Buckle, " has ever possessed power without abusing it." Few of those who declare against representative government would be willing themselyes to submit to a deprivation of their political rights. As Lord Somers said, " Among all the rights and privileges appertaining unto us, that of having a share in the legislation and of being governed by such laws as we ourselves shall cause, is the most fundamental and essential, as well as the most beneficial and advantageous."
But, it is argued, women possess virtual representation. Women who own stocks and bonds are not willing to submit their interests to that unsubstantial variety of representation.  Are their interests in real estate and municipal affairs so much slighter ? "No such thing as virtual representation," says James Otis, " is known in law or Constitution. It is altogether a subtlety and illusion, wholly unfounded and absurd."
By the law of the State of Massachusetts, in common with the majority of other States, the ownership of the minor child is vested solely in the father. Does any one imagine that if women had possessed the suffrage they would have petitioned the Legislature of Massachusetts unsuccessfully for twentyfive years that the mother might have joint ownership in the child she bore ?
The teachers in our public schools are an intelligent, conscientious, lawabiding portion of the community. They are, besides, well organized, but their influence with our city government is insignificant beside that of the most ignorant trades-union. The one means votes; the other represents sentiment. So our teachers plod on their underpaid way without the one power that will give them recognition and attention.
The same thing holds true in the trades. Find a trade wholly in the hands of women, and without exception it is wretchedly paid; one wholly in the hands of men is well paid; and where both men and women work is better off than the first and worse off than the second in its own grade of occupations. The political condition largely determines the industrial condition. The surest way to bring equal pay for equal work is to place women with men on the plane of political accountability.
For the benefit of the State, as well as the individual woman, we have said, the extension of the suffrage is desirable. Questions affecting education, public morality, and the reform of old abuses would secure the closest attention on the part of women.  Municipal questions, too, are only an extended housekeeping, and the peculiar training of women has admirably fitted them to cope with the perplexing details of a city administration. To keep the moral bearings of a question uppermost, to stand for the interests of little children, to oppose the influences hostile to the home, to see the practical homely bearings of great enterprises-these are a few of the services women would render to the State.
The bugaboo of the bad woman in   politics frightens many, but this dreadful apparition dwindles on close inspection. The bad man is in politics too, but that doesn't make us disfranchise the good man. Then the bad women in the next place, are not nearly so numerous as the good women.
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