to secure equal suffrage-that it must come through education, agitation and petitioning. What is more educating and agitating than a political party on questions to be decided by politicians? What party should help on the education and agitation? That party which expects the benefit of woman's ballot when it is secured; that party which needs most woman's ballot to enforce its principles. Since the Prohibition party is the only party that can claim woman's ballot as its rightful inheritance, let us be careful not to sell it for a mess of pottage-the immediate control of a few votes.

While no other issue can take the place of Prohibition, we will need woman's ballot when the day of enforcement comes, and to keep it within reach is the part of policy as well as principle; for the speed of our progress is not so great a question as our ability to hold the land when it has come into our possession. To enforce Prohibition in our large cities a new saving force must be injected into our politics; and it does not exist outside of our women. If this comes not by the golden rule, alarming necessity will yet make it a war measure.

The day will come when the Prohibition party will need woman's ballot to secure enforcement of its purpose. The day will never come when old parties can adopt new great principles any more than could new wine go into old bottles. So what we already possess as a saving grace let us keep, and what we must finally have, in larger measure, let us cultivate, assured that the evolution in woman's rights will bring to woman the ballot. As out of the idea that a man of brain and heart and conscience is as good as any other man, though that man of brain and heart and conscience be a beggar and that other man a king, came this Republic; so out of the idea that a being of brain and heart and conscience is as good as any other being, though that being of brain and heart and conscience be a woman, and that other being a man, will come equal suffrage. The danger that this policy will heap upon the South female colored ignorance is met by the platform of the Prohibition party, which declares that "mental and moral qualification for the exercise of an intelligent ballot" ought to be the condition for male and female, and that the several States ought

Suffrage is the outward expression of the inward sense of self-protection and self-preservation. Suffrage is, therefore, a natural right; it comes of God and cannot be denied one-half the race by the other half without unwarranted usurpation of power. Suffrage is an expressed opinion upon matters vital to the life, liberty and happiness of the individual; without it no expression can be had upon the laws that affect person or property, and the persons thus denied are subject to the whims, caprices and impositions of those who makeand administer the laws, The man or woman has never been born, and doubtless never will be, who is sufficiently just and Christian to be trusted with unlimited power over any other human being. Self-protection is, therefore, the only kind of protection to be trusted in the many emergencies of life.

All government is a usurpation except that which is based upon the consent of the governed. Suffrage is the instrument through which this consent is secured. Opponents of equal suffrage may urge, upon the broad grounds taken in the foregoing assertions, that children, idiots and criminals should be vested with the privilege of suffrage. The parent has a right, inherent with parentage, to represent and protect the child because of its inexperience and undeveloped mind; the idiot is irresponsible; the criminal is dangerous and has, therefore, forfeited his right to suffrage as a penalty for his misdeeds. None of these things-urged against child, idiot or criminal suffragecan be justly urged against suffrage by the intelligent women.

Women have a right to suffrage upon the same grounds that men have, and the Declaration of Independence stands as a monument to male usurpation of power which thwarts the existence and ends of a true Republic, until women shall vote. To declare "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;

that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," and then to deny one-half the people governed the power of consenting, is inconsistent.

One who believes in a government by the people must grant women suffrage or deny that women are "people." The opponent may urge that the stability of laws rests upon the power of enforcement, that back of the ballot is brute force and the bullet, and that the physical power of women is too limited to enforce their will power. Let it be remembered that if women cannot defend so they cannot attack; also, that it is as great a service to government to go down into the valley and shadow of death to give birth to a son and then rear him to manhood, as it is to go out upon the field of battle and shoot him.

In short, no objection can be urged against Woman Suffrage which, if carried to its logical conclusion, will not compel the objector to give up every declaration and principle upon which the Republic is founded, and disfranchise men. Therefore I conclude that ours is not a true Republic until women are allowed to vote, since natural right and justice demand that they exercise the elective franchise as freely and on the same terms as do men.

It is not my purpose to claim that by nature one sex is superior to the other in brain or moral power; but I am compelled to acknowledge that unequal social laws have made the women the superiors of men in intelligence, sobriety, loyalty and virtue. Reliable statistics show that there is a much higher percentage of educated women than of educated men.

