The sun., 1918-09-04
GOVERNORS WIFE
TAKES HIM TOPOLLS
Mrs: Whitman Refrains, How.
ever, From Casting Her
Ballot First.
MRS. AL SMITH RESPONDS
After Voting She Hustles
Other Women to the Elec-
ton Place.

Maybe It takes a political primary &c
enable the blind to see more clearly
than the sighted. Anyhow 1t was q
little blind woman, Mrs. Catherine Egar
OF 21s East Twenty-eishth street, who
was the FIRST and most eager voter yes
terday in the Sixteenth Election distric,
Of the Twelfth Assembly At g. late
hour in the afternoon only thirty mine
women and an even smaller number Of
men had cared enough for the primaries
to take the trouble to vote. but Mrs
Egan came into the little shop at 42t
Third avenue soon after the polls opened
beaming behind the blue glasses tina,
covered the hollowS where her eyes once
were.
A small neighbor girl piloted her In
and the Democratic captain of the dis
trict tenderiy received her. Mrs Egan
wiping her hands on her Bingham apron
piously received the green ticket which
bore Al Smiths name at its head.
Sure, ! am only too glad to have
lived for this day." she said to some
one who congratulated her on her en-
terprise. MY husband Is coming soon
and he Is blind too. though not quite as
blind as / am. I'm 81 years old. a
Democrat all my life and proud Of it.
Praises Miss Fitzsim ons.
Strong for the donkey are the women
of this district. apparently. The man
Democratic captain modestly ascribed II
to the lady Democratic captain. Miss
Mary Fitzsimmons. She wasn't there
having gone out to round UP voters
but he sang her praises CALAMITY.
"A fine lady and a good Democrat
she is, and she lives in the house she
was born in-lives in the house she was
born in," he repeated solemnly. but with
out explaining the bearing that had on
good leadership.
The blind woman was better posted
than was a deaf and dumb woman who
rushed into Woman Suffrage party head
quarters in Brooklyn, 65 Flatbush ave-
nue., to ask where she must go to vote
and what the record Of the various can
ddates was. The SUITS had sent out
missionaries to all the candidates as
to their attitude on the war and on
suffrage. and had the responses posted up
: in the votes-for-women headquarters in
all the boroughs. A good thing 1t was
too. and many puzzled woman voters,
awaited themselves Of 1t. Mrs. Olive
Parker Hutchins, who runs the Brook
1yn headquarters met her Waterloo when
the deaf and dumb woman came seeking
light.
Goes Away DisGusted.
Mrs. Hutchins had neglected to learn
the sign language. and the inquirer
hadn't learned to read the lips. They
spent an exhausting fifty minutes before
an interpreter was found. Then 1t de-
veloped that the candidate in whom the
deaf and dumb woman was interested
hadn't replied to the questionable, and
she went away disgusted.
Mrs. Charles s. Whitman did her
wifely part toward protecting her nus
band against the Vaccinations of one
Attorney General Lewis. She left the St
Regis with the Governor at F. NJ, and
proceeding to the florists shop at Sixth
avenue and Fifty-flfth street one OF the
polling places of the Fifteenth Assembly
district. was the voter Immediately fol-
lowing Gov. Whitman.
Miss Mary Garrett Hay, long the
chairman Of the Woman Suffrage party
OF New York city. voted early: At |
sharp. when the polls opened, she was
at the little Diapers shop at 507 Column
bus avenue. where the voters of the Sec
ond Election district of the Twelfth As
sembly went 10 express their choice. She
came in with two Whitman buttons
adjoining her breast. and put her cross
opposite the name of the man who. she
says. deserves the gratitude OF all New
York women for the way he championed
their enfranchisement.
Miss Hay has said all along that she
would be satisfied II 60 per cent. of the
women who enrolled May % voted yes
terday. Early in the day she thought
fully gave TO the newspapers two state
ments. one explaining that the reason SO
few women voted was that II was the
day after holiday, that many were in
the country and couldn't get to their
polling places conveniently, and that II
the primaries had been fixed next week
there would have been much larger
showing.
Her other statement declared that the
excellent showing of women voters at
the primaries was highly satisfactory to
suffragists, and that IL the sex took so
much interest in the primaries what
wouldn't they do when the real election
came!
Mrs. Al Smith Votes.
And that was about as much as any
body knew about women at the pri-
maries till this morning. In some dis
tricts women appeareds interested
than men. In other districts it was the
reverse.
Mrs Alfred F. Smith walked up yester-
day morning with the firm resolve that
her husband was going to be Governor.
Al Smith once said that while he hadn't
been strong for suffrage, now the women
had 1t he meant to have his wife get out
and vote She got out yesterday and
voted in company with her husband at