on crutches, others were carried in chairs, the very old were assisted by the young, but all seem to have voted.

When the women were enfranchised they decided that rather than form new parties they would join the old ones which best represented their convictions, but that they would not submit blindly to dictation merely to serve political interests. For many years Finland has been in the throes of a bitter struggle and the most violent party animosities have been aroused. It is inevitable that women must share these to some degree and it is also evident that women could not wholly eradicate them if they wished. Doubtless here, as elsewhere, political evils which are unavoidable and which exist everywhere will be ascribed to woman suffrage by its enemies, but the leaders of the movement in Finland and those of the various organizations are earnest and sincere in desiring to make political and social conditions better through the participation of women. The program of those who are members of parliament has not been definitely announced, but it is said they are unanimous in the determination to abolish state regulation of vice. They will revise the marriage laws, raise the age of consent and provide better care for illegitimate children. On these and other measures for the protection of women and children, and which will tend directly toward the improvement of society, it is claimed that they will act in unison without any regard for party lines.

World's Work. 17: 11419-20. April, 1909..

What Woman Suffrage Does.

In the campaign for woman suffrage in the Eastern States, little is said about the experience of those Western States where women have long voted; and the reports of visitors are conflicting. An anti-suffrage visitor to Colorado will report that the voting of the women has done no good; and a suffragist will report that it has met all reasonable expectations, and, on occasion, brought good results that could not otherwise have been dreamed of. In fact, this experience is hard to report fairly because there have not been decisive or spectacular results.

But the conclusions of a man like Judge Lindsey, of the

Denver Juvenile Court, are especially valuable; for he is not only a shrewd student of such a subject, but he has known it from the inside for the fourteen years since it has been in effect. These conclusions are:

Respectable women do go to the polls. Forty-two per cent. of the state is female, and an average of 40 per cent. of the total vote is cast by women. The low classes of women, therefore, do not exert a disproportionate influence by the ballot.

Women who have husbands or fathers, as a rule, vote as their husbands and fathers vote, but this is not a useless duplication of votes any more than the votes of men of the same family which, as a rule, are cast for the same candidates. And 25 per cent. of the women earn their own living.

The votes of women have not taken politics out of the control of the corporations nor of the bosses. It must be remembered, however, that there has been no chance directly to vote on this question. But fear of the women has prevented the nomination of men of bad morals and the women have defeated such men, even when nominated on regular tickets.

The net result, therefore, has not been very impressive. Yet the ballot for women is not regarded as an experiment. There is no thought of restricting the suffrage to males. Nobody proposes such a thing or would dare propose it. Woman suffrage is universally taken for granted and considered right; and the people of Colorado believe that the other states ought to adopt it. Besides Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming have woman suffrage, and in these states there is no thought of ever going back to manhood suffrage. In Washington, the Governor has just signed a bill which provides for an election in No. vember, 1910, which will decide whether women shall be allowed to vote in that state or not. In Australia and in New Zealand women vote, and the Parliament of Finland has women as members. Although in England and in our Eastern States, the campaign may not be successful at an early date, sooner or later it is likely to win.

Judge Lindsey, it will be recalled, was re-elected last year as Judge of the Juvenile Court of Denver, as an independent candidate, and he received more votes than both the Democratic and Republican nominees, and it was the votes of women that

elected him. On other occasions, it has been shown that the women do exert a definite good influence when questions touching the home, children, and personal morals take such form as to permit a clear-cut expression of opinion by the ballot. This is the one definite gain to be put to the credit of women as

voters.

The question of the adoption of woman suffrage in the Eastern States is a social question; and the difficulty to be overcome is the purely social prejudice against it. The majority of women do not yet care for it-in fact, probably prefer not to have it; but their objection is not based on political reasons nor on the experience of other communities, so much as on the social habits of a fixed order of society to which the thought of practical affairs is more or less repulsive. A society that has, or thinks that it has, a fixed status is an exceedingly conservative thing.

But woman suffrage does not go backward. It holds the ground that it gains, and in time it will spread-as fast and as far as the mass of women demand it. The granting of it in Sweden shows that it is a movement, too, that is not confined to English-speaking countries.

AFFIRMATIVE DISCUSSION

Arena. 10: 201-13. July, 1894.

Last Protest Against Woman's Enfranchisement.

James L. Hughes.

One reads Professor Goldwin Smith's essay on "Woman suffrage" with a feeling of regret that a man who signed John Stuart Mill's first petition in favor of the enfranchisement of married women should have written such a paper. Liberal men and women must regard his generous appeal for woman's greater freedom as more in harmony with the best thought of the present age than the writing of his essay. Every one will recognize the moral courage of the man who writes to correct what he conceives to be the errors promulgated in his youth, but many will doubtless see in his attitude of both earlier and later years, the same tendency to oppose the trend of popular thought. There is nothing unnatural in a conflict between the opinions of the same individual in youth and age, when maturer thought and broader vision overcome early prejudices and imperfect knowledge, but regret must always be felt when advancing years transform a champion of liberty into an opponent of reforms for which he once labored.

Professor Smith's reason for changing his attitude is "that the women of his acquaintance for whom he had most respect, and who seemed to be the best representatives of their sex, were opposed to the change." This is not a very logical argument. Professor Smith is too liberal a man to refuse the franchise to all women because some women do not recognize the duty of voting. Duty is the broad ground on which the question rests. Thousands of true, pure, home-loving women sincerely believe it to be their duty to vote, in order to help decide great social and national questions that affect the well-being of their country and their homes. They surely have as well defined