lative assembly and council of Victoria might with advantage take a lesson in regard to the quorum and procedure from New Zealand. It goes without saying that a candidate whose moral character is tainted, or who has not been good to his wife and children, will never get the women's vote. This last is well known, and has a restraining influence in preventing men otherwise well qualified for standing for seats in parliament. As a matter of fact, they will not face the ordeal.

It is largely owing to the women of New Zealand that it is in the van of progress and social reform. The enfranchisement of the women of New Zealand was the result of years of hard fighting. Success crowned our efforts in the end, and the result has been so satisfactory that you never hear any suggestion that these rights should be taken from them.

Now, I want to say to you that if Australia, that land tucked away in that far corner of the world, can trust its women with a vote, why can not you American men do the same? You trust the Indian, you trust thousands and tens of thousands of ignorant, illiterate foreigners who arrive on your shores every year.

I am proud to have the privilege of coming to-day to plead with you to trust your women. You will find your trust is not misplaced. [Applause].

Miss ANTHONY. The next speaker will be Mrs. Emmy Evald, who comes to us from Sweden.

STATEMENT OF MRS. EMMY EVALD.

Mrs. EVALD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I stand here representing a country that gave its women the right of voting in the seventeenth century. Swedish women have voted on the same terms as their brothers in everything except the Second Chamber of the Reichstag; but there is now a bill pending, in which we hope that right will also be granted.

Women are members of school boards, boards of guardians of the poor, parochial boards, and the Government, appreciating women's work, has openly declared that it could not do without them in municipal affairs. I should have stated that it is the real-estate owners that vote in Sweden, irrespective of the sex of the owner. The women in Sweden have voted in the Lutheran Church, which is a State church, since 1736. These Swedish women come here to America, being members of our Lutheran Church. Here it is free; it is not a Government church. Every one of them pays taxes, but they have no vote; they have not voice. The Swedish Americans blame the Americans because their clergy are educated in America, and we feel that they have imbibed the false spirit of liberty and freedom taught by the illiberal men of America.

We do have some women who are equal with men in America, but they are the women who are bad. But what a crying wrong! You say that women are inferior, and you can not give them the ballot, but your law says that you consider bad women equal with men and you mete out the same punishment for them. Would you deny to women the privilege of paying taxes? If they were murderers would you know any difference in the law between the man and the woman? These are not my words, but the words of one of your own SwedishAmerican citizens, the greatest orator we have in our Lutheran Church.

He is a liberal-minded man, because he was educated in Sweden. You can not trust the ballot in the hands of women teachers in the public schools, but you give it to men who can not write. You do not trust the ballot to women who are controlling millions and who are supporting the country, but you give it to loafers and vagabonds who know nothing, have nothing, and represent nothing. You can not trust the ballot in the hands of women who are the wives and daughters of your heroes, but you will give it to the tramp, or to anyone who is willing to sell it for a glass of beer. You have not trusted the ballot in the hands of Mrs. McKinley simply because she is a woman, but you do trust it in the hands of anarchists.

So, men, let justice speak, and may the public weal demand that this disfranchisement of the noble American women shall be stopped. My heart cries for justice for these American women. I am sure that you men are ashamed of your laws. When it comes to the ballot for women, you withhold it because all do not want it. Do you withhold education because some people do not want it? Do you withhold order and justice because all do not want it? Oh, men, our Lord and Father, the Creator, did not withhold salvation because there are some who do not want it.

A well-known American judge, attempting to convince a fugitive slave that he had made a mistake-this was before your civil war-put the following questions to him:

What did you run away for?

Well, Judge, I wanted to be free.
You had a bad master, I suppose.
Oh, no; berry good massa.

Well, you hadn't a good home?

Haven't I? You should see my pretty cabin in Kentucky.

Had to work hard?

Oh, no; a fair day's work.

If you had plenty to eat, was not overworked, had a good home, and a good master, I don't see why on earth you wanted to run away.

Well, Massa Judge, I spec de situation am still open, if you would like it. [Laughter.]

