Thirty years ago hardly any political assemblage of the people was graced by the presence of women. Had it needed a law to enable them to be present, what an argument could have been made against it! How easily it could have been shown that the coarseness, the dubious expressions, the general vulgarity of the scene, could have had no other effect than to break down that purity of thought and word which women have, and which conservative and radical are alike sedulous to preserve. And yet the actual presence of women at political meetings has not debased them but has raised the other sex. Coarseness has not become diffused through both sexes but has fled from both. To put the whole matter in a short phrase: The association of the sexes in the family circle, in society, and in business, having improved both, there is neither history, reason nor sense to justify the assertion that association in politics will lower the one or demoralize the other. Hence, we would do well to approach the question without trepidation. We can better leave the "sphere" of woman to the future than confine it in the chains of the past. Words change nothing. Prejudices are none the less prejudices because we vaguely call them "nature," and prate about what nature has forbidden, when we only mean that the thing we are opposing has not been hitherto done. "Nature" forbade a steamship to cross the Atlantic the very moment it was crossing, and yet it arrived just the same. What the majority call "nature" has stood in the way of all progress of the past and present, and will stand in the way of all future progress. It is only another name for conservatism. With conservatism the minority have no quarrel. It is essential to the stability of mankind, of government and of social life. To every new proposal it rightfully calls a halt, demanding countersign, whether it be friend or foe. The enfranchisement of women must pass this ordeal like everything else. It must give good reason for its demand to be, or take its place among the half-forgotten fantasies which have challenged the support of mankind and have not stood the test of argument and discussion.