It is then expedient that women vote, for by this means only can laws reflect the highest degree of intelligence possessed by the people. There is but one drunken woman to every thousand drunken men; therefore the sober judgment of our citizens can be best secured by allowing clear-brained women at the polls. There is but one criminal woman to twelve criminal men; therefore the lawabiding, virtuous element of womanhood could so far outweigh and control the vicious and dangerous men who now vote, that every sentiment of patriotism

demands the intelligence, sobriety and virtue of women at the ballot-box, as a balance of power.

History teaches that cities control the politics of nations, and through corruption of municipalities governments have been overthrown. American cities are at the present time controlled by the spawn of the saloon. There is but one reserve force upon which the Government can call to rescue the politics of the nation from the clutches of the vicious elements of society, namely, Woman Suffrage. It has all other responsible elements enfranchised. The three vices of the citiesthe brothel, the gambling-den and the saloon-are the great enemies of the child and the home. Against these enemies the very nature of women is pitted in all the strength of their love for offspring and home. Prohibitory legislation will never prohibit, as it should, any. or all of these vices, without the enforcing ballot of the great undeceased but unrecorded constituency in American politics, women. The lesson taught in Kansas, where women exercise municipal suffrage, is of unspeakable value and confirms the claim that Woman Suffrage is the great moral force that makes Prohibition prohibit.

The demoralizing influence of an injustice is reflex, demoralizing the perpetrators of such injustice. The slave of the South scarcely suffered more than the slaveholder and his descendants. Denying the mother-instinct of the nation expression, and the development that comes to the elector from the exercise of suffrage, has filled our almshouses, jails, asylums and penitentiaries with the waifs of society. Noble men stand appalled before the great crowd of indigent; and if in their search for remedial agencies they recognize that the tenderness of women, linked with the strength of men in legislation, is as necessary as the union of these two agencies in the home and society, the State will no longer suffer the fearful penalties of half-orphanage. Beside the breadwinners will stand the homemakers, each clothed with full power to supplement the other and solve the problem of life for the greatest good to the greatest number. The penalties of poverty, vice and crime upon us teach that suffrage needs women far more than women need suffrage.

The political party that pledges to legislate in the moral interests of the people must be supported by the moral force of women if it is to meet with suc

cess.

The Prohibition party is the only one in existence, at the present time, which presents in its platform a single moral principle. The other political parties struggle alone for office, greed and gain. The life and success of the Prohibition party depend upon the enfranchisement of women. The public sentiment which demands this party has grown from the organized and persistent efforts of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The issues of the one are the issues of the other. It is, therefore, not only just that the Prohibition party declare and labor for Woman Suffrage, it is also expedient, as it is always expedient to act justly and do right. Time never fails to crown such acts with victory and honor. Woman Suffrage is the logical sequence of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Human liberty v. class rule is in the evolution of governments. Suffrage, the exponent of liberty, has already passed through the several class qualifications of orthodoxy, property and color in this country, and is now preparing to leave behind the last remnant of such legislation indicated by sex suffrage. HELEN M. GOUGAR.

sidered:

Three leading questions must be con1. Is Woman Suffrage in itself desirable?

2. If secured, would it assist the cause of Prohibition?

3. Assuming that it is desirable in itself, and that it would assist the cause of Prohibition, should it be advocated by the Prohibition party?

To the first question I must reply, Probably not. The question has never been before the public in such a form as to elicit any thorough discussion. The advocates of suffrage have dealt largely in assumptions and ad captandum vulgus arguments, and its opponents have relied upon the instinctive judgment of the community rather than upon clearly-defined reasons. It is probably better for all concerned that one-half the citizens, and the most esteemed and honored half, should stand aloof from common political

strife, constituting a moral reserve whose influence, unselfish and unbiased, will be brought in to turn the scale in all important crises. The fact that many changes in woman's position have been effected without bringing the evils which were predicted, does not prove that suffrage would be a safe experiment. The boy cried "Wolf! wolf!" many times when there was no wolf there, but at last, when people had grown indifferent to the cry of alarm, the wolf actually came.

