Connecticut western news., 1913-03-06
ANNA SHAW'S LECTURE
Remarkable Suffrage Address by .
 Remarkable Woman.

Woman Suffrage Association, was tho attraction at the largest meeting yet
 held in Town Hall, and gave the people of Canaan an opportunity to listen to a most remarkable address by one of tho most gifted women in this country.
 The hall was filled with an apprecia- tive audience in which there were ap- parently as many men as women, who gave their closest attention to the inter esting discourse.
 Mrs. Frank Hitchcock. president of the local League, opened the meeting at s:S0 by announcing a suffrage sketch by ten young girls, clever and strildngly significant hit on the steady advance which the suffrage is making, in cap turing one state after another without either busting the home,n blasting the crops. taking mems jobs away. don ming the pants" nor otherwise up setting the proprieties nor wrecluug tho best traditions of the land. as predicted by the dismal prophets of anti-suffrage. The stealing of the state of Michigan by the forces of vice and corruption. after the suffragists had carried the state. was vividlY touched upon. Mrs. Nesten accompanied the girls upon the piano.
 Mir. A. s. c. Taylor, of Norfolk, made few remarks on behalf of the Mems League for Woman Suffrage and urged the men present to communicate with their representatives and persuade them to support the suffrage amend ment.
 Rev. O. W. Hanna, of East Canaan, then made a brief introductory speech in presenting Dr. Anna Shaw, whom he greeted as ''sister minister" and. by a trifling slip. introduced as the president of the National Woman's Temperance Society, lapse which Dr. Shaw used as provocation for the jooular observa- tion that she was often amused by the difficulty which men often experienced in handling her offioial title.
 In the entire hour and half of Dr. Shaw's address there was not dull nor uninteresting minute. It bristled with wit and amusing satire and teemed wIth eloquenoe, pathos, unanswerabie argu- ment and convincing presentation of woman's claim to equal right as a recog- milton of simple justice. It was che strongest, most coherent, most logicai and most conclusive exposition of wom. ans cause that was ever presented to the people of this region. and the hearer who was not convinced by 1t was noa open to conviction, didn't want to be convinced. and wouldn't allow himself to be convinced.
 Dr. Shaw said that since the early days when men awoke to the fact thax no man should govern any other man without his consent the condition of man has steadily advanced and im- proved, yet they are 10th to admit that they have no inherent right to govern women without her consent. In a single year more women have asked for en- franchisement than all the men in ah history. and that men never carried on an organized crusade for enfrachiss- ment, whereas this woman's movement has been going on for 60 years The progress of the male franchise. from the days when only church members-and members of only certified churches, n that-were allowed to vote. down through the the various stages of the franchise evolution, which has given the ballot to all malo citizens. bAndh and white, was reviewed, and the Potnt was made that the political ststns .df of woman, so far as Connecticut and other states is concerned, remains prac- tioally the same as at the beg inning, though woman has not only shown her ability to take her place in the 6usiaess. commercial and industrial world, brft stands ready to conform to any qualiti-. cation demanded of men, in the matter of the franchise educational, properW or otherwise. The familiar anti-suffrage, arguments, about forcing suffrage upon women who do not want it "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand tlina rules the world;" woman's proper sphere is the home. etc., were riddled with argument and delicious ,aaroasm. The speaker said 1t was m1treu ,u tin- difference what the opinion of the legls- lature might be on the matter of equal franohise-all that is asked of the legis- lature is that they give the men of the state an opportunity to exert their own right of franchise by submitting to tue people constitutional amendment pro vidinR for equal suffrage. It was really the franchise for men that they were demanding. When Dr. Shaw finished 1t would seem that there was little left to be said in favor of equal suffrage, ana nothing left of the arguments agains tt We regret that lack of space forbids a full report of the address. which would occupy full page of The News. The speaker was frequently interrupted wi(h hearty applause and at the close the demonstration was loud and prolonged.
 Mrs. Taylor followed with an earnest appeal to the men to use their influence with the representatives, to have the amendment passed at the present ses- sion, and announced that the younR lady ushers would pass around the pcs