this republic who has a brain to understand the blessings of liberty and a heart to beat in sympathy with a struggle to obtain it."[1]
Municipal Suffrage in Kansas was described by Mrs. Laura M. Johns. Woman Suffrage in Colorado was presented by Mrs. Bradford. Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch told of Woman Suffrage in England, closing as follows:
Gentlemen of the committee, I would like to draw your attention to one thing, which is true in America as well as in England—that nothing has been given to women gratuitously. They have had at each step to prove their ability before you gave them anything else. In 1870 England passed the Education Act, which gave women the right to sit on the school boards and to vote for them. It was the first time they had had elective school boards in England; before that all the education had been controlled by church organizations, who had appointed boards of managers. Women had been appointed to those boards and so admirable had been their work that when the law was passed in 1870 many women stood for election and were elected, and in three cases they came in at the head of the polls. Five years after that a verdict was passed upon the work of those women as school officials, for in 1875, women were allowed to go on the poor-law boards. In 1894 the law was further modified so that it contemplated the possibility of a larger circle of poor-law guardians. Before that there had been a high qualification—occupation of a house of a certain rental, etc., but now that was all pushed aside. What was the result? Nearly 1,000 women are now sitting on the poor-law boards of England; 94 on the great board of London itself.
These local boards deal with the great asylums, with the great pauper schools, with the immense poorhouses and, more than that, they deal with one of the largest funds in England, the outdoor and indoor relief. What has been the verdict upon the work of those: women on the poor-law board? In 1896 there was the question, when this law was extended to Ireland, whether women should be put on those boards. The vote in Parliament was 272 in favor of the women and only 8 against. Eight men only, so unwise, so foolish, left in the great English Parliament, who said it was not for women to deal with those immense bodies of pauper children, not for women to deal with this outdoor relief fund, not for women to deal with the unfortunate mothers of illegitimate children.....
Women in England, qualified women, have every local vote, every- ↑ For account of the work of the association before Congress see Chap. I.
