and massed it in great factories and shops. As a result the homes of to-day and a hundred years or more ago, are as different as were the two pictures which Hamlet held before his mother. Instead of woman taking man's work, it is the reverse. He has appropriated to himself what was long supposed to be hers; when this is not the case, she must, at least, do it upon man-made plans.

To the student of affairs, all this means that in developing this country men have consciously or unconsciously taken from the home its industrial life and woman finds that what was formerly a work of love is now done under new conditions and strange environments. Every year conditions in the industrial and business world are becoming more trying. The so-called business methods, concerning which so much is said these days, mean increased duties, more exacting requirements, and greater complexity in the accomplishment of all work. Woman is expected to meet all these demands and even to exceed man in matters of detail.

This experience in the outside world is educating her, for she is studying conditions. She sees that she is forced to compete with those who have full political rights, while she herself is a political nonentity. She often finds that she must contend and protect herself against conditions which are more often political than economical, thus forcing upon her the conviction that she, too, is entitled to be a full-fledged voter. She sees that politics, business, and industrial life generally are so united that one affects the other; and that since she is a factor in two, she should be granted the rights and privileges of the third. She sees that being a political nonentity she is at a disadvantage as a breadwinner.

Bound by circumstances to be a unit in the wealth-producing power of the country, is it not reasonable that she should have a voice in the affairs of government. Think of the number of women wage-earners in this country who are without political representation, there being no men in the family. These same women, in not a few instances, are property holders and taxpayers, and yet, denied a right which our Government gives to an ignorant and sometimes corrupt immigrant applying for citizenship. She needs the ballot because there are economic conditions which can be solved by the ballot only.

At present, laws are made without a woman's view point. Why should she not have a right to give full expression to her thoughts and feelings on such vital subjects? Give woman a chance and as she has proved no uncertain factor in the industrial world neither will she in political affairs.

The working woman does not ask for the ballot as a panacea for all her ills. She knows that it carries with it responsibilities, but she is already a creature of responsibilities. All that the ballot is to man, it will be that and even more to woman. For just as civil service has helped her mentally and protected her morally, so suffrage would mean the extending of the horizon of her life, the dignifying of her body, and the conservation of her virtue.

Let her remain man's inferior politically and unjust discriminations against her as a wage-earner will continue, but let her become his equal politically and she will then be in a position to demand equal pay for equal work. The great bodies of organized labor

have, time and again in their national and international conventions, indorsed woman suffrage. These men have learned that woman is a factor in labor problems and have declared that work should be paid for, not according to the sex of the worker, but on the merits of the work. But it is all too evident to the working woman that this will not be so long as she is without power in politics and is unable to influence legislation directly.

It is for this reason that political enfranchisement is such a matter of vital concern to the working woman. She feels that limiting the statements set forth in the preamble to the Constitution as applicable to the male side of government only is unjust, and it makes her sympathize with the small boy whose father, after having chastised him, asked his small son whether he understood why father had whipped him. "Yes," sobbed the small boy, "'cos you're bigger than I am."

It seems no more than just that the rights and privileges declared in that preamble to be set forth in the Constitution should be equally shared by woman. A government of the people, for the people, and by the people is the strongest utterance of a democracy; and the high ideal embodied therein is realized when every individual, regardless of sex, has equal share in administering such a government. And just in proportion as men legislate on this principle of right, just in that proportion will government problems solve themselves. The thing of wondering what would happen to woman if she were allowed the ballot should not enter into the question. Give her her rights, and all things involved in those rights will adjust themselves.

Where one class governs without the consent of all, there is no true democracy, since it embodies the idea of consent on the part of those governed. It must have been a realization of this idea that led our Government, after granting to the negro his freedom as a war measure, to give to the colored man political franchise regardless of his previous condition of servitude and of his limited knowledge of self-government. By those same conditions which freed the negro and made a voter of him, woman has been made more self-dependent, has been made a greater factor in the wealth-producing power of the country, and has been brought into closer relations with political conditions. This being the case, it would be both magnanimous and just for Congress generally, and for the dominant party of the last fifty or more years in particular, to consent, through this present administration, to give to all citizens, regardless of sex, the full liberties and rights embodied in our Constitution, thus sharing with all alike the fullest and richest blessing of the old Magna Charta of English history.

