Let no one doubt the power of this work, though it lack pomp and circumstance. Is Bismarck the mightiest power of this earth, who is attended by martial strains when he walks abroad, and in whose path thrones are scattered as trophies? Why, the little housewife alone in her chimney-corner, musing in her happiness with no trophy in her path save her husband’s loving heart, and no music on her ear save the chirping of the cricket beneath her hearthstone, is his superior. For, while he holds the purse-strings of Germany, she holds the heart-strings of men. She who rocks the cradle rules the world. Give me then your attention, note the conflict that is gathering about us, and take your place with seeming modesty in the ranks of those who fight for right. It is not an abstract political theory that is involved in the contest of which I speak. It is the integrity and independence of your home that is at stake. The battle is not pitched in a distant State. Your home is the battle-field, and by your hearthstones you shall fight for your household gods. With your husband’s arms so wound around you that you can feel his anxious heart beating against your cheek—with your sons, sturdy and loving, holding your old hands in theirs—here on the threshold of your house, under the trees that sheltered your babyhood, with the graves of your dead in that plain enclosure yonder—here men and women, heart to heart, with not a man dismayed, not a woman idle—while the multiplied wolves of debt and mortgage, and trust and monopoly, swarm from every thicket; here we must fight the ultimate battle for the independence of our people and the happiness of our homes.