76 Wisconsin Academy of /Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



ino- may we not expect when the enormous difference between 

 the physiology of maternity and of paternity is sunk from 

 sight ? 



The entry of woman into political life means burden, if the 

 event is to have any significance at all. If woman is not going 

 to reform politics and government, she might as well let them 

 alone. But if she is going into the work of political reform, 

 she will find there is something to be done beside the holiday 

 sport of riding to the polls at elections in gaily -bedecked car- 

 riages, with streamers flying, 



"All the while 

 Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." 



If she is to improve the present condition of things, she 

 must master the science of government and the arts of politics ; 

 she must attend caucuses, and plod through the weary work 

 of the investigating committee. Unless she does this with an 

 energy and purpose not now practiced by men, where will be 

 the gain to society from her advent into politics ? Kemember 

 now the fact that the strain in politics comes in just those 

 years when the functions of maternity make their demands. 

 If woman is to be a helpful element in political affairs, she 

 must be a constant element in it. One of the most serious por- 

 tents of our politics now is the lack in men of steady and per- 

 sistent action. Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, in a late 

 review of the situation of affairs in the city of New York, puts 

 the responsibility for the disgraceful condition of things there 

 existing upon the men who were entitled to the right of 

 suffrage and did not use it. But all motherhood ought to 

 have no sense of care or responsibility for politics. It is idle 

 to say that those upon whom the burdens of maternity are 

 actually resting, either prenatal or past natal, may be allowed 

 the privilege of retiracy. If fi'om time to time, as she emerges 

 from retirement, a mother is to be of any help in politics, it 

 must be because she has the while canied it along with her. 



