FOREWORD
It is one thing for women to win the vote and a totally different one for them to know how to use that vote so that it will count to the greatest good of the state. The keynote of woman’s long struggle for the ballot has been her ardent desire for service. Now that she has been given the vote, she is eager to learn how she can best render that service.
Citizenship has been very lightly regarded by our country in the past. It has been given to the immigrant without any ceremony, in the midst of the sordid surroundings of a local court-room; it has come to the boy of twenty-one without any special preparation on his part; it has often been bought and sold. It remains now for women to treat it with a new dignity and to give it the importance it deserves.
Civics should be taught in every school in the land. The ballot should be regarded as a sacred trust. Every man and woman who grows up under the protection of our flag should feel the obligation to give of his and her best to make our democracy a better expression of our ideals.
I hope that this book will help to start some new citizens in the right way.
Carrie Chapman Catt.