity, the women failed to develop with 1t; their personal influence was more
 often illicit, and their personal emancipa- ! tion was signal for immense disorder. Il Third, politics, the life of the state, of the city, means simply the life of the fel-
 low human beings to whom all should be bound by the closest ties, next to those of
 the family. The suffrage would be the , outward and visible sign that women were at last authorized, according to their time,
 capacity, and opportunity, to occupy themselves with such social affairs. It is known that the relatively superficial lproblems of previous politics are tending [ to yield place to the more strenuous ques-
 tions of social organization-of questions l involving the welfare of the masses whom well-to-do women have hitherto only touched with their finger-tips, in occa- sional charity. In the discussion and , handling of these great problems women must come to the front, and this the labor , organizations largely recognize.
 r Fourth, while nothing is more intangi- ble than the attributes of popular sover- , eighty, nothing is more far-reaching, more profound, more intensely effective in it's influanca tYnu will newer cnnnuar