“Since you insist, my dear Professor,” answered the General, “I’ll point out one way which has been suggested and which I had the pleasure of discussing some time ago with one of our most eminent sociologists, Doctor Arthur Melbourne.” “I’m all interest!” exclaimed the Professor. “That way was?” “You have intimated,” continued General Mainwarren, “that the political machines held the voters so securely that the power of these professional politicians could not be overthrown by any opposition which was started against them. You have not said, but I know it, that such desultory opposition as was tried from time to time always met with discouragement and defeat. Nor have you pointed out that the leaders who controlled these two great political machines were themselves controlled by the moneyed powers of the land, who stood in the background and pulled the strings which moved the puppets. This--all this--is well realized and understood by the student of to-day.” “Let us concede these facts,” rejoined the Professor; “but what then?” “It has been suggested,” continued General Mainwarren, “that a wise course for patriotic leaders of your day would have been to have abandoned the hope of converting and securing the grown voters as a body. It would have been best for them, at a given time, to have said: ‘Beginning from to-day, we will pay no attention to any male who is more than fifteen years of age and who is now, or within the next six years will be, entitled to a vote. But we will direct all efforts to an entirely new body of suffragists.’ They should then have turned their attention to the _women of the land_, to the mothers of future generations of voters. It has been said that ‘Every woman is at heart a royalist!’ It could with equal truth be said, ‘Every woman is by nature a politician.’ It is true that women, as a body, appear to devote little interest to politics, but this is because few women have been given opportunity of acquiring any knowledge on the subject, or of taking active part in such matters. But whenever woman has had such opportunity, she has shown herself to be an ardent politician. Look at the influence exerted politically by various women of whom history speaks. Take it even in your own day. Whenever there happened to be some movement--say a moral reform movement--in which the women of the country took an active interest, as they did now and again, did it not invariably happen that that movement was successful at the polls?” The Professor reflected a moment. “Yes,” he answered; “the facts show that you are correct as to this.”