Should Women be Admitted to Full Citizenship? pecially so when, as president of the Dutch St. Nicholas Society, he led its " feast of reason and flow of soul,'.' or acted as pres ident of the Manhattan Club, of which he was the acknowledged founder; and wherein hangs an oil portrait of him much resem bling the picture that accompanies this arti cle. Those of this generation who have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Chauncey Depew when he was at the bar, or is on the stump, or is at a public banquet, will fully understand what manner of man John Van Buren was as lawyer, politician, stump speaker and social bon vivant, when I pro nounce Mr. Depew in manner, vein and speech very much in all those respects a double of Mr. Van Buren. But like many lawyers who burn their candle of life simultaneously at the social and the professional ends, Mr. Van Buren
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early in the year 1866 began to show signs of physical decay, although only fifty-six years old. He had been worried too by some financial reverses, and he had edited manu scripts left by his father as a history of po litical parties and superintended publication. Wherefore his physician ordered a Euro pean trip, and Mr. Van Buren passed the ensuing summer abroad, but without any curative relief. A vacancy in the office of Recorder occurred while he was in London, and his political friends procured a promise from the appointing power that John Van Buren should have the place if his health would permit. Wherefore he set out to re turn before he was really able, and he died while on shipboard, during the voyage home — one of the lawyers of a class cynically described in a recent novel, " who work hard, live well and die poor."
SHOULD WOMEN BE ADMITTED TO FULL CITIZENSHIP? By Percy L. Edwards. BY amendment to the Federal Constitu tion we have raised the emancipated negro of the South to a plane of political equality. This action was believed to be righteous and just, because human as well as divine law seemed to dictate it, and we call it an act of justice. The American Indian not disabled by tribal relations enjoys the same franchise. And, again, American citizenship, as the law stands, permits, aye, encourages to come to the polls the semi-citizenized foreigner who. often, as the writer has observed, does not possess the qualification necessary to enable him, unassisted, to know for whom or what he is voting. And yet we refuse to recognize our women as worthy to occupy the same plane of political equality. The assertion is here ventured that there does not exist a more
unrighteous thing in the code ethical of the world. Especially would this be so in those cases where women are property owners and called upon to pay a just pro portion of the taxes. Would you tax her, at the same time refuse her a voice in the disposition of public affairs? You do do this. Upon what boasted principle of right did you refuse to be taxed by the officers of George III.? You even refused to take your medicine in taxed tea, and in a fit of "tantrums " it was dumped into the waters of Boston Harbor. Why did you do that? Because you contended for a principle based upon the plainest kind of justice, clear to the understanding of all but a stupid, infat uated and sordid king. Now, a principle is a settled rule of action, a rule to guide future conduct. If there was any justice in the principle
