Though the Mothers of the Rebellion did not ask, and apparently did not think of asking, to share the military duties incident to suffrage, we must discuss it, if we are to consider the subject thoroughly. To be a voting citizen, is to be a possible soldier citizen. There is no way of fulfilling the moral part of the duty, and leaving unfulfilled the physical, and it is cowardly to attempt it. So the question comes, could American women be soldiers? They could, for a few in disguise were in service during the War of Secession. Titled women of Europe are honorary officers; but this playing soldier is a relic of Middle-Age chivalry. Women can be seriously destructive; but no one will claim that organized military duty is really practicable for them. And the suffrage proposition does not look to anything of the kind. The Suffragists demand equal vote in sending their fathers, brothers, sons, husbands, and lovers to the military field of action, and propose to be absolutely exempt from equal share in the duty that that vote now lays upon male voters. Before the law there could be no distinction of duty on account of race, sex, or previous condition of servitude. The "emancipated" woman would be emancipated into that which the Declaration of Independence expressly called for, "the right and privilege of the people to bear arms." The constitution of Utah says that the State militia is to consist of "able-bodied males," and I have not yet heard that the women who vote there have insisted that the word "male" be struck out of that clause of the Constitution. By no means, every woman expects to be exempt. After women had succeeded in getting the framers of the constitution of every State to strike out the word "male," from its voting qualification, they would expect them to insert the word "male" in mentioning the service qualification. O Equality, where is thine equal for granting privilege! Such chivalry, it would seem, is an insult to the power and intelligence of the women of Utah, who celebrated their "enfranchisement" by a convention to favor the free coinage of silver, 16 to 1, and whose behavior on that occasion was, to say the least, boyish. The tax upon time and strength, and the money loss of citizen service, Suffrage leaders did not once allude to. They did not, and do not, propose to pay even a double money tax on account of expected exemption. Little as this would have availed to meet the actual situation, it would have shown their good will, and some comprehension of justice, while they talked of an absurd and intangible "right."