right been conceded at the start, the others would have speedily followed; and the leaders among women, instead of spending the last half-century in a constant struggle to obtain their civil and political rights, might have contributed their splendid services to the general upbuilding and strengthening of the government. The effort for this most important of rights has had to contend not only, like the rest, with the obstinate prejudices and customs of the ages, but also with the still more stubborn condition of its hard and fast intrenchment in constitutional law. It is not merely a board of trustees or a body of legislators who must be converted to the justice of extending this right to women, but also the great masses of men, including the ignorant, the foreign-born, the small-minded and the vicious. A majority of the men in every state must give their consent at the ballot box for women to come into possession of this paramount right. Such has not been the case with any other step in the progress of women.

It is not necessary to consider the minor reasons why the enfranchisement of women has been so long deferred; but, in spite of the almost insuperable obstacles, there has been considerable progress in this direction. In some states, the legislatures themselves can confer a fragmentary suffrage without the ratification of the voters. This has been done in about half of them, Kansas granting the municipal franchise, Louisiana, Montana, and New York, a taxpayers' franchise, and twenty-two states a vote on matters connected with the public schools. Within the last twelve years, four states have conferred the full suffrage on womenWyoming and Utah by placing it in the constitutions under which they entered statehood; Colorado and Idaho through a submission of the question to the voters. There is a strong basis for believing that within a few years several other states will take similar action.

The effect upon women themselves of these enlarged opportunities in every direction has been a development which is almost a regeneration. The capability they have shown in the realm of higher education, their achievements

in the business world, their capacity for organization, their executive power, have been a revelation. To set women back into the limited sphere of fifty years ago would be to arrest the progress of the whole race. Their evolution has been accompanied by a corresponding development in the moral nature of man, his ideas of temperance and chastity, his sense of justice, his relations to society. In no department of the world's activities are the higher qualities so painfully lacking as in politics, and this is the only one from which women are wholly excluded. Is it not perfectly logical to assume that their influence would be as beneficial here as it has been everywhere else? Does not logic also justify the opinion that, as they have been admitted into every other channel, the political gateways must inevitably be opened?

Review of Reviews. 44: 725-9. December, 1911.

World Movement for Woman Suffrage. Ida H. Harper.

In 1888, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the leaders of this movement in the United States, where it began, attempted to coöperate with other countries, they found that in only one—Great Britain—had it taken organized shape. By 1902, however, it was possible to form an International Committee, in Washington, D. C., with representatives from five countries. Two years later, in Berlin, the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was formed with accredited delegates from organizations in nine countries. This Alliance held a congress in Stockholm during the past summer with delegates from national associations in twenty-four countries where the movement for the enfranchisement of women has taken definite, organized form.

The United States

At the November election, 1910, the men of Washington, by a vote of three to one, enfranchised the women of that state. Eleven months later, in October, 1911, a majority

of the voters conferred the suffrage on the 400,000 women of California. These two elections doubtless marked the turning point in this country. In 1890 Wyoming came into the Union with suffrage for women in its constitution after they had been voting in the territory for twenty-one years. In 1893 the voters of Colorado, by a majority of 6347, gave full suffrage to women. In 1895 the men of Utah, where as a territory women had voted seventeen years, by a vote of 28,618 ayes to 2687 noes, gave them this right in its constitution for statehood. In 1896 Idaho, by a majority of 5844, fully enfranchised its women.

It was believed then that woman suffrage would soon be carried in all the western states, but at this time there began a period of complete domination of politics by the commercial interests of the country, through whose influence the power of the party "machines" became absolute. Temperance, tariff reform, control of monopolies, all moral issues were relegated to the background and woman suffrage went with the rest. To the vast wave of "insurgency" against these conditions is due its victory in Washington and California. It seems impossible that Oregon, which is to pass on the question next year, will longer withhold the ballot from women. Kansas and Wisconsin also have submitted it to the election of 1912, with a good chance of success especially in the former. As many women are already fully enfranchised in this country as would be made voters by the suffrage bill now under consideration in Great Britain, so that American women taken as a whole cannot be put into a secondary position as regards political rights. While women householders in Great Britain and Ireland have the municipal franchise, a much larger number in this country have a partial suffrage—the municipal in Kansas; a vote on questions of special taxation, bonds, etc., in Louisiana, Iowa, Montana, Michigan and in the villages and many third-class cities in New York, and school suffrage in over half of the states.

Great Britain

The situation in Great Britain is now at its most acute stage. There the question never goes to the voters but is decided by Parliament. Seven times a woman suffrage bill has passed its second reading in the House of Commons by a large majority, only to be refused a third and final reading by the Premier, who represents the ministry, technically known as the government. In 1910 the bill received a majority of 110, larger than was secured even for the budget, the government's chief measure. In 1911 the majority was 167, and again the last reading was refused. The vote was wholly nonpartisan-145 Liberals, 53 Unionists, 31 Nationalists (Irish), 26 Labor members. Ninety town and county councils, including those of Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin and those of all the large cities sent petitions to Parliament to grant the final vote. The Lord Mayor of Dublin in his robes of state appeared before the House of Commons with the same plea, but the Liberal government was unmoved.

In the passing years petitions aggregating over four million signatures have been sent in. Just before the recent election the Conservative national association presented one signed by 300,000 voters. In their processions and Hyde Park gatherings the women have made the largest political demonstrations in history. There have been more meetings held, more money raised and more workers enlisted than to obtain suffrage for the men of the entire world.

From the beginning the various associations have asked for the franchise on the same terms as granted to men, not all of whom can vote. For political reasons it seemed impossible to obtain this, and meanwhile the so-called "militant" movement was inaugurated by women outraged at the way the measure had been put aside for nearly forty years. The treatment of these women by the government forms one of the blackest pages in English history, and the situation finally became so alarming that the Parliament was obliged to take action. A Conciliation committee was formed of

sixty members from all parties who prepared a bill that would enfranchise only women householders, those who already had possessed the municipal franchise since 1869. This does not mean property owners, but includes women who may pay rent for only one room. The associations accepted it partly because it recognized the principle that sex should not disqualify, but principally because it was unquestionably all that they could get at present. This is the bill which has been denied a third reading for two years on the ground that it was not democratic enough! A careful canvass has shown that in the different parts of the United Kingdom from 80 to 90 per cent of those whom it would enfranchise are wage or salary-earning women, and not one Labor member of Parliament voted against it. Unable any longer to withstand the pressure Premier Asquith gave the pledge of the ministry that full facilities for the bill should be allowed at the next session of Parliament.

His sudden announcement on November 7, that the Government would bring in a manhood suffrage bill-one vote for every adult male but none for women-has altered the whole situation, and the struggle for the conciliation bill will probably be changed to one for recognition of women in this new measure.

Women in England have been eligible for school boards since 1870; have had the county franchise since 1888; have been eligible for parish and district councils and for various boards and commissions since 1894, and hundreds have served in the above offices. In 1907, as recommended in the address of King Edward, women were made eligible as mayors and county and city councillors, or aldermen. Three or four have been elected mayors, and women are now sitting on the councils of London, Manchester, and other cities. The municipal franchise was conferred on the women of Scotland in 1882, and of Ireland in 1898.

The Irishwomen's Franchise league demands that the proposed home rule bill shall give to the women of Ireland the same political rights as it gives to men. This demand is strongly supported by many of the Nationalist members of