Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/527

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HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF IQl6 493 government by just so much does she fall short of complete develop- ment as a human being and retard the progress of the race. We are the children of our mothers as well as of our fathers and we inherit the defects as well as the perfections of both. Many a man goes down in his business is a "failure in life," as the phrase goes because he is the son of an undeveloped mother and, like her, is lacking in independence, in initiative, in ability to seize upon golden opportunities. Yet she was trained to passivity, to submission, to the obliteration of whatever personality she may have possessed. What more could we expect of her son? Imagine for a moment the effect upon men had they from infancy been subjected to the narrowing, ossifying processes applied to women for centuries ! Happily for the race, however, the great majority of women are waking from the sleep of centuries, are eagerly stretching out their hands for the key that is to open wide the door of larger oppor- tunity. Happily, too, the forward-looking men of today are seeing the vision of womanhood released from the old-world thraldom. In rapidly increasing numbers they are welcoming the new woman, in whom they find not only the wife and mother more fully equipped for her task but a comrade of congenial tastes, keenly interested in the outside world and capable of taking her place beside the husband, whether in peace or war, wherever her country calls. . . . The suffrage movement is a world-wide protest against the mental subjection of woman. Therein lies its vital importance. It strikes into the core of life. It is a basic, fundamental reform, for it is releasing for the service of the State the unused natural resources dormant in womanhood; it is transforming the dependent woman voman enfranchised that she may the more perfectly fulfill her destiny as the mother of the race. The morning and afternoon sessions were crowded with re- ports, conferences and business of various kinds in which the delegates were keenly interested. Mrs. Grace Thompson Seton, chairman of the Art Publicity Committee, gave an interesting account of its work, told of the prizes that had been offered for posters and slogans and the cooperation of men and women promi- in the literary, artistic and social world; of the "teas" given at the national headquarters, bringing many who had never visited i before; of the beautiful banners and costumes designed for ^uffrage parades and other features of this somewhat neg- <1 side of the work for woman The chairman of ature Committee, Mrs. Arthur L. Livermore, subm a comprehensive report of t! ; of that department, ng and 1 the endeavor to ascertain and meet tl. I Suffrage Study Outline, a Blue