To the second question I must answer, Only slightly and temporarily. It is a great confession of weakness to assume that Prohibition cannot be carried as other reforms have been by manhood suffrage, and that the basis of suffrage must be changed in order to force it through. Conservative minds would hesitate to have Prohibition enacted be fore a majority of men are enlisted in its favor. The impression of female sentiment on the temperance question which one gathers in a Woman's Christian Temperance Union Convention is scarcely representative of the community at large. Foreign women, negro women, fashionable women, business women and thoughtless women must all be reckoned with. In general, wherever we find a man who sustains the saloon, directly or indirectly, we may be sure there is somewhere a woman-the female of his species-to match him. The principal reason which operates in the mind of good men to prevent their political action against the liquor traffic, is their attachment to some political party. While women do not vote they are largely free from this influence. When the suffrage was first conferred many women might join a new party in the interests of temperance, but as soon as women became fully enlisted in the race for office and the effort to "beat" their opponents, they would become as party-blind as the good deacons of the old parties to-day. There seems to be no reason to doubt that if women were placed in the same position in which men are, they would act as men do.

To the third question I have a more positive answer. Granting that Woman Suffrage is desirable in itself, and that it would assist the cause of temperance if secured, it is still certain that the Prohibition party ought not to advocate it. The linking together of two great measures is sure to hinder the passage of both. This is capable of mathematical demonstration. Let there be 3,000 voters in a township. It is proposed to build a new bridge, and it is also proposed to build a new school-house. Naturally some who favor one of these measures will oppose the other. If the two measures are submitted together, so that a man cannot vote for one without also voting for the other, neither of them can be carried until there is a majority favorable to both. Yet each could be carried separately long before that time. There will be a time in the progress of discussion when 1,000 voters will favor the bridge and oppose the schoolhouse, another 1,000 will favor the schoolhouse and oppose the bridge, and the remaining 1,000 will favor both. Submit both propositions together and you are defeated by a twothirds vote. Submit either of them separately and you win by a two-thirds vote. In such a case we should submit the two questions separately-not as a matter of policy but as a matter of principle. It is the only way in which the people can be enabled to express their true convictions. If an ardent advocate of the schoolhouse should say, "I will not allow these things to be separated; if anybody wants the bridge he has got to vote for the schoolhouse too," he would be guilty of a political immorality. This is what is commonly called a "rider"one measure linked to another so that the person who desires the one must vote for the other against his will. This is the position which the Suffragists take in the Prohibition party to-day. They make suffrage a rider. They say, "The platform, the speakers, the machinery of the Prohibition party shall be used for suffrage also, so that no one can help the party without helping suffrage. If any man wants to help the Prohibition party he has got to help the cause of Woman Suffrage whether he believes in it or not."

This policy is particularly odious at a time when they are urging their fellowcitizens to drop all subordinate questions and unite upon the one issue of Prohibition. They ask the tariff men and the anti-tariff men to drop that question and attend to temperance. They exhort all other citizens to drop or defer their pet schemes for the sake of crushing the. sa

loon, and yet insist upon lugging in their own hobby which is the greatest weight of all. They cannot claim to be working for suffrage in the interests of Prohibition because they cannot get suffrage until they already have a majority of men. This is the one sufficient reason for the twenty years' failure of the party. Like the Irishman's pig, " it is little, but it is old." The independent men who are ready to leave the old parties refuse to join a third party which insists upon violating their consciences by such a yoke as this. When the Suffrage plank was dropped in Ohio in 1885 the Prohibition vote rose from 11,000 to 28,000; but after four years of toil, with the suffrage millstone again upon its neck, the party cannot record a single foot of progress. The suspicion arises that the managers of the party do not expect to win voters and at last carry the country, but simply to carry on a miscellaneous agitation--playing at politics.

In conclusion, it is well to refer to the compromise of the Hon. John M. Olin, which was rejected under such remarkable circumstances at the Indianapolis Convention of 1888. He reminded the Suffragists that the question was purely a constitutional one, and that the only party action which is possible in the case is to submit a Constitutional Amendment. This the non-Suffragists, for the sake of peace, were willing to do. The compromise was rejected, and yet it remains true that if Woman Suffrage is ever secured it must be secured in this way. WILLIAM G. FROST.

