Further, this code ought to be in accordance with the political form of life in our country. We cannot afford to imitate any other people, any other nation. The women of this continent, and especially of the United States, enjoy a place in social life such as no women of any nation ever held before, or hold now. They can have all the power they want if they will simply take it, and if they will make themselves equal to all the responsibilities such a power involves. Especially do I wish to speak of a danger to be avoided. We need to create and to foster among women a realizing sense that we _are all alike_ and that the _worst_ women belong to _us_ as much as do the best. We cannot feel proud of the virtues and talents of one woman without feeling an equal degree of shame at the vices and the degradation of another. There is no _third sex_; and we must see to it that this feeling--I cannot call it an opinion--that there exists a class of _animal women_, shall never take root in this country. In order to effect this, we must create a code of morals in accordance with our free institutions. Never should we look across the ocean for a guiding rod. Nowhere has woman been so poetized and so idealized, nowhere have music and the plastic arts so celebrated her as on the continent of Europe--yet everywhere there woman can be bought! She is legalized merchandise, and is inspected as such for the purpose of purchase, _which is prostitution_. Among the nobility and the aristocracy the men hold it below their dignity and honor to be traders or even merchants because they consider that all commercial enterprise tends to make men mercenary, so lowering their character. Yet these same men do not hesitate to purchase women; while the aristocratic and noble lady thinks it right and just that there should be a special class of women for this purpose. This is no exaggerated statement; it is a fact that women of education and of high standing speak of a certain class of women as if there were a third sex--a creature resembling woman in all outward appearance but sterile in propagation, sterile in morals, and sterile in intellectual capacity, a slave to men, and a creature of contempt in the eyes of women. The word by which these women are designated when spoken of is “creature.” In Europe, in common conversation and in everyday literature, this word “creature” has become a legitimatized designation for prostitutes. It is therefore deplorable to hear women in their superior position as employers speak thoughtlessly of honest, virtuous women--their nurses, seamstresses, servants and the like--as “these creatures.” I say, therefore, that one of the laws of our moral code should be, “Respect the _woman_ in every woman.” This respect for all womankind leads us to consider next the moral relations to children. The highest ideal code cannot be too high here, and example should take precedence of teaching.