Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-06-26
SUFFRAGE TRlUMPHS REVEAL
THE NEW WOMAN EVERYWHERE
She Is Bringing Into Politics Critical
Sense Likely to Dare Old.Fash.
ioned Party Bosses

| nara years Tor lnf1eSlble MINDS that cal
not change or grow. To be slow in
thought, in perception, in sympathy is to
be left lonesomely out of the world of
action. For, wherever it may be going,
the spirit of the times certainly is winged
and fleet and eager
So we are entering the era of the New
Woman! The thought will terrify all
those who cherish their inherited opin-
ions as you cherish fragile antiques in
wool and lavender. Haunting dread of a
chaotic future represents the penalty
which must be paid by multtudes who
preferred to get their education out of
comic papers in times when the comic
papers were even more stupid than they
are now. For the New Woman of popu-
lar superstition, the stern being with a
check suit and masculine jaw, never
existed beyond the imagination of over
driven joke carpenters.
The first suffragists were graduates of
the earlier women's coIleges-gentle
women who happened to be ardent, coura
geous, able and critical of their times.
Their ranks have increased unbeliev
ably in recent years with the spread of
educa tion-the education of the schools
and the education in life that women and
girls receive who struggle for living in
offices, mills and shops. Wherever the
consciousness of their new responsible
ties has dawned clearly upon women and
girls there you will find new women.
They read. They have formed new sets
of opinions.
They refuse to be befudded by the thin
patter of professional party men. 1t is
easy to find girls working at Office desks
and looms who are better read than a
great many men who run successfully for
| public Office.
There are college girls of whom you
| seldom hear who go out to careers of old
! clothes and poverty in order to give battle
| to those who are presumed to make life
| too hard for women and children in in
| dustry There are the restless minded
teachers in schools forever in rebellion
against the conditions that press un-
| fairly upon little children; and there are
women who have always made the causes
of the less fortunate their own.
These are the new women. They are
! everywhere. The war, as it reacted in
America, made it plain that they have an
eerie genius of their own for organiza-
| ton.
No one who knows anything of the
work which their organizations accom-
plished in Philadelphia can doubt that
they bring sort of passionate resolution
to ordered tasks. And certainly they
bring fresh fund of idealism that, prop
erly directed, might easily clean and
clarity the atmosphere in some of the
dank and musty places in the economic
and political order of the state
The demonstrations made by the
massed war organizations of women in
the streets of Philadelphia are memor.
able Marching and level-eyed, they
filled the air with suggestion of some
thing austerely clean. They were as.
sured Their faces were like the faces OF
those who had mysteriously heard com.
mand and a promise. These, too, were
new women.
For the present at least the newly en-
franchised womer of the country anc
those who are still seeking the vote rep
resent a class through
their leaders at least.
We are beginning to hear of "Republi
can women" and democratic women.
For these naive designations one has Il
thank the ingenious national chairmei
of the two big parties. But the concern
of the women who have given energy t.
the suffrage movement are not Republi
can or Democratic. Experience elsewher
has shown that they have little hunge
for Office. They are for the most par
grave, ardent and disinterested in tn
causes that touch women and children il
industry and the affairs of municipal an
school government.
1t will surprise no one if the conven
tional party bosses blunder in dealing
with these new voters. Disinterested
ness always puzzles a politician. Tn
bosses will have to learn.
If women have good memories-an
they are said to have better memorie
than men-they will look with mike
. emotions on the party leaders who no'
, run in circles and toss off CLOWN
speeches to bid them welcome and d
them honor. A few years ago these sam
men tut-tutted them to one side and tol
them that they should be at home mint
ing their children instead Of meddlin
, with work which the Lord had set asid
for the unerring hands of men.
Mr.. Ware, in stoutly supporting til
: suffragists' cause at-the eleventh hou
( followed the example of the infiuenti
: politicians everywhere in the country.
' New York, in Illinois, the leaders wi
: most fiercely opposed suffrage were Il
! first elaborately TO welcome the won.