I            B.r Dr.  Stephen   S. "Wise.
Rabbi   of .tho   Free   Synas-osue.
ONE ought not to be ashamed to plead for the rights of woman; one ought to be  ashamed to be silent in the presence of woman's wrongs.    Tho causa, of woman's rights is ultimately the cause of  human  rights,   for  the  movement C)n j behalf of equal suffrage is but a phase of a larger movement on behalf of human justice and social righteousness.
Tho ballot is not the gateway to heavenly bliss, but it Is the avenue to earthly opportunity. 'Woman's rights need ba pleaded for only as long as the right does not prevail.
Equal suffrage is said to be correct as an abstract right by those who are ready to abstract their neighbors' rights. Equal suffrage Is deprecated as theoretically right by those who are not unwilling to be practically wrong.                              .     '
As long as women are shut out from citizenship and the exercise of the ballot, which is the symbol of citizenship, ours is no democracy—that Is, rule of the people. A land In which women are reft of the right of citizenship is a nomocracy. Let us call It by its right name a manoc-racy, representing the triumph of the mala of man caste.
Those are justified In their opposition to equal suffrage who are the foes of democracy, who think Samuel Adams a fanatical agitator, who consider the Declaration of Independence an incendiary document, who look upon Washington and Hancock as leaders of a needless sedition. Such a's do not believe in the divine rights of humanity—save to be ruled ¦ —are in their place at the head of the anti-suffrage agitation.
The, exclusion of woman from the opportunities and obligations of citizenship Is I supported not only by inert conservatism, but also by the principle of force. Back I of the honeyed denial to women of citizenship stands the menace that women shall not have the ballot because they cannot win It for themselves by force of brute strength. The anti-suffragists profess to be shocked by the forcible tactics of the English leaders of the suffrage movement, but smile complacently when men use their brute power to shut women out from the right of equal citizenship in the State.