"They have no conception of the ideal of government laid down by Hamilton; they will submit to neither checks nor balances, and would subvert the whole scheme of representative government and replace it with an out-and-out democracy. In accord with this mistaken view they have adopted the initiative and referendum, carried it overwhelmingly, three to one, in every county in the State, and I need not tell an audience of intelligence that this is the most insidious form of attack now being made upon the fundamental principles of our government."
By this time Silvia and all the suffragists in the audience were applauding wildly, while Carroll Renner laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks, and once more Frank turned a patient and puzzled countenance to the presiding officer.
"I do not understand the applause, ladies," he said mildly, with a gleam in his eyes that none but Carroll understood. "The thing I am telling you is frightful. The enfranchisement of women means the end of the Republic as it now is; it means the rejection of all theories that are found wanting, and the putting out on the vast uncharted sea of experiment; it means interference with those great business enterprises that have built up, I had nearly said that 'make and preserve us a nation'! It means a reckless disregard for property rights in the sentimental desire to protect the individual, as if a nation could become great and strong by individual effort alone, and without the guiding and sustaining hands of statecraft and financial genius gripping the rudder of the ship of state. They will not listen to the voice of experience; they cannot be intimidated; they cannot be deceived for an indefinite number of years; if the established order seems to them unfair, unjust or illiberal, they have little respect for tradition when it's results they're after."
"But if the anti-suffrage movement is growing as we have been told, can't the anti-suffragists overcome those tendencies?" asked an old lady on the platform.
Frank restated the question for the benefit of the audience, and then answered with indescribable pathos, "I cannot conceal the truth from you; improbable as it seems, when once this poison becomes virulent in the body politic it spares none, and the very women who have battled most nobly against this corroding innovation are apt to succumb to its insidious influence; even the anti-suffragist, home-loving, God-fearing, modest and retiring as is her nature, has developed a talent for political intrigue that has led to the downfall of more than one of the best laid plans of mice and men."
He tried to go on, but the audience was convulsed, not so much by what he said as by his manner, and by the sudden turning of the tables after the long tension had reached the snapping point. Still uncertain whether to regard his as friend or foe, Mrs. Briglow-Jorliss, after rapping vainly for order, was obliged to dismiss the meeting, and by some irony of fate the orchestra played "Hail Columbia," and the suffragettes took up the words and sung them with much unction, especially the lines—
"Let independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost."