verbatim, although their meaning is not changed in the least. I had no assistance in gathering certain statistics and other data, except from that most invaluable little compendium of knowledge "The New York World Almanac," which I always carry with me. With the exception of a few things which I have since inserted, I publish this speech practically in the impromptu and necessarily imperfect style in which it was spoken, fearing that if I polished, altered or changed it materially, it might lose the very something which was so convincing to that little gathering of ladies. At the same time I realize how much better it sounded than it reads, and that the most forcible part of every speech is lost to the readers thereof.

I should like to save the women of Germany who are deluded by the impractical promises of Socialism; of Russia, who are imperilled by the illusive promises of Nihilism or Anarchy; of Spain, Italy and Ireland, who are ensnared by the promises of Republicanism; and of South Africa, who resist the superior fate that awaits them as subjects of an Empire.

As "by their fruits ye shall know them" I urge the woman who believes in Anarchy to go to South America before trying to make converts to her beliefs. There she will see Anarchy as a daily experiment and in actual practice. If in three months she is not willing to live in any monarchy, and if she does not denounce the Monroe Doctrine for nurturing these vipers, I am the most mistaken person on earth. She will there find woman's position the lowest amongst any civilized people of the entire earth.

And, as "by their fruits ye shall know them," I urge the woman who believes in either democracy or socialism to visit the Republic of the United States of North America, popularly called the "American Republic" (the country I live in) before trying to make converts to her beliefs. Let her first study its history and go back prior to its foundation. She will find that practically all the conditions of democracy, and socialism were inherent in its institutions. She will learn that the Republic bade fair to found an ideal society, and that no such opportunity will ever be given humanity

again to establish an Utopia; that the Republic began upon a virgin soil, upon a new continent; that it was unhampered by traditions; that there was no accumulated wealth; that the land was practically free to all; that there was absolute political, legal, commercial, educational, and business equality for all men therein; and that its constitution was the most grandiloquent instrument ever written expressive of fraternity, equality, liberty, and justice. She will learn the founders of the Republic believed that wisdom would sit in the Legislatures, justice in the Courts, and that all men would be controlled by liberty and love, by charity and justice; that they believed as every man would have the right to govern himself, as every man would be equal before the law, pauperism, crime, want, would disappear, and no man or class of men could ever arise therein to subjugate the masses. She will learn that the founders genuinely believed that the Declaration of Independence "would lead to serene heights where dwell justice and happiness, and where all that is fine in the soul of man would speedily grow and unfold

thereunder into Divine loveliness." She would read a summary of the characters or characteristics of the people who settled America, and who were the real basis and origin of the Institutions. Julian Hawthorn writes: "The pilgrims came to America in obedience to a spiritual impulse, and against all consideration of a material sort. They faced one another, man to man, and none desired any advantage over the rest. They had the instinct of order, but no craving for dominion. Whether religion, politics or industry were uppermost in their thoughts, their interests and aims were common. The soul was strong and mighty in those men, and to such a community the principle of each for all and all for each was a matter of course. They governed themselves, that is, they obeyed individually and collectively the dictates of justice, reason, and decency; and they chose administrators to carry out jobs given them in the common behoof. America was a socialistic community or an inevitable democracy."

Yet she who investigates will find that this government (existing in a land thinly popu

lated and of inexhaustible natural wealth) which a brief century ago was planned with all human prescience to be the home of the Free, where Liberty was to be supreme, where Justice was to be the only monarch, where Character was to be the only nobility, is to-day not only the most despotic and corrupt government in Christendom, but the one run in the interest of the fewest number of the people; that 62 per cent. of its wealth is owned by 1 per cent. of its population; that (in this nation of 80,000,000 people) less than 100 men control 51 per cent. of its wealth (the combined pirates of history were not equal to one of these); that the masses have placed over themselves as absolute and perpetual rulers (so long as the Republic endures) a handful of the most unscrupulous, arrogant, grasping, heartless brigands the world has ever known; that the masses have gained nothing in liberty, wealth, or independence, through a universal ballot; and that the advantages which they seem to have gained therefrom resulted entirely from the sparse population, salubrious climate, and inexhaustible natural resources of the coun