"Daddy," she said after she had rested her cheek against mine for a while. "I’ll tell you a secret. Ssh! Don’t you ever breathe it! Do you know whom we suffragists have to fight? It’s women! If it was only you men, we’d have won long ago. It isn’t the men who enslave us. It’s tradition and habit. Long training had made us selfish—divided—weak. "Just take the worst case. It’s mother’s story all over again—all the time. She tried to get away. Half a dozen men, instinctively, acted together, for their common interest—and were strong. They didn’t reason it out. Blackie did not have to say to them, you help me beat my girl, and I’ll help you beat yours and so we’ll keep them all scared. It’s a long inherited tradition with men to act together like that, second nature—almost an instinct. But when a cadet beats a girl, do the other girls rush together like that and fight for their common interest? No. Each one for herself sneaks off and tries to placate her man. It’s just the same with ’respectable’ people. If a woman tries to be free, the men are all against her with their legislatures and courts and all that. Do the other women stand together to help her? Oh, no. They cut her. Just like the prostitutes, they try to ingratiate themselves with their husbands by spitting at the one who tried to be free. "If we women were only civilized enough really to co-operate, to stick together, shoulder to shoulder—oh, we’d put you men in your place quick enough. Individualism, trying to stand alone, is the worst enemy women can have to-day. We’ve got to learn how to use our united strength. "And we are learning—too. Remember that big shirtwaist strike? It was wonderful the way the girls stuck together. I don’t believe that any time before in the history of this old world women have stood by each other like that—with such loyalty. A lot of your stupid men-papers, had editorials wondering why up-town society women took so much interest in the strike. Why, even the rich suffragists have sense enough to know that solidarity is ten times more important than the vote. If you men only give us a long, hard fight for it, make us throw stones and slap policemen and go to jail and all that, we’ll learn this lesson of standing together and then we’ll know how to use the franchise when we get it. Oh! The time is coming, Daddy. Watch out." "I’m not frightened." I said, "If I was as near to thirty as I am to fifty, I guess I would be an enthusiastic suffragetter. Anything you wanted would look good to me. Do you think I would have had any chance if I had encountered you when I was young enough to be your lover?"