Mrs. KELLEY. I will call now upon Miss Laura Clay, president of the Suffrage Association of Kentucky.

STATEMENT OF MISS LAURA CLAY, PRESIDENT OF THE EQUAL
RIGHTS ASSOCIATION OF KENTUCKY.

Miss CLAY. Gentlemen, I am unprepared to speak to a body of such dignity as this; I wish that I might have had more preparation, and yet when I am called upon to speak to any body of my countrymen in defense of the principles which have made our country great I always feel that however weak my views and my testimony may be they are worth something.

When I hear our women, gentlemen, making the pleas that they have made, not so much to you, to Congressmen and committeemen, but to mankind, I think, Is the day ever going to come when women, American women, who have been raised up, as I have been, to believe that the manhood of the United States is the grandest manhood in the world, and yet at the same time have been taught that women are men's equals, shall we feel that we have little or no sympathy from the men of our nation, that the men of our nation are going to abdicate their right to be the protectors of women and just consider us as mere merchandise to be sold in the industrial market or in a sale more hideous, the traffic of the white slave? And we shall not find among the Congressmen of our Government any who care about asking anything except, "Can you not find somebody else to protect you? Go to your States, go anywhere, but do not come to us.' What are we to think of men when there is one found to say such a thing?

I have been asked, when I have spoken for childhood, "You have no child?" And I have said, "No, I have no child." But just as surely as men in the order of nature are the protectors of womanhood so surely in the order of human nature are women the protectors of childhood, and I would dishonor my womanhood to say that I will not do what I can for a child because I have none; and I hope the time will never come when women must be ashamed of men because they are not willing to sacrifice something, to do something, to take some action for women. Think of it! We are women. Are we going to crawl on our knees to ask for that which we feel we have a right to demand of men? We are not the whole race; we do not say we are the whole race, but we believe that we are performing our share of the duties of the race. We stand for the protection of childhood; we extend a sisterly hand to our women, to our sister women, who may or may not be placed in as favorable a situation as ourselves; and there our responsibility to humanity and to the nation is ended; and there, men-I will not say gentlemen nor members of this Judiciary Committee-your duty commences, and you should see that every protection that it is possible, every lifting hand that it is possible for manhood to offer to womanhood should be extended, and your position gives you an opportunity, but adds nothing in the greatest sense to your duty.

I beg that, as far as your official position goes, you will show that the manhood of the United States is open to the pleas of the womanhood of the United States.

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF MRS. FLORENCE KELLEY, SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT.

Mrs. KELLEY. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, it is sixty years last month since my father, Judge Kelley, became a Member of the House of Representatives. And in those days it took a great deal of courage for a man to do what he did year after year-the introduction of this resolution which you are considering to-day. He did introduce it year after year, partly, I think, out of chivalrous regard for the courage of Miss Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Stanton, and the very few courageous women who fifty years ago patiently came before your predecessors; but very much more he introduced that resolution year

after year because he believed it was essentially just. He saw in those days the beginnings of the industrial change in the midst of which we live, and those beginnings appalled him. He saw how infinitely difficult it was for his widowed mother to get any opportunity of education for himself in his childhood and his sisters, and how infinitely difficult it was for the whole great class of women, not only widows, but those who, by the circumstances of our changing industries, have been forced out into the industrial market, and he believed they ought to be given the same power to protect their own interests as has always been given to the American workingman and which he helped to give to the negro. Now, circumstances have changed, so that it no longer takes courage for a man to introduce this resolution; on the contrary, we are coming to the days when it takes a great deal of courage for a man not to vote for it. It is going to take more courage, year by year, for a man to explain why he votes against it.

The women of this country now carry in the churches a responsibility which they did not dream of when my father first came to this House; they carry the burden of education of this Republic as teachers, as taxpayers, and as mothers who send the children to the schools well-cared for, and fit to be taught. And we are increasing the carrying of burdens in business. The confidential secretaries of our great business men are very largely women; they are intrusted with secrets, with business secrets quite as important and responsible as the duties of helping to select their own school board and their own mayor and their own governor.

