“ The movement for the enfranchisement of women is based upon the unchanging and unchangeable principles of human liberty, in accordance with which successive classes of men have won the right of self-government. On such a foundation ultimate victory is assured and in truth is conceded even by those who oppose. The day is ever drawing nearer when the nation will apply to women the principles which are the very foundation existence; when on every election day there will be re-affirmed the immortal truths of our Declaration of American Independence. ”

“ The extension of the right of suffrage would remove a handicap from the efforts of women and give them an opportunity to work for the welfare of the State. We do not claim that woman's voice in the government would at once sound the death knell to all social and political evils but we do believe that a government representing the interests and beliefs of women and men would prove itself, and is proving itself where it now exists, to be a better government than one which represents the interests and beliefs of men alone. ”

“ An amiable old gentleman in opening a suffrage debate said: 'My wife rules me and if a woman can rule a man, why should she care to rule the country?' He seemed to think he was equal to the whole United States! Women have been taught that the home was their sphere and men have claimed everything else for themselves. The fact that women in the home have shut themselves away from the thought and life of the world has done much to retard progress. ”

“ These principles are not new to the American people. There are many differences of opinion, but, after all the argument for and against, it hardly seems possible that any one who is entitled to the privilege which you request can afford to deny that privilege to his mother. There is no question but that the women of our land bear today as great, if not greater, burdens in the affairs of a good and honorable government than our men. The raising of the children, their education and protection from the vices of the world, are cares that mothers have which no man's responsibility equals.... ”

“ You are today among a citizenship on this coast that is very fair, broad-minded and ready to assist your cause whenever convinced that it will be an advantage and a betterment to our present government. If it is fairly placed before the voters of this commonwealth with a reasonable argument in its favor, there is no doubt in my mind of its success. We are the only State that has adopted the broad principle of government which permits the citizens of the commonwealth to prepare and vote its own legislation, by its own people, without aid or consent of any other power. ”

“ One of the Portland papers commented: "If the great political organs of the United States knew how well these women have the tricks of the trade at their fingers' ends they would employ special detectives to watch for suffrage literature in disguise." Mr. Lathrop, editor of the Portland Journal, said: "A newspaper man in his official capacity is not an educator but a seller of news. One who would treat a suffrage convention as a negligible quantity would lose his job. The question is not how you can get matter about women into the papers but how you can keep it out." ”

“ We are told that to assume that women will help purify political life and develop a more ideal government but proves us to be dreamers of dreams. Yes, we are in a goodly company of dreamers, of Confucius, of Buddha, of Jesus, of the English Commons fighting for the Magna Charta, of the Pilgrims, of the American Revolutionists, of the Anti-slavery men and women. The seers and leaders of all times have been dreamers. Every step of progress the world has made is the crystallization of a dream into reality. ”

“ A government of men and women not by women alone, not by men alone, but a government of men and women by men and women for men and women this is the aim and ideal of our association. One hundred years ago Oregon was an untrodden wilderness. The transformation of that primeval territory into prosperous communities enjoying the highest degree of civilization could not have been accomplished without the work of women. No restriction should be placed upon energies and abilities so potent for good. ”

“ The exclusion of women from participation in governmental affairs means the going to waste of a vast force, which, if utilized, would be a great power in the advance of civilization.... But there depends on the success of the equal suffrage movement something more valuable even than national prosperity and that is the preservation of human liberty. Now, as in 1860, 'the nation cannot remain half slave and half free,' and either women must be made free or men will lose the liberty which they enjoy. ”

“ The time of universal scorn for woman suffrage has passed and today we have strong and courageous champions among that sex the members of which fifty years ago regarded our proposals as part of an iconoclasm which threatened the very foundation of the social fabric.... Elizabeth Cady Stanton and I made our first fight for recognition of the right of women to speak in public and have organizations among themselves. You who are younger cannot realize the intensity of the opposition we encountered. ”

“ The large audience rose to its feet and cheered the pioneer who has done so much for the cause of equal suffrage and who is still the life of a great work. At the close of the session men and women rushed forward, eager to clasp her hand and pay homage to her. 'There are many famous delegates present at this convention, women whose names are known in every civilized nation on the globe, but none shines with the luster which surrounds Miss Anthony. ”

“ Ex-President Cleveland, after warning women against the clubs which are leading them straight to the abyss of suffrage, told us that 'the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.' ... ”

“ The Monday evening session was opened by Willis Duniway, who gave a glowing appreciation of the work of the National American Suffrage Association and said in the course of a strong speech that he wanted to see woman suffrage because it was right and because he wanted the brave pioneer women who had worked for it so long to get it before they passed away. "I want my mother to vote," he declared amid applause. [6] "The basis of safe and sane government is justice, which has its roots in constitutional liberty and means equal rights and opportunities.... ”

“ We need a standard of character and conscience and women can bring it into the schools much better than men can. The woman, because she is a woman, is less easily corrupted than the man who has forgotten that he had a mother. If we must disfranchise somebody, it would better be many of the men than the women."
At one meeting Judge Roger S. Greene, who was Chief Justice of the Territory of Washington when the majority of the Supreme Court gave a decision which took away the suffrage from women and who loyally tried to preserve it for them, was invited to the platform and received an ovation. ”

“ It is the "men must fight and women must weep" theory of life which makes men fear that the larger service of women will impair the high ideal of home. The newer ideal that men must cease fighting and thus remove one prolific cause for women's weeping, and that they shall together build up a more perfect home and a more ideal government, is infinitely more sane and desirable. ”

