Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-05-18
AS ONE WOMAN SEES 1T
Women Are Making Politics an All.
the. .Year.Round Business, and the
Result viii Be Shown on
Election Day
BY SARAH ID. LOWRIE


the seashorc or TO the mountains, that
| the town and air that is therein was as
consequence going to stop functioning.
The League of Women Voters here in
| Philadelphia is establishing Il precedent
thus early in its career of having its Office
continuously open and its committees active,
even though II will involve great personal
sacrifice on the part of volunteer members
to give their days to Office work through the
heat of July and August. In the new head
quarters Of the Independent Republican
women there appears to be a like firm de-
termination TO make politics an all the year
round business, and since August and Sep
tember arc the important ones this year in
view of the primaries, to be as active
during those months as reformers are In the
winter.
T AM not surprised that the leaders Of the
i League Of Women Voters should have
sized UP the bigness of their Job and taken
their coats off to 1t, for they are seasoned
women at political work. but l am amazed
that in one short year the women who were
regarded simply as good propagandists for
the presidential election under INC genial
encouragement of their party leaders should
have learned by the experience of the last
six months the length and breadth and depth
and thickness Of the wall of work they are
up against before they can turn their right
to vote TO good account.
They had everything to learn, those
State leaders of the g. q. P.-evcrything
about politics, that is. except how to get
along with men agrecaby and without fric-
ton and that good things to cat and a
band. with short. snappy speeches, would
get any crowd in n good humor. They
knew nothing of the promises that were
never meant to be fulfilled. of the long
fruitless waits and endless delays and dashed
hopes and sudden tnexplcable turns of for
tune that the word lobby" emissions.
IlA,- H..
why the women who had taken insult and
rebuff and treachery for their daily bread
while they fought year after year for the
franchise saw none of the picturesque side
of politicians. but only the sordid. II would
not have been surprisng--since they were
waited to the vote and to many of the per-
quisitieS of power with effortcss ease--if
they had continued TO think that all women
who were charming and agreeable had only
to smile pleasantly and places on platforms
and in committees and behind protective
ratings would be assigned to them by fiat.
tering chairmcn and eager to please party
bosses.
THE curious part Of it to meI-now that
i watch this new development of their
declaration of independence of sectional
bosses and of machine leaders-is that they
escaped so soon out of the net that was
spread for them and have arrived on the
high and difficult ground Of loyalty to party
| find myself wondering what experience or
what train of experiences have made them
wise.
Could they possibly have been helped to
their very momcntous decision by the Coun-
ellis of men who are old in the ways Of poll
tics from long experience and whose very
entanglcmcnts in sectional play and coun-
play of cOntending forces have made
them eager for the new force coming into the
game to avoid like embodiment and stale
mate.
] have wondered about that,
They are women with whom men can talk
freely and simply. They have no rancor,
no combined sense of past disagrecments on
political questions; they would naturally
take council with open minded men and ut
least weigh carefully their advice. And
truly TO open minded men who have the de-
sire but not the political leverage to affect
the present political situation the latent
power in the new voters must be nm added
impetus to turn their own citizenship to
good account.
THE quality Of pcrsistcncy in woman that
l. has been the standing joke of tho ages
takes on new aspect when one regards her
as o political entity The machine politi-
clans have long regarded the rcformer as n
sort of moral hop toad-'that stands before
and sets behind and goes by icrks''-l per
son who only has TO be bothered with at
long intervals. But any ward leader who is
a husband and father must be aware that
question not answered satisfactorily today
is asked tomorrow and every tomorrow until
he suCCumbs.
\ man whom I talked to casually the
other day when he came into my Office to get
tickets for political rally said to me very
seriously as we parted ''If you women
only have the gumption not to let the bosses
know how you are going to vote at these
primaries, or whether you arc going to gulp
their candidates or choose n dark horse of
YOUR own on the party ticket, you will have
helped more in one election than We men
have lost in ten. We've been lazy and
we've been afraid and we've been hopeless
about doing anything, Don't you give your
vote away, ike we have
T DID not think then it could be managed
for this election. 1t seemed to ME the
intelligent vote was going TO be too scat
tered outside the Republican Party to ma
terially affect the machine majoritics, and
! had very little idea that among the women
who were in power within the Republican
Party there was an appreciahlc group who
could be counted on to act Independently of
the fats of their ward bosses
1t seems now that there are Which is
why Mrs Barclay Warburton has given IN
her trip 10 Europe for the present. why the
new headquarters at the Emergency Aid
were filed to overhowing the other day nv
women from all over the State, WHY the
plans for careful rcadjustment of the
summer program OF work and intensive or
ganiZing are in force, why new members
who held aloof from the committees under
their original status are coming in and ask
ing to help, why many Of the leaders of the
etual franchise group feel that at last this ia
an enterprise worthy of their mette.
T HAVE not seen the platform of this ney
l Republican group in printed words. but
If what its leaders have stated TO the nress
is worked out during the next wear in nroc