other countries of Europe.  They give their best talents, affections, and strength; they ask the same in return.  There is no country, not even the United States, where women exercise a wider influence, both direct and indirect in the home, the school, the church, upon the platform, and in the press.  There is no other country in which the professions, trades, and other occupations are so free to them, or in which their opportunities are utilized with greater zeal, ability, and success.  They work side by side with men upon the farms, in the factories, in mercantile establishments, counting-houses, government offices, and in art, science, and literature, and are equally capable, although, as in other lands, their pay for the same labor and equal results is less.

From the time that Margit Larsson saved Gustavus Vasa from capture by the Danish soldiers by hiding him in her cellar, the women of Sweden have exercised a powerful influence in politics, although it has been indirect, and the ablest and most progressive to-day prefer that their present political condition shall remain unchanged.  They do not think it wise to extend the franchise any farther for fear that universal suffrage will result in the corruption of national politics, which is now comparatively pure.  They prefer the present restrictions, which give the ballot only to women who pay taxes, because it deprives ignorant and incompetent women of a voice in the government, and avoids the dangers that often attend the participation of the masses in elections.  They prefer to direct their efforts to securing an increase in women’s wages, so that they may receive the same compensation as men for the same work, and hope to accomplish practical results by educating public sentiment and bringing moral pressure upon the employing class.

Speaking on this subject, an eminent Swedish writer says:  “In the energetic campaign for the betterment of the condition of women, the Swedes have taken the first place among European nations.  If one seeks the cause of it, it is found in part in the fact that in Sweden, since the remotest time, women have enjoyed a respect greater than in most of the other countries, but without doubt it is also due to the superiority of the intellect, judgment, and wisdom of Swedish women, and in later years to the numerical excess of women in our population.  This has made the means of existence to single women a practical problem.  During the present generation a great change has worked itself out in this sense, that the field of activity for women has been greatly enlarged.  The activity of women, who at other times found ample domain in the multitude of occupations in the domestic life, has become less important in that respect and has grown in importance in the labor and occupations that in other countries are left exclusively to men.”