If any man wondered whether his personal inquiries among the women of his acquaintance gave a sufficiently broad basis for the belief that women did not want to vote, he became convinced of the fact when he learned about the Drury bill of 1913. This bill would have given Massachusetts women a chance to vote "Yes" or "No" on woman suffrage. The proposal resulted in the amazing revelation that the suffragists were afraid to let women vote on the question. They worked against the bill because they knew that an official count would disclose how pitiably small a fraction of women were on their side. They thought that their little group, by noisy publicity, could be made to appear a considerable number. But the men, when they discovered who opposed the Drury bill, were not deceived. They saw that a small minority of women was trying to induce them to coerce the great majority. They awoke to the fact that the suffragist's demand was not that men should grant women an expressed desire, but that men, contemptuously disregarding the evident wishes of women, should force upon them a heavy responsibility. The nature of that responsibility brings us to what seems to me the second important cause for the suffrage defeat. Men--more than politically inexperienced women,--know that good government depends upon the willingness of the electorate to do its duty vigilantly and regularly. The greatest good of the greatest number of classes (including the women and children in each class) can be secured only when a large proportion of the eligible voters vote. Those voters who are led by bosses, or by selfish interests, go to the polls steadily. Their influence can be offset only when the rest of the electorate goes likewise. The results of elections in which a small proportion of the eligible voters take part, are poor laws and incompetent or corrupt government. The leading political issues--the tariff, trusts, transportation, military and police force, taxation, finance, etc.--bear directly upon the work of men in their trades and business, and under male suffrage a fairly large proportion of the vote is cast. The life-work of women removes them from contact with these political questions, and the nature of most women is not attracted by the contentious spirit in which political warfare is conducted. As long as no more than 10% of the women took an interest in the woman suffrage question itself, no man could reasonably expect them to be otherwise than indifferent to the regular subjects of political conflict. To impose political duties upon the sex against its will was simply to create conditions that encouraged corrupt and feeble government. The soundness of this principle was, furthermore, being demonstrated in woman-suffrage territory, such cities as Seattle and such states as Colorado showing that sooner or later a neglectful electorate leads to the downfall of good government.