The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-04-29

have it had 1t not been erected in the wealthy days of the empire. To- day Germany is bitterly poor. and cur poverty reaches the Reichstag. We have not enough money to keep this building in Hepair. and when these carpets wear out we shall not be able to replace them. We are buying no new books for the library we require. We have even had to reduce our subscriptions to news papers. and the questions of light ing and heating the Parliament halls require much discussion.
 In the German Parliament.
 Going on through lobby after lobby, we entered the gallery of the hall where Congress was sitting. It is about as large as our House of Representatives and has the same rectangular shape. Its ceiling is of glass and iron, 50 feet above the floor where the members sit in con centric rows behind open desks. The speaker has his chair on high shalf at the back of the hall, and below him are the secretaries who act as umpires as 1t were, deciding the vote and taking the tallies. There are six secretaries and two of these are women. One sees the women mem bers scattered here and there throughout the chamber Each party I that the members of party are elected as a whole and not as indi- vfdualS. The women of each party insist on having representatives of their sex among the candidates. and so every party elected must have it's women members. When the women speak they go to a little rostrum, in front of and below the speaker, on which is pulpit, and the acoustocs are SO good they can easily make themselves heard. The men speak from the same place, and the women. like the men. They are live, active factors. They have a say in the work of the parties to which they belong and they sit on all the com mittees, Many of them have good educations. They are all patriotic, and are bound to form strong ele- ment in the Germany of the future Frau Dr. Schrieber.
 Take, for instance. Frau pr. Schrieber. the leader of her sex in the social democratic party Born in Vienna, she became a German lby marriage and for years has been 8 live figure in the intellectual life of this country. She is writer and a Journalist. and was the editor of a woman's suffrage paper when she was elected to Congress in 1920. She
 
 woman chairman of an important committee. She is connected. also, with the most important of the wel- fare movements of the republic.
 Frau Dr. Schrieber is well edu- cated. refined. and brilliant con versationalist. Five feet six inches tall and weighing about one hum dred and thirty pounds. she is so ac- tive that her husband says he is the most unmarried man in the republic. She is, in fact, a dynamo in skirts and is busy with public matters all the day through.
 o O o
 Woman President for Germany.
 During our stay in the Reichstag l asked her whether a woman would ever be president of the German re- public. Frau Schreiber replied:
 So many of my dreams have cons true that l do not see why such a thing, which may now seem impos- sible, might not come true. I don't think I shall ever live to see a woman president, but as Bernard Shaw says: You never can telle If anyone had said to me 20 years ago that women would sit in the Reichs- tag 1 would not have believed it. Yet here we are, 35 of us, and we are all doing work. It seems to me that the woman of today is in advance of the man. Man seems to be sliding down;