her views on the question, and said the colored women would support whatever party would allow them their rights, be it Republican or Democratic.
Rev. Olympia Brown believed that a proper interpretation of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments did confer suffrage on women. But men don't so understand it, and as a consequence when Mahomet would not come to the mountain the mountain must go to Mahomet. She said the day was coming, and rapidly, too, when women would be given suffrage. There were very few now who did not acknowledge the justice of it. Isabella Beecher Hooker gave her idea on "A Reconstructed Police," showing how she would rule a police force if in her control. Commencing with the location of the office, she proceeded with her list of feminine and masculine officers, the chief being herself. She would have a superintendent as aid, with coördinate powers, and, besides the police force proper, which she would form of men and women in equal proportions; she would have matrons in charge of all station-houses. Her treatment of vagrants would be to wash, feed, and clothe them, make them stitch, wash and iron, take their history down for future reference, and finally turn them out as skilled laborers. The care of vagrant children would form an item in her system.
Mrs. Lawrence of Massachusetts, said the country is in danger, and like other republics, unless taken care of, will perish by its own vices. She said twelve hundred thousand men and women of this country now stand with nothing to do, because their legislators of wealth were working not for the many, but the few, drunkenness and vice being superinduced by such a state of things. She insisted that women were to blame for much of the evil of the world—for bringing into life children who grow up in vice from their inborn tendencies.
Dr. Caroline B. Winslow of Washington, referred to the speech of Mrs. Lawrence, saying she hoped God would bless her for having the courage to speak as she did. There is no greater reform than for man and woman to be true to the marital relations. Belva A. Lockwood said the only way for women to get their rights is to take them. If necessary let there be a domestic insurrection. Let young women refuse to marry, and married women refuse to sew on buttons, cook, and rock the cradle until their liege-lords acknowledge the rights they are entitled to. There were more ways than one to conquer a man; and women, like the strikers in the railroad riots, should carry their demands all along the line. She dwelt at length upon the refusal of the courts in allowing Lavinia Dundore to become a constable, and asked why she should not be appointed.
The Rev. Olympia Brown said that if they wanted wisdom and prosperity in the nation, health and happiness in the home, they must give woman the power to purify her surroundings; the right to make the outside world fit for her children to live in. Who are more interested than mothers in the sanitary condition of our schools and streets, and in the moral atmosphere of our towns and cities?
