Such is the boasted chivalry of the Land of Freedom, which has left its women to strive against tradition, prejudice, conservatism, self-interest, political power and in addition all the forces of corruption combined, to secure the privilege which was conferred upon vast numbers of men who never even demanded it and many of whom knew nothing of its significance after it was granted. I claim, and fear no contradiction, that the women of this land are better qualified to exercise the suffrage with intelligence, honesty and patriotism than were any other class of citizens in the world at the time when it was conferred upon them. Must women, unaided, continue the struggle for forty years longer until they have rounded out a century, assailing the bulwarks of prohibitive constitutions in the forty-one States yet to be won? Or will not some brave, consistent and freedom-loving President, recognizing the duty the Government owes to the disfranchised millions of patriotic women, recommend to Congress to submit an amendment to the Federal Constitution forbidding disfranchisement on account of sex? And will not the time speedily come when Congress, recognizing the great injustice which was inflicted upon the women of the land when by enfranchising a race of slave men they riveted the fetters of disfranchisement upon educated and patriotic women, redeem the nation from this stigma? It was the most ungrateful and unjust act ever perpetrated by a republic upon a class of citizens who had worked and sacrificed and suffered as did the women of this nation in the struggle of the Civil War only to be rewarded at its close by such unspeakable degradation as to be reduced to the plane of subjects to enfranchised slaves.... I stand here tonight to say that we have never known defeat; we have never been vanquished. We have not always reached the goal toward which we have striven, but in the hour of our greatest disappointment we could always point to our battlefield and say: "There we fought our good fight, there we defended the principles for which our ancestors and yours laid down their lives; there is our battlefield for justice, equality and freedom. Where is yours?"