Ether. See CHLORAL.

Ethics of License. - We are not now concerned with the supposed merits of license as a repressive measure, whether or not it is better than "free whiskey" or practically more effective than legal Prohibition. We propose to ask whether in the court of pure ethics it can stand the test of moral law. It is, as has been alleged by very high authority, "vicious in principle." If so, the moral man will discard all its claims to recognition, no matter by what numbers urged or by what plausible arguments supported. His principle is not evil that good may come." He will not choose to abate the consequences of one

"Do

sin by committing another. In morals he will not listen to a proposition to choose the lesser of two evils. Between physical evils he may be glad to choose the lesser, but in morals he knows of no liberty to choose whether he shall offend God and his conscience and do evil to his neighbor by a greater or less sin. All talk to him about "a half loaf" as "better than no bread" sounds like the suggestion of the devil to make bread out of stones. He wants no half loaf tainted with death. His answer to all is, "The wages of sin is death." If he can believe that the liquor traffic "can never be legalized with out sin," he wants no license, though it fill his coffers with money, though it reduce the number of saloons from thousands to units, and even if it should in any exceptional case show diminished arrests. He meets every proposition to license sin with the one unalterable imperative, "Thou shalt not."

:

But is the licensing of the saloon an evil always and everywhere? To get at a correct answer it is well to ask and answer several other questions:

1. What is the saloon?

The inquiry is not after some ideal institution possibly conducted in obedience to a very strict and technically exact license law, but the actual saloon as we have it and know it everywhere, that running sore on the body politic, that moral cancer on the conscience of the nation, that remorseless enemy of mankind which, according to Gladstone, hopelessly ruins more that is dear to humanity than the three curses of war, famine and pestilence. Shall we dignify such a curse as that into a legitimate industry by the solemn sanctions of law? 2. What is license ?

Many who favor it, answer: "It is a tax which implies no endorsement and gives no sanction. It is rather a stigma upon a bad business. Its real object is to burden, cripple and limit a great and, at present, ineradicable evil." The object of moral reformers who advocate license is thus declared to be to impose such burdens on the accursed traffic as to destroy its profitableness, and thus to destroy the traffic. They can scarcely excuse the radical Prohibitionists for attempting the impossible and not at once falling in with them in what they claim to be the immediately effective and only practical

method of destroying the drink curse. When met with the accusation of licensing sin, they reply that to call the tax on saloons a license is a misnomer. What, then, is a tax? What is a license? And wherein do they differ? A tax is a sum or levy imposed upon the members of society to defray its expenses. A government taxes its subjects when it demands money of them for its support. A license, on the contrary, is the granting of permission or authority to do what it would otherwise be unlawful to do. A tax requires something to be given a license allows something to be done. A tax is for the community-a license is for the individual. A tax is a burden to be borne-a license is a privilege to be enjoyed. Moreover, the fee upon the licensed traffic constitutes a valid contract between the party issuing the license and the licensee, and makes both sharers in the gains and moral character of the business. This point was put with great force and justness by Hon. John Sherman of Ohio, in his celebrated speech in Columbus in 1882, on this very subject of taxing and licensing the liquor traffic: "I cannot see how you can have a tax law without its operating as a license law," said he; license is a legal grant; a tax on a trade or occupation implies a permission to follow that trade or occupation. We do not tax a crime. We prohibit and punish it. We do not share in the profits of a larceny; but by a tax we do share in the profits of liquor-selling, and therefore allow or license it."

"a

The Senator's argument furnishes these three propositions: (1) The licensing of the traffic proceeds upon the theory that the business is not criminal, or ethically wrong, but legitimate and proper. (2) To tax the traffic is to license, protect and justify it. (3) To license it is to become a party to the business with all its social and moral consequences. This is done by the State. But what is the State? In a republic it is the aggregate citizenship. The act of the State licensing the liquor traffic is therefore the act of all who lend their influence and authority in favor of the legislation by which this is accomplished. This, again, is done by voting for and supporting men and parties that avow the principle of license. If the traffic is sinful then the legalizing of it is the