Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/1149

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NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS OF WOMEN.
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for now they are beginning to be composed of college graduates, of property owners, of women with business experience. More and more they are directing their attention to public questions, and when brains, wealth, executive ability, enthusiasm and a strong desire for an honest and moral government are thoroughly organized in the effort to obtain it, they must necessarily become a powerful factor in State and national affairs, and one which inevitably will refuse to be held in a disfranchised condition after it shall realize the supreme power which inheres in the suffrage. There is still another and a more important point of view from which this subject should be studied. Here are more than 4,000,000 women, about one-third of all in the country, banded into active, working organizations. The figures given above show that they are raising and expending millions of dollars and every dollar for some worthy object. The list demonstrates beyond question that every one of these great associations exists for the purpose of improving the conditions of society and helping and bettering humanity. They represent the highest form of effort for education, morality, temperance, religion, justice, patriotism and co-operation. Are not these the very qualities most needed in our electorate? Is not the nation suffering because of the lack of them since it has placed the ballot in the hands of ignorance, immorality, intemperance and lawlessness? Does not an emergency exist for a political influence which shall counterbalance these and tip the scale the other way? Can the Government afford much longer to delay the summons for this great, well-organized, finely-equipped force—if it is to perfect and make permanent the institutions of the republic?