“ Never was there a time when heroic service was more needed—not the spectacular heroism marching with flying banners and weapons of destruction but the quiet, earnest heroism of men and women standing steadfastly by that which seems right and rigidly adhering in daily intercourse to that sterling honesty of purpose which ennobles character and develops the best in a nation's life. ”

“ Not color or creed or sex but patriotic honesty must be the test of citizenship if the republic lives."
Mrs. Stewart took up the objections made by many of the clergy to woman suffrage and applied these to the ministers themselves. '"They should not vote," she said with fine sarcasm, "because like women they are exempt from jury duty. They seldom go to war—some of them are too old, others too delicate, some too near-sighted, some too far-sighted. Ministers as a rule are not heavy tax-payers. Many of them do not want to vote and do not use the vote they have. A preacher has not time to vote. ”

“ It has been invoked chiefly against 'trusts.' We invoke the doctrine of a square deal against the greatest 'trust' in the world—the political trust— which is the most absolute monopoly because entrenched in law itself and because it is a monopoly of the greatest thing in the world, of liberty itself. ”

“ Harper gave an address under the subject Facing the Situation, showing the satire of the disfranchisement of one-half the citizens in a Government boasting of being founded on individual representation. In closing she said: "Eastward the star of woman's empire takes its way. She does not look for the star in the East but for the star in the West. Her sun of political freedom rose not in the East but in the West. It is to the strong, courageous and progressive men of the western States that the women of this whole country are looking for deliverance from the bondage of disfranchisement. ”

“ The recent attacks of Cardinal Gibbons and former President Cleveland, who had protested against women taking part in the Government lest it interfere with the home, she answered with keen analysis, saying in part:
The great fear that the participation of women in public affairs will impair the quality and character of home service is irrational and contrary to the tests of experience. Does an intelligent interest in the education of a child render a woman less a mother? ”

“ Does the housekeeping instinct of woman, manifested in a desire for clean streets, pure water and unadulterated food, destroy her efficiency as a home-maker? Does a desire for an environment of moral and civic purity show neglect of the highest good of the family? ”

“ Man has few to his credit because he could not measure them by the only standard he had mastered, that of the dollar. Witness the movement for female education led by Mary Lyon, the birth of the Red Cross in the work of Florence Nightingale, the institution of modern prison methods under the inspiration of Elizabeth Fry and the campaigns for temperance and social purity under the leadership of Frances Willard. The electorate needs the inspiring influence of women at the ballot box and the full mission of this republic to the world will never be met until she is admitted there. ”

“ A purely masculine government does not fully represent the people, the feminine qualities are lacking. It is a maxim among political thinkers that 'every class that votes makes itself felt in the government.' Women as a class differ more widely from men than any one class of men differs from another. To give the ballot to merchants and lawyers and deny it to farmers would be class legislation, which is always unwise and unjust, but there is no class legislation so complete as an aristocracy of sex. Men have qualities in which they are superior to women ”

“ All over the world, wherever there is a band of revolutionists or of evolutionists, today they celebrate our Fourth. The idea existed in the world before but it was never expressed in clear, succinct, intelligible language until the American republic came into being Taxation without representation is tyranny, it always was tyranny, it always will be tyranny, and it makes no difference whether it be the taxation of black or white, rich or poor, high or low, man or woman.... The United States has lost its place as the leading exponent of democracy. ”

“ It means that in this body are women from four States of our Union already crowned with full citizenship; that delegates from more than two-score States have crossed the borderland of freedom, and that representatives from nearly every State and Territory are banded together in an unfaltering purpose to become politically free. It also means that more has been accomplished for the betterment of the condition of women, for their physical, economic, intellectual and religious emancipation, by these fifty-seven years of evolutionary progress, than by all the revolutions the world has known ”

“ A valuable report on Industrial Problems Relating to Women and Children was made by Mrs. Kelley, chairman of the committee, which she began by saying that during 1905 eleven States had improved their Child Labor Laws or adopted new ones and in every State suffragists had helped secure these laws. She said that wherever woman suffrage was voted on its weakness proved to be among the wage-earners of the cities and she urged that the association submit to the labor organizations its bill in behalf of wage-earning women and children with a view to close cooperation. ”

“ Some of us are like the foothills, just raised a little above the women who have all the rights they want; then come those on a higher level of public spirit and service, who are like the mountains; and then the pioneers rising above all like the snow covered peaks." Taking the ground that "the perpetuity of republican institutions depends on the speedy extension of the suffrage to women,' Mr. Blackwell said in his sound, logical address: "How can we reach the common sense of the plain people, without whose approval success is impossible?.... ”

“ This snowy-haired, white-bearded patriarch embodies in his voice, his presence, his interest in every passing event, in his appreciation of every beauty of earth and sky, in the shifting panorama of nature, the loyal spirit of freedom, the true spirit of manhood that has dominated his passing years. ”

“ Dr, Smith declared that he had been for woman suffrage twenty-five years and that "the United States was guilty of a national sin in not giving women equal rights." Thomas Burns, State Secretary of the Socialist party, asserted that it was the only one which had a plank for woman suffrage in its platform and the Socialists had fought for it all over the world. "Men have made a failure of government," he said, "now let the women try it." O. M. Jamison, of the Citizens' movement, said: "We have found women the strongest factor in our work for reform and I think 99 per cent. ”