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envoniroment.of the ithe State. The love the <mbtherso.ul have ::nfluence In all departinterest, until coined ind that holds the ballot; y become a direct and lathe government. Mino voice in the laws un'e, they surely have the that their rulers, foreign 1be able to read and write wage. As it would take igrant at least five years iage, we should be sure the prescribed time behis right to vote. An loation would also stimuopulation to avail thempportunities for learning. e on sex, we have defeats of our ancestors, and ples of government mere
The populai objection to woman sufrage is thatlt Would "double the ignoant vote." T.he patent answer to this is: .bolish the o rant vote. Our legislaors have ti power in their own hands. ahere have been various restrictions in ie past for mef. We ae  willing to abide ythe same for women, provided the inarmountable qualification of sex be forver removed. In the discussion of this esti.on, educated women must lead the 'a. Some reformers do not see the wisa- of the measure, so the few who do iust take the initiative in arousing pubc thought and creating a widespread agiation of this step in woman's emancipaon. Some years ago the Supreme Court f Wyoming handed down an important nd far-reaching decision. The Court deided that foreign-born citizens of the tate of Wyoming must be able to read e Constitution of the State in the EngIh language in order to vote, and that ie<ability to read the Constitution in a eign language is not a compliance with terequirements of the Constitution. me of the opponents talk as if eduied suffrage would be invidious to the S interests of the laboring masses, U:ereas it would be most beneficial in its hate influence. You who can read Ad write and enjoy hours in a library, eaning there the history of the past as ei as advancing civilization; you who n visit the galleries of art, and with r knowledge of the classics, poetry, r'dmythology, appreciate what the pices say, little realize the starved condi2n of the uncultured mind. Blot this lowledge from your mind, and you then ay understand the solitude of ignorance; htfoan measure its misery? Surely, len we compel all classes to learn to ad and write and thus open to themWles the door of knowledge, not by rce, but by the promise of a privilege all
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day, without adequate shelter, food, and clothes, is the result of their own ignorance of the manner in which the broad distinctions in society have been created. I am fully aware that simply rea4ing and writing will not secure the key to the whole situation, but it is the first necessary step, without which the laboring man can never make and control his environment.
We must inspire our people with a new sense of their sacred duties as citizens of a Republic, and place new guards around our ballot-box.
Walking in Paris one day, I was deeply impressed with an emblematic statue in the square Chateau d'Eau, placed there in 1883 'in honor of the Republic. On one side is a magnificent bronze lion with his fore-paw on the electoral urn (which answers to our ballot-box), as if to guard it from all unholy uses. Having overturned all pretentions to royalty or nobility, and all artificial distinctions in class, and declared the right of the people to a voice in the making of their laws and the selection of their rulers, they exalted the idea of republican government and universal suffrage with this magnificent monument
-the royal lion guarding the sacred treasures within the electoral urn.
As I turned away, I thought of the American Republic, and our ballot-box, with no guardian or sacred reverence for its contents among the people. Ignorance, poverty, and vice crowd its precincts; thousands from every incoming steamer march from the steerage to the polls, while educated women, representing a large part of the virtue and intelligence of the nation, are driven away. I would like to see a monument to "Educated Suffrage" in front of our National Capitol, guarded by the goddess Minerva, her right hand resting on the ballot-box, her left hand on the spelling-book, the Declaration of Rights, and the National Constitution.
It would be well for us to ponder the Frenchman's idea, but instead of tl royal lion, representing force, let us subY stitute wisdom and virtue in the form of woman.
PBESIDENT'S ANNUAL ADDRESS.
[The following address was made by Mrs. Carrif Chapman Catt, president of the National Ameri can Woman Suffrage Association, at the opening of the National Convention and Internationa. Suffrage Conference at Washington, D. C., or Feb. 12.]
An International Woman Suffrage Conference deserves to be called "a new thing under the sun." It does not matter whether its immediate results shall prove to be important or insignificant, it stands as an unmistakable mile-post in the onward progress of a great cause,-an indication, too, which points in no uncertain manner to the heights beyond, where, without a question, the banner of equal rights for men and women will one day be planted.
Self-government for men, in its modern acceptance, is in itself a new thing. It is true there were so-called republics, of great influence and power, in the early centuries of Europe, but in all of them the number of those who were authorized to exercise the rights of citizenship was so limited, it is doubtful if they deserved the name. Self-government. based unon
ment was unquestionably the Americai Declaration of Independence. The world has been making long and successful preparation for the departure from old ideals. De Tocqueville, in writing of the American Republic, declared that "for seven centuries aristocracies and class privileges had been steadily dissolving," and John Stuart Mill3dded in comment, "The noble has been gradually going down on the social ladder, and the commoner has been gradually going up. Every half century has brought them nearer 1 to each other."  During the centuries in which the repressive customs of feudalism were gradually receding into the past, while commerce was uniting more closely the destinies of nations, while education was surely substitutitg.inderstanding andreason for faith and superstition, while wars for conquest were becoming less common and periods of peace more frequent and of longer duration, there was slowly but steadily growing in the minds of men a self-respect, a self-reliance, an individuality that would sooner or later ask why some men should be born to rule and  others to obey. That question chanced to be formulated first by the' American colonists. Had the declaration not come from America, it would have come elsewhere. The time was ripe for it, and it came as a rePilt of a world movement and a world crisis, and not alone because England had been unjust. It came because the rank and file of men had begun to think, and because the glittering tinsel of royal courts, which had once served to hold subjects loyal, had grown transparent.
In ready response to growing intelligence and individualism, the. principle of self-government has been planted in every civilized nation of the world. Before the force of this onward movement the most cherished ideals of conservatism have fallen. Out of the ashes of the old, phcenix-like, has arisen a new institution, vigorous and strong, yea, one which will endure as long as men occupy the earth. The little band of Americans who initiated the modern movement would never have predicted that, within a century, "Taxation of men without representation is tyranny" would have been written into the fundamental law of all the monarchies of Europe, except Russia and Turkey, and that even there self-government should obtain in the municipalities. The most optimistic seer among them would not have prophesied that Mongolian Japan, then tightly shutting her gates against the commerce of the world, and jealously guarding her ancient customs, would before the century closed have welcomed Western civilization and established universal suffrage for its men. He would not have dreamed that every inch of the great continent of South America, th n chiefly an unexplored region over which bands of savages roved at will, would be covered by written constitutions guaranteeing self-government to men inspired by Declarations of Independence, and similar to that of this country; that the settlements in Mexico and Central America and many islands of the ocean would grow into republics, and least of all that the island; continent of Australia, with its associates of New Zealand and Tasmania, then un plored wildernesses, would become gre