Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1923-05-17
WANTED:
A
Suffragist
Wife
g. by the Mcclure Newspaper syndicate.)

Something unusual had happened at
suffrage headquarters that morning.
A mana big, thoroughly masculine
one, too, who looked as if with the
proper makeup he might have been
a moving picture impersonatiOn of the
gOod-looking western ranchman or
cowboy-had actually walked up to
Miss Hester Judd'S desk-HeSter was
the paid secretary of the %organiza-
tion-and had asked to enroll as a
member. To be sure, there were many
men on the list of membership, but
those men members were usually
brothers or fathers, whose task of
becoming suffragists had been smooth
ed by some daughter, wife, or Sis
ter, eager to add new names to the
roll and more membership fees to the
treasury. 1t was really rather unus-
ual for a man Of his own free will
to walk right up to the secretary and
say, as did this newest member: "If
you please, Miss, I'd like to belong
to your organization, and if there is
anything / car do besides paying a
check for a hundred dollars to show
l. am a member, be so good as to tell
me what that is. I'd like to come to
the meetings and do anything else l
can to help"
The newcomer hesitated when 1t
come to signing the enrolment blank,
and then he said to Hester: 81 may
as well tell you that 1 am acting for
for Mr.. Warwick Stevens-and not for
myself. 1 am his private secretary,
you see. Perhaps I had better sign
my own name" When Hester took
the blank she saw that the secretary's
name was Robert Walker.
Hester, in virtue of the generous
enrolment fee and perhaps even more
because the newcomer was of the out
doors type of man that especially ap-
pealed to her, felt inspired to detain
him as long as possible. She rose from
her chair at her desk and conducted
him through the four or five rooms
that made up the suffrage h%eadquar-
ters-the reading room with its array
of suffrage pamphlets and magazines,
the tea room with it's cheerless, cheap
wicker chairs and tables, a private
office for the officers, a cubbyhole of
a pantry and the outer office where
she herself had her desk.
Mr.. Walker spoke with something
of a drawl and this, as well as a GER
tain hesitancy and friendliness of his
manner, betokened to Hester that he
was not a man of the city. She was
not especially surprised when he asked
her to let him talk to her a minute.
He motioned to two wicker chairs in
the tea room placed conveniently for
a tete a tete and so began their conf
dence. Mr.. Stevens, whom he repre-
scented, was, he told Hester, a grand
son of Mrs. Warwick Stevens, senior,
and of course Hester had heard of her
as one of the most prominent of the
very wealthy suffragists.
perhaps I should not have told you
1 was Mr.. Stevens secretary" said
Mr.. Walker, $50 I'll depend on you
moi to say anything about that. For
a reason 1 cannot mention now Mr..
Stevens is very anxious to get ac-
quainted with some of the prominent
%suffragists here. That is why !
dropped in"
Having filled his ~overcoat pockets
with pamphlets on the various phases
of suffrage the new member left the
headquarters for that day promising
to return the next day when Miss
Hazel Stoppleton-usually mentioned
in newspaper accounts as the "suf-
frage beauty"-was to give a talk on
the cause.
Hester thought 1t was perhaps be-
cause they were both secretaries,
though of rather different sorts, that
they were attracted to each other from
the first and she was not entirely sur
the headquarters, Mr.. Walker took
her completely into his confidence re-
garding Mr.. Stevens attitude toward
suffrage.
"ITl tell you how it is," he began.
young Stevens is very anxious to
know some of the young women inter
ested in the cause. His grandmother,
who is completely absorbed with the
question, has made a queer sort of
disposition of her property. War
wick is her only grandson and heir,
and she has stipulated that she will
give him a couple of millions more or
less on the spot if he will marry a suf-
fragist, and If he does not marry a
suffragist she will cut him off entirely
In her will. She has gone so far as
to say that the girl must have been
actively associated with suffrage be-
fore she made that stipulation, because
it would be an easy matter for any
girl whom Mr.. Stevens fancied to as
sumo an interest In suffrage as a pre-
text. However, Mr.. Stevens doesn't
care for any girl In particular, so he
is, to put 1t bluntly. in the matrimonial
market for an attractive young stuff"
"Can you imagine anything so cal