The judge saw the point and gave the fugitive a $5 bill to help him on his way to freedom. [Applause.] I think we woman suffragists feel something like this fugitive slave. If you ask us, "What in the world do the women want the ballot for?" we reply, "Oh, men, because we want to be free."

But further than that, our situation is open for you, Senators and Representatives of America, if you would like it.

Oh, men, we hail the day and hope and look to the future when American women will be declared equal with men politically as well as socially, as citizens and as human beings. [Applause.]

Miss ANTHONY. I now have the pleasure of introducing to you Rev. Anna Shaw.

STATEMENT OF REV. ANNA H. SHAW.

Rev. ANNA H. SHAW. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, in closing what we women have to say to you this morning in our own behalf, I am not going to make an argument, but to recall to your minds again, as Miss Anthony did in the beginning, that for thirtytwo years we have been coming before your honorable body asking

to investigate the workings of suffrage in the States where women already have the full vote.

You will notice that our opponents come to you and say the women do not want to vote, because in States where they have had school suffrage no large mass of them have taken advantage of their privilege. They never come to you with that statement concerning States where women have the full suffrage as men have it. It is only where they have this partial suffrage, this educational suffrage, that they make that claim.

You know as well as I do that when a measure relating to education is before the people the only ones who will be interested in it are the people who have their attention directly turned to educational matters; and while it is true that women have not voted upon those questions as numerously as some people might have expected, yet if men were forced to pay a tax and to register every year in order to vote simply on this measure the vote of the men upon those matters would not exceed the vote of the women to-day.

I know in Massachusetts, when I voted for school director, I not only had to register, but when we went to register we found the registrar was out in the hayfield. I took several of the ladies of my own parish and went with them to register. We had to take him away in from the hayfield. He was very busy, and on his way between the hayfield and the house he said many things that are not in the decalogue, and declared that women were a nuisance.

Now, when you go as a citizen to perform your citizen's duty, and the official not only feels but says that you are a nuisance, there is a feeling of timidity that makes you shrink a little. When the whole community look upon you as eccentric and absurd you naturally shrink from doing it, even if it is a duty and you feel obligated to do it.

Then we had to swear to our possessions. I inquired of the men of my parish if they had ever sworn to their possessions in order to pay taxes. They said no, they always waited until after the tax came in before they did that. We women not only have to swear to them beforehand, but we have had to pay pretty dearly for the privilege. In that community a number of women live year after year on a meager bit of an income, as women will. I had an income of $105 a year from a little property which was left me in the will of a friend. I had never gone before the tax collector or hunted him up and told him I had that little bit of property; and being a Methodist preacher he never suspected I had any. [Laughter.] Consequently I was never asked about it. But in order to vote for a member of the school board—not to vote on any appropriation or on any question concerning the school at all, but just to vote for a member of the school board-I had to swear to this property and pay a tax of $22.50 on an income of $105.

Now, while the right of citizenship is a great right and a great privilege, if one has to live on $105 a year, $22.50 is a good deal to pay for the privilege of voting for a member of the school board. I might not have objected had I been able to vote for every officer, from President to pathmaster. So, because of these objections, because of the sentiment of the community in which our women live, because it is not generally regarded to be quite the thing, women do not come out in large numbers to vote where they have only partial suffrage; but where women have the full suffrage, where they can make their influence

felt upon the great measures of State and national affairs and all the local questions in the communities where they live, from such places, where they have full suffrage, our opponents never come to you with a statement of the number of the women who do not or who do vote. Therefore we who favor woman suffrage are perfectly willing to stand or fall on the result of such investigation as would be made by a committee appointed by your honorable body to look over the whole ground. [Applause.]

Miss ANTHONY. The hearing is now over; but we ask if the committee have any questions to put to any of us? If so, we feel confident that these women can answer them.

Senator BERRY. No, I think not.

Miss ANTHONY. Now, we ask you to get the leave of the Senate to print as many copies of this hearing as you possibly can.

The CHAIRMAN. How many copies were printed last year?

Miss ANTHONY. Five thousand; but we should very much like to have 10,000 this year. We can use all you will print, and more too. The committee, at 11.55 a. m., adjourned