Some very significant deductions follow from this main proposition. If the people are the source of all governmental power and, in the last analysis, or national stability then it follows as surely as the night the day that women have a natural and indisputable place in the affairs of state. For certainly today we do not need to insist that the primary question is not whether an individual is a man or a woman. It is not a question of sex, important and persistent as its problems are for a changing social order. The really significant thing about all of us is that we are human beings and American citizens. Nor is it so much a question of right as of duty. She who lays claim to the privileges of citizenship in this American Republic must also carry her share of the duties. For all of us, men and women alike, to be citizens means actual obligations which interfere seriously with our personal ease and comfort. They require time and money and sometimes life itself. So we pay our taxes, we struggle for betterment, we stand ready to defend our country, we respond to the draft, we give of the most sacred possessions of our homes — our sons and daughters — when America calls. Moreover a democratic as well as an aristocratic society must recognize practically the principle of noblesse oblige. To whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required. If the members of this convention are the picked representatives of their communities, their obligations are correspondingly large. To our women much has been given which they in turn owe to all of us. We do not want solely a man’s or a woman’s world — we want a human world — and we are rapidly achieving it. This does not mean that men and women are to become alike. Rather it requires each of us to make his or her peculiar contribution. Fortunately no two of us are alike. Our civilization will be sturdy and satisfying, rich and dependable just in proportion as we deepen rather than decrease the difference between men and women. Diversity, not uniformity, makes for wealth of life.

In very practical ways our candidate has recognized all of this. As early as 1907 he was supporting equal suffrage. Those were the days when it required courage to be a suffragist. But he saw the principle with perfect clearness and was its ardent advocate from the beginning of his public career. Likewise when he was in the Senate of his own state he actively supported the Mothers Relief bill and as Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1919 he signed the forty-eight hour bill designed to safeguard the vital interest of women and children.

We must add to these convincing practical evidences of his position the deeper human aspects. His speeches reveal a peculiarly beautiful and gracious appreciation of the mother and the home. An unvarying note of nobility permeates his utterances whenever he alludes to these factors of our life and social order. When writing of Andrew Carnegie he said that "a great man comes from the devotion of a great mother." His allusion to Lincoln’s mother, supplemented by your own knowledge of the detailed facts, is deeply touching: "His cradle was bare, but above it was the precious canopy of the love of a gentle mother." He knows that "no man was ever meanly born." He believes in preserving the memories of our great men, and in celebrating their natal days, but he insists that "there can be no proper observance of a birthday which forgets the mother." There is one incident in his life, immediately following his taking the oath of the office as President which is too sacred to be described here but which makes it utterly impossible ever to doubt that a mother has a shrine deep in his soul. So to him the home is our most sacred institution. In these days when some think there is accumulating evidence that the home is a vanishing institution, that monogamy is an outwork social form, and that our moral standards are changing rapidly and radically it is refreshing to come upon this man with his sanity and confidence. In his speech of acceptance of the nomination for the Vice-Presidency he uttered these sound conclusions: "The destiny, the greatness of America lies around the hearthstone. If thrift and industry are taught there, and the example of self-sacrifice oft appears, if honor abide there, and high ideals, if there the building of fortune be subordinate to the building of character, America will live insecurity, rejoicing in an abundant prosperity and good government at home, and in peace, respect and confidence abroad. If these virtues be absent there is no power that can supply these blessings. Look well then to the hearthstone, therein all hope for America lies." I ask you, in sober, serious moments can you doubt the soundness of this man’s thought or question his real appreciation of women’s place in America? Herein we find conclusive evidence that he is a human being and we find it in forms both practical and ideal. No one can fail to be gripped by his depth of human understanding.