That November, 1910, three days after the receipt of the assessments, I put my furniture in storage and with my mother came to Hammond, feeling I must do something, but not knowing where to begin. No sooner had I stepped into the town, than I was aware that the streets were made of inferior material and poor workmanship; in fact one street was under construction, and so raw was the poor work that the Poles were threatening the lives of the workmen. This resulted in my interviewing all the inspectors and workmen on the different improvements and collecting evidence which I turned over to the state’s attorney, who would not give me any assistance. I have stopped election after election, where the grafters tried to turn West Hammond into a city. I have stopped rotten paving and been kicked by policemen controlled by the clique and thrown into jail and persecuted by the friends of the grafters. I have had judgments against me by judges that were hired by them and almost every indignity waged against me to the naming of the worst dive here, the “Virginia” Buffet. In spite of the grafters, I have succeeded in electing to office this spring an entire active anti-graft ticket and at the coming meeting of the board will close down all of the notorious dives in West Hammond. I have saved for the Poles nearly $21,000 on reductions of over-charged assessments. I have succeeded in ousting an old clique who for years had been grafting on the school board, and being elected myself to the office of president. This means that I will introduce into the neglected school, manual training, domestic science, free night school, free kindergarten, and a playground. I have established a settlement house in Hammond, Ind., right across the state line, where the boys and girls have night classes, and where mothers who work can take their babies for care. There are some 32,000 Poles in this region and the future looks to great achievement. The logical outcome of the deep and intelligent interest in public affairs shown by women, the suffragists say, is the possession of the instrument which crystallizes public opinion into effective governmental action—the ballot. In as many as twelve states, nearly one-fourth of the United States, the women now have the suffrage. That they exercise their rights with as much discrimination and thoughtfulness as men, to say the least, is the testimony of more than one competent observer. Writing in _The Survey_, on March 21, 1914, Graham Taylor said of women in elections: Illinois and Chicago give the country the most significant test of women’s voting....