[Almost, but not quite, and it would still prevail everywhere had its obliteration depended upon the committee making this report. Think of saying in cold blood that, as the husband holds the purse-strings, the wife would not dare vote with freedom and independence!]
Your committee are of the opinion that while a few intelligent women, such as appeared before the committee in advocacy of the pending measure, would defy all obstacles in the way of their casting the ballot, yet the great mass of the intelligent, refined and judicious, with the becoming modesty of their sex, would shrink from the rude contact of the crowd and, with the exceptions mentioned, leave the ignorant and vile the exclusive right to speak for the gentler sex in public affairs.
[This opinion has been wholly disproved by the experience of States where women do vote. The "intelligent and judicious" have learned that there is more "rude contact' in going to the market, the theater, the train and the ferry-boat, than in a quiet booth where no man is permitted to come within a hundred feet. But women are not so "modest and refined" as to shrink from "rude contact" even, if it would give them the opportunity to control the conditions which surround and influence their husbands, their children, their homes and their community. ]
[Of course, according to this logic, after the States settle the question and put the seal of affirmation on it, then the general Government will take a hand!]
This House Report (No. 1330) was not drastic enough to suit the Hon. Luke P. Poland (Vt.), so he made his own, in which he said:
