tics that out of the men examined for military duty during the Civil War, of journalists 740 in every 1,000 were found unfit; of preachers, 975; of physicians, 680; of lawyers, 544. Grave divines are horrified at the thought of admitting women to vote when they cannot fight, though not one in twenty of their own number is fit for military duty, if he volunteered. Of the editors who denounce woman suffrage, only about one in four could himself carry a musket; while, of the lawyers who fill Congress, the majority could not be defenders of their.country, but could only be defended."

Of unskilled laborers, on the other hand, only a small fraction were found physically disqualified. Since unskilled laborers as a class can render military service, and professional men as a class cannot, does it follow that suffrage ought to be taken away from professional men and limited to unskilled laborers?

As for police duty, men are not drafted, but out of those who volunteer, and who come up to the prescribed conditions of strength, weight, etc., a sufficient number are hired, and they are paid out of tax money which is levied on the property of men and women alike. Women contribute to the policing of the country in just the same way that the majority of the men do-i. e., they help to pay for it.

Again, it must be remembered that it is women who furnish the soldiers. Mrs. Z. G. Wallace, of Indiana, from whom Gen. Lew Wallace drew the portrait of the mother in "Ben Hur," said: "If women do not fight, they give to the state all its soldiers." Lady Henry Somerset says, "She who bears soldiers does not need to bear arms." Lucy Stone said: "Some woman risks her life whenever a soldier is born into the world. For years she does picket duty beside his cradle. Later on she is his quartermaster, and gathers his rations. And when that boy grows to be a man, shall he say to his mother, 'If you want to vote, you must first go and kill somebody'? It is a coward's argument!" Mrs. Humphry Ward's sister tells us that every year, in England alone, 3,000 women lose their lives in childbirth. This ought, in all fairness, to be taken as an offset for the military service that women do not render.

It is said that the laws could not be enforced if women voted. Suppose most men voted one way and most women the other, would not the men refuse to abide by the result?

Women have the school ballot in about half the states of the Union. Their votes occasionally turn the scale in a school election. Do the defeated candidates and their friends refuse to abide by the result? In England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Kansas, Norway, Sweden and elsewhere women have the municipal ballot, and their votes occasionally turn the scale at a municipal election. Has there ever been an armed uprising against the result? In Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Finland, Norway, Australia and New Zealand women vote for all elective officers, including the highest. No trouble has ever resulted. The laws are as well enforced there as in adjoining states and countries, where women do not vote. What reason is there to suppose that our men are less civilized than the men of other countries or of other states?

Either the ability to fight is a necessary qualification for suffrage, or it is not. If it is, the men who lack it ought to be excluded. If it is not, the lack of it is no reason for excluding women. There is no escape from this conclusion.

The best fighters, the young men between 18 and 21, are not allowed to vote; while the wisest voters, those over 45 years of age, are not required to fight.—William I. Bowditch.

In Colorado, men in general regard the military argument against woman suffrage as too absurd for serious comment. If all the men who cannot or do not fight should be disfranchised, the polls would be as lonesome as a sea bathing resort in December.-Gen. Irving Hale of Denver.

Think of arguing with a sober face against a man who solemnly asserts that a woman should not vote because she cannot fight! In the first place, she can fight; in the second, men are largely exempt from military service; and in the

third, there is not the remotest relation between firing a musket and casting a ballot.-Ex-Secretary of the Navy Long.

Atlantic Monthly. 105: 559-70. April, 1910.

Woman's War. Mary Johnston.

There are perhaps twenty-five million women in the United States-over five million of them wage-earning. There are more wage-earning women in this country to-day than there were men, women and children in the day of the Declaration of Independence. What does it mean to say that, of the adult population of a country, one moiety furnishes to the prisons ninety-four and one-half per cent of the inmates, and the other moiety five and one-half per cent? What is the meaning of the enormous discrepancy shown by the drink statistics? The prostitutes? Yes; but to the making of one harlot there go, as a minimum, two rakehells. The silly, the common, the frivolous, the selfish, the dishonest, the unscrupulous, the adventuress? All exist and in large numbers. We hope to reduce them. But we think that even there, were statistics available, the feminine hemisphere might be found less heavily shaded than the masculine. We think that that is the opinion of the world.

It would seem that there is an inference to be drawn from two simple facts. First: the militarist, the employer of cheap and of child labor, the bribed politician, the contemner of education, the liquor interest, the brothel interest, every interest that sets its face against reform, from reform of the milk-supply to disarmament of nations, is opposed to the political liberty of women. Second: the biologist, the political economist, the statesman, the sociologist, the eugenist, the physician, the educator, the student, and the moralist, are to be found, in ever-increasing number, advocates of her enfranchisement.

Delineator. 76: 85, 142. August, 1910.

Why I Am for Suffrage for Women. William E. Borah.

Idaho extended to her women the right to vote in the early days of her statehood. We do not become at all excited over the effect of woman suffrage in our state. But we do declare it to be our deliberate judgment that her presence in politics armed with the power to enforce her demand, has been substantially and distinctively for the benefit of politics and of society. It has aided materially in the securing of better laws along particular lines; especially has it tended to cleaner politics in particular and essential matters. Our women have not always been so active in politics as they should be, but it has been observed that when a moral question is up for consideration, the majority vote of the women has been a power upon the right side.

It is sometimes argued that women will vote largely with their brothers or husbands, but I have observed that there comes a time upon certain questions when the brothers and husbands vote with the women. We should not be misled by the idea that the American woman will put aside with entire complacency her views and her convictions upon a large class of questions which are coming more and more to be dealt with in politics. And upon these questions her intuitions are far more valuable than the sometimes sordid judgment of men.

We have in economics what some are pleased to call potential competition. Translating this into a common and homely phrase or sentence, it is the fear of a scoundrel that if he robs the public too severely or too outrageously some one will administer punishment by getting in and establishing an honest business with fair prices, and likely put the unjust one out of business. The trusts, therefore, they say, hesitate to put their prices beyond a certain mark for fear of this potential competition.

This element of strength is not to be overlooked in politics in connection with this question which we are now dis

cussing. Women may not always be at the caucuses or they may not always take an active part in as many ways as men. Let us concede that for the sake of argument. There may be very few of them at the state convention, but-I am speaking from observation extending over a number of years and many political gatherings-the women are nevertheless always a powerful factor in every political gathering where platforms are written, issues made and candidates nominated.

Those who expect to win at the polls will never take the chance on the woman vote remaining away upon that occasion. They will not do something which they feel would incur the opposition of the women on the theory that they will not go to the polls anyway. They are practically as potential, indeed in some instances more so, than if they were in charge of the convention. I have seen "slates" broken out of absolute regard for or fear of the woman vote when there were not two women delegates in the convention among some two hundred.

Some politicians act upon such occasions out of a high regard for the opinion of those whose vote they are considering; others out of fear. But, whatever the cause or the reason, every man who has been in practical politics in a state where women vote knows that what I say is true. The woman vote, as a political potentiality, is a powerful factor at all times in shaping the politics of a state campaign and in determining in some measure, although not to the same extent, the qualities of the candidates. And this factor is always for the good, for whether women may make mistakes or not in the matter of actual voting, men universally accredit to them the aptitude for getting upon the right side of these great moral and quasi-moral questions which are entering more and more into state campaigns.

I read some time ago a leaflet sent out by some good and cultured women presenting a protest against woman suffrage. One of the arguments advanced was that but a small proportion of the women vote in those states where they have been given the right to vote. This, as I have observed the actual practise, is an error. I think a remarkably