clothes with you, you would see which was the weaker sex physically. You would all drop dead in less than six months; you could not endure it. We cannot grow. Think of being cramped up in all of one's physical nature, growth, and development. We are told that the young women who are in the gymnasiums of our schools to-day and have been for four years, are an inch and a half taller than are their mothers; that they are an inch and a half larger around the waist than were the young women of ten years ago. This is going on until the time shall come when every girl shall be born with the divine right to grow as large physically in all her organism as God meant that woman should be. Until that time comes we shall never know whether women are the weaker or stronger sex.

Then, I claim also that we women have a right to develop mentally. We shall never know what God meant woman's brain to do, how large and broad and lofty he intended the development of her mind to be, until she shall be free to develop the brain which has been given to her. We cannot know what woman can do until she has had a generation of growth. We cannot tell what she is capable of intellectually until she has had this generation of free growth. You will never know the sublime height to which the soul of womanhood may rise until theological dogmas and theological restrictions shall be removed from the soul of woman, and woman be free to sit before the presence of God, at the feet of Christ, and learn of Him and Him only. We cannot tell what God had in His mind when He created woman until woman has been free a few centuries to get back into the sublime height where the divine image shall be reflected in all of her nature. Then give us the daughters of such mothers, of the sons of such mothers, and we will show you what God meant woman to be. The physician tells us we are weak; that we are frivolous. We are. They tell us we are not able to grasp and comprehend the problems of the race. We are not. Is it necessary that I should state this? We are weak, nobody denies that. We are ignorant, many of us; and are not able to grasp the great problems of state. Just see how you men have been wrestling with

now.

the tariff question and what a tussle you are going to have for the next four months about it, and when these four months are past, you will be right in the midst of the same tussle you are in You cannot grasp these great questions in a day, or in a century. But you are grasping them better to-day than any nation ever did before. Why? Simply because the manhood of this country has been free to grasp those questions, free to discuss and comprehend them and decide them. You will never know woman's ability on these questions until she has had free opportunity to comprehend, discuss, and decide them. She can never be thus free until the restrictions of to-day are taken from her.

It is said that it interferes with woman as a woman. I believe that no law which binds me and prevents me from growth and development is in accordance with the divine will, or in accordance with nature; and whatever makes me a dwarf in mind, in my life, and in the development of my being, is foreign to the will of God, foreign to my nature, and therefore, the law which says I cannot develop myself because I am a woman, is utterly contrary to the will of God, and contrary to the highest interest of womanhood.

Interference with the home. I will not admit for a moment that any man or woman has a higher opinion of the home than have I. I will not for a moment admit that there is or ought to be anywhere on earth-anywhere this side of the kingdom of God, a holier place than a home. To my mind, a real home is where love runs and rules, where a man and a woman having found each other out of all the world, have together builded a home, where by the fireside they may sit with their children— the gift of God, and the divine love of man and woman. No one reveres the home more than I do. Nor will I permit any one to say that we women who believe in the enfranchisement of women believe in the destruction of the home, and do not recognize its high interests, needing wifehood and motherhood. We believe it more than any other class of beings in the world. We recognize its need more than any other one class. We believe there is nothing that ought to come between a mother and

her duties owed to her home and her children. That should be always first with the mother. I believe there is nothing in this world that should be allowed to come between a father and his duties to his children and his home. Every woman must have a home before she can do anything there. A house is not a home. A woman may be a very excellent housekeeper but a very poor home maker. She may be a very estimable home maker but a very poor housekeeper. The terms home and house are not by any means synonymous. It may be possible that in order to make a home a woman must leave her house a great deal. It may be quite possible that a woman may do as much outside of the house for her home as she does inside for her home.

I believe in the ballot for women if for nothing but the protection of the home itself. If any one ought to have the right to vote it surely is the mothers of our country. I believe that power and responsibility go together. Woman has the responsibility of rearing her children. Why take from her the power by which she may rear her children?

of a mother's Believe in the silent

In order to bring up her children as they ought to be, she must have some way of controlling them after they get out on the street, and the only way for her to do this is to have some control over the street, and the only way she can do this is through the ballot. The men have not done it. What good are her prayers? Do you tell me of the power prayer? I believe in a mother's prayer. influence of the mother. I believe in the hand that rocks the cradle. But I would have a great deal more faith in the full cure of the immoral conditions of this country, if while the mother prayed that her boy be saved, the legalized liquor traffic might be overthrown and gambling dens and dens of vice might be destroyed; if while she prayed she held in her hand the ballot, which Henry Ward Beecher says is the symbol of all civil rights, and therefore of all human rights. When woman has her full rights then the voice of the people shall be the voice of God and a republic shall be born.

ANNA SHAW.

“THE

ORGANIZATION OF FARMERS.

BY A. P. YOUNG.

HE Farmer 's the Chief of the Nation," is the first line of a popular ballad. If the song writer meant that the farmer is the chief taxpayer, the line is right. Farmers and real estate holders can all testify to that fact, for the truth of it is impressed upon us very frequently, and every tax duplicate that comes along bears witness upon its pages to inequality and unfairness in the distribution of taxation and that the bulk of it rests upon the farmer and the real estate holder. If he meant that the farmer is chief because there is more of him than of those engaged in any other calling, the line is true, the census tables showing that the agriculturists constitute about half the population of our states, or, in other words, this class of our population about equals all the rest combined. If he meant that the farmer is chief by reason of the large place he fills. in producing those things which add wealth, prosperity, and happiness to our country, he was certainly right, for from no other source comes so much that is essential to the well-being of all the people. Their comfort, their enjoyment, their very existence, depends largely upon the results of his labors. The farmer feeds the world, yea, and clothes it too. His wheat and corn, his beef and pork, his butter and eggs, cotton and wool, to say nothing of his lesser productions, fill a large measure of the needs of mankind. This being so, why is it he gets such poor pay for all his labor? Why does he work so many weeks, months, and years without gain in proportion to the effort put forth? From a survey of the industrial field it is certain that the farmer earns more money than he gets; that much of the surplus he produces over the needs of existence goes to swell the fortunes of other classes, yet he toils on in the treadmill, strain

ing every nerve to produce more and more all the time, conscious of the fact that there is less and less left to him each succeeding year.

The farm too upon which valuable improvements have been made and which will produce much more now than when he commenced his career upon it, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years ago, if put upon the market, will come far short of bringing the amount originally invested, betterments included. The farmer's methods are different from the methods of manufacturers and men engaged in other industries. He sells his productions for what other men are willing to give, and pays them for what he needs, what they are willing to take. In this state of things lie some of the disadvantages under which he labors. Just as soon as manufacturers get sufficient to supply the demand or go a little beyond it so that competition begins to tell upon the prices to the extent that no profit is left, the fires are drawn, the engines cease to puff, and they wisely wait for a demand. They will not work for nothing. No calamity occurs from stopping production until the surplus is worked off. Let the farmers work upon this method, what calamity would come to them or any other legitimate industry if the farmers were to wait unitedly until the surplus of their productions were worked off?

Self-preservation has been called the first law of nature. Does not self-preservation demand organization among farmers? Combinations have been, and more are being formed, that are detrimental to farmers' interests and destructive to legitimate business. If combination trusts of this kind cannot be regulated or destroyed, they should be met firmly by the organization of those upon whom they would prey. If they are allowed to continue, what will prevent the formation of a syndicate or combination strong enough to control absolutely everything the farmer has to sell or that he enters the market to buy? Organization is one of the necessities of the age. A large number with no leading motive, unprepared and undirected, are unable to cope with a disciplined few, but a multitude organized, drilled, and fully informed as to every point they should strive to gain, become an