The Washington herald., 1913-12-26
WHO'S WHO AMONG
PROMINENT WOMEN
Miss Janet Richards Lectures to at
Least 5000 Women Every
Week.
By MARY b. MULLETT.
tCoright. 1871

Miss Janet Z. Richards business in life
is to tell other women what is going on
in the world. Every week at least 5000
women flock to hear her. She is the orig
inator of the so-called current events
talks" And while hundreds of imitators
have sprung up all over the country, she
Is still easily in the lead:
Mondays she holds forth in Washing
ton. Another day she talks to 700 women
in the ballroom of Sherry's famous es-
tablishment in New York. Another day
she Is in Philadelphia, another in Balti-
more, and so on.
Women are said to be susceptible to
get-rich-quick schemes. Perhaps it is the
same quality that makes them take so
easily to this ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS" idea
But, at least i1 the case of Miss Richards
1t is their own fault II they do not get
what they are after. She delivers the
goods. She has the affairs of the whole
world, not at her finger tips, but at the
tip of her tongue.
If you take the rapidity of an aver
age speaker and double it. you have a
good idea of the way she talks when she
gets started. And yet IT is so crisp and
clear and concise that every word seems
to count. She doesn't merely sum up
the events of the week. She makes them
intelliSible.
Talking Current Events for Eighteen
Years.
If practice could make perfect, Miss
Richards would be supreme on that
ground alone. She drifted into her pres
ent work about eighteen years ago and
she has been talking current events ever
since. For that matter she had been
talking them even before that
She was brought up in Washington.
where she has always known men in
public affairs. Her father and mother
were in official circles. She has a mar
velous memory and highIy-trained
mind. And she can talk, Some one asked
her how long she talked, meaning at one
OF her lectures. She flashed back:
six months with pay and six months
without"
She began her work quite accidentally.
She had been discussing affairs one day
with a group OF fascinated friends and
afterward one OF them said: Janet, why
don't you talk to US regularly, once a
week."
So she started a little class as an eN-
pertinent. Seventeen of her friends
Joined. each paying the munificent sum of
. cents a lesson! The next year her
Baltimore friends pleaded with her to
come over and dispense information to
them. too. The price jumped to 50 cents
Glasses sprang up like mushrooms and
grew like the prophets gourd.
OF course her wide acquaintance with
public men has been invaluable to her.
She has known every President since, as
a little girl, she met Grant. Every sum-
mer she travels to increase her fund of
information. For instance, she has at
tended peace conferences at The Hauge,
and has studied woman suffrage in Swe-
den, Norway, Denmark, and Finland.
Every winter she has to refuse dozens
of requests to lecture. And she gives
quite as many talks for charity, or simply
out OF friendly courtesy, as she does for
pay. She has no jealousy OF her countless
followers. That may be because she is
still so far in the lead But she is kind
ness parsOnified to the dOsens OF women
who come to her all over the country to
find out how it is done"