The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-04-24
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HASKIN, Director.
Washington, d. c.
WHAT ANNE MARTIN THINKS.


| dental candidates claim most of the
political limelight this year. but Ne
vada's senatorial contest will attract
nation Wide interest, because Anne
/ Martin, who two years ago ran for
the United States senate, is again in
/ the field. A woman candidate for a
prominent public office is still enough
of novelty fer the country to wonder
what she looks like, where she got the
political bug" and what she 1ntendS
to do if elected
| NeVada's seventeen counties are al
ready familiar with Miss Martins APP
/ pearance, for in her 1918 campaign
she toured 10000 miles of Nevada
prairie and mountain land in an auto
mobile.
What Nevada saw was little wo-
| man in a dark Norfolk suit, and tan
shoes. Her hair was curly, her eyes
blue. and she had a freshness of coun-
tenance that we associate with Eng
fish women and those of our own
west Her method of attack is as
simple as her manner and dress. She
does not shine at witty repartee like
her American prototype in British
| parliament, Lady Astor. Her main
stock in trade is a thoro knowledge of
her principles, and her faith in those
principles is SO intense that she speaks
without thought of oratory or effect.
Most OF her campaigning is done in
the rural sections of the state. About
dusk" she says, I'VE would drive up
the struggling main street of some
little mining camp or village. Usually
our approach was heralded, and men
and women were sitting about on
| boxes or on the ground with torches
and lanterns"
When asked if she was ever annoyed
| by heckling, Miss Martin replied that
she has never been interrupted when
making a speech. I'm England" she
explained, "a cabinet minister or any
political speaker must expect to have
his eloquence broken into by shafts OF
sarcasm or startling queries about his
political past or his private life. Over
here that sort of thing is not custom
airy. At the end of a speech / always
ask for questions so that I may clear
up the points that the people may not
have understood"
Appeals to Working People.
Railway. farming, mining and other
laboring folks are the ones that appeal
most strongly to Anne Martin, and on
| whom she counts for support. She is
down on the trusts, the bosses and
everybody else who is trying to eX-
plot labor. the producer and the con-
sumner. Politics, she declares, is too
often a machine to further capitalistic
ends. She addresses her platform to
the people-the ones who need pro-
laws.
Il believe" she told the reporter,
lin socially good life for every one"
This aim she would approach by a
program of disarmament to lead. to
worldwide peace; by the recognition
of labor's right to bargain collectively
and to strike; by equal rights and op-
portunities for men and women in in
dustry and before the law; and by
| government control of resources and
utilities, which she says would reduce
living costs and be an improvement
over our present chaotic system. She
would also work for increased pro-
duction thru the storage of now wasted
water and it's distribution in the arid
lands of the west by national and state
agencies.
Not Radical.
These are u few of the planks in
Anne Martin > platform. 1t is the most
advanced platform so far offered by
candidate for the senate. Yet Miss
Martin does not consider herself a So
cialist nor a radical She conforms to
no party lines. She says her platform
is the result of years of, study here and
abroad. and continuous thought as to
the best ways to bring about "a more
equal distribution of opportunity"
Anne Martin says that she cannot
remember when she first became in
tefested in politics. Her father and
; brother were both Republican mem
bers of the Nevada senate, and she
was accustomed to hearing the affairs
of the state and nation discussed at
) home. When she was graduated from
college, she became professor of his
t tory in the University of Nevada.
Later she Travelled abroad TO study
history and government in the univer-
5 sites of London and Leipzig.
: Until this time she had been alto
gether a student, tho a woman college
professor twenty years ago was as
much of an innovation as a woman
t lawmal1er is today.
1t was probably her experiences
abroad which distracted Miss Martin s
attention from the theories of govern
: ment and Focused it on the practice
S For she was in London when the
q British suffragettes were making life
exciting for the British police and
public.
IT came to see," Miss Martin SAYS,
! that the tactics of the British suffra-
gists were psychologically sound. They
could have a mass meeting of $4,000
L people and not get a line in the papers
s next day. But when they picketed,
e and spoke up in parliament. and got
arrested, there were long stories about
> them on the front pages of the news
papers All over the world people
: heard about it and saw that suffrage
was a live ISSUE
Anne Martin did not picket. nor
heckle any treactionary lawmakers, but
l she did join one delegation to the
E prime minister, and she did get ar
, rested.
Size Was Arrested Once.
The delegation, it seems. turned into
e a sort of riot, for the home secre-
Y tary, Winston Churchill, ordered the
police not to arrest the women if pos
sible, but to tire them out While an
army of policemen were worrying the
1 delegation, Anne Martin, who was not
very militant by temperament, stood
in a doorway trying to protect a rather
I frightened little old lady from the
T mob. A policeman ordered her to
= move on. which she refused TO do.
saying that she was not interfering
= with traffic. She was arrested along
with over a hundred other women.
!. II. =.