But we do not count in our communities at all in proportion to the responsibilities which we carry. One of the gentlemen has asked: What is the relation of all this practically to the ballot? Well, I will give you some examples. I was for four years the head of the factory inspectors of the State of Illinois. During that time we had an eight-hour law enacted for the protection of women and children employed in manufacturing industries. The supreme court of Illinois held that it was contrary to the constitution of the State of Illinois and to the Constitution of the United States for women to be deprived of the right to work twenty-four hours, or whenever it suited the convenience of the employers to work in that way. The court said, and it took 9,000 words to say it, that women could not be deprived of working unlimited hours, because they were citizens, although the court said the term "citizenship" was limited; the court said they could not be allowed to work underground, in mines, they could not be allowed to work out their taxes on the roads, as farmers do, they could not be called to the militia, they could not vote except for school committees and once in four years for the trustees of the University of Illinois, but, with those minor deductions, they are citizens and can not be deprived of the freedom of contract. That was fifteen years ago.

The Supreme Court of the United States has proclaimed that the judges of Illinois guessed wrong on that occasion, that it is not contrary to the Constitution of the United States to limit the working hours of women, but that it is the obvious duty of every legislature to do it in the interest of the public health and morals. The court has been changed twice in Illinois since that time. No man who sat on the supreme court bench of Illinois in 1895 sits on that bench to-day. A year ago, largely through the efforts of Mrs. Robins,

who has spoken to you this morning, the legislature of Illinois tried it again, and passed this time a ten-hour law. A judge was found who held that it was a legitimate object for an injunction, and he enjoined my successor, the present factory inspector of Illinois, and the prosecuting attorney from enforcing this law, and to-day under that injunction the women are again free to work twenty-four hours, as they do one day in the week quite regularly in the laundries in Chicago, and work sixteen hours a day as they do in the stores during the Christmas rush, and as they do in the box factories and candy factories in Chicago. And yet the women of Illinois have not had one word to say as to the personnel of those courts, those courts which decide what is a matter of life and death for every woman who is rushed into her grave by work in the laundries and other factories or sweat shops of that Štate.

Now, to show you how practical it is. I lived for eight years at Hull House, in Chicago, with Miss Addams. Among our near neighbors was a wretched little laundry, which was very poorly ventilated; the law did not require ventilation; it was overheated, and was a wretched little sweat-shop laundry which took contracts from the larger ones for work that had to be finished in a rush. On one occasion we had the sort of weather which they say in Illinois is good for corn, but bad for men; we had frightful heat and humidity. This little laundry had a rush order, and they were requiring the girls to work from 7 o'clock in the morning until that particular work, for a ship which would touch on its way down from Duluth or Buffalo, was finished; the work had to be finished so this ship could get its linen on time. The girls were required to work from 7 o'clock in the morning, with the temperature 80 at 10 o'clock and 90 at noon, throughout the day till past midnight. Between 1 and 2 o'clock of the following day one of those girls fainted; as soon as she fainted, 4 other girls fainted. At the inquest upon the one who died the employer said it seemed as though when the one girl fainted they just went down out of imitation and spite; that as soon as one fainted the others all followed. Ambulances were called and the 3 girls were taken to St. Luke's hospital and 2 to the County Hospital; 1 died during the night, 2 remained paupers on our hands to be supported a long time at Hull House, and 2 remained paralytic invalids. It was a matter of life and death to those girls that the supreme court of Illinois thought and erroneously thought-it was contrary to the Constitution of the United States to restrict their working hours; it is a matter of life and death for the girls who are rushed into tuberculosis during the Christmas rush that that court held as it did. And yet no woman in Illinois to-day has one word to say as to the judges that shall sit in this court.

Now, of course they can not change the constitution; that goes without saying. The supreme court of Illinois has been sitting since January, and we are awaiting a decision on this injunction case; we do not know how it is going; we buy papers from edition to edition to learn whether this court is going to hold that the constitution of Illinois is out of joint with the Constitution of the United States and that it is impossible to do that which Justice Brewer in his famous decision declared to be the duty of the States. If they do so decide,a

a On April 21, 1910, the Illinois supreme court upheld the constitutionality of the act of 1909 limiting to ten hours the working day for women in "any mechanical establishment, factory, or laundry."