The Washington times., 1935-05-23
Women Assert Economic
Power

Power
The newspapers seem to have
overlooked this new organize
ton Of women Investors in
America, Inc" Led by a group
Of wealthy and influential
women, this newly incorporated
group stepped into Wall Street
a few days ago under the
slogan, eve Mobilize to Save"
proclaiming that lone million
women, united, are invincible."
They remind anyone inter-
ested that women own 10 per
cent of the wealth of this coun-
try, 80 per cent of the insur-
ance policies now in effect, pay
Federal, State and local taxes
amounting to millions Of dollars
yearly, while they have billions
of dollars invested in savings
banks, trust funds, real estate,
etc."
They will use mass meetings,
the press and the radio to voice
the collective interest of women
investors in their campaign to
put finance all ship-shape and
clean up the financial litter and
confusion which they insist
male muddlers have brought
about. They have national
headquarters in New York, with
Catherine Curtis as national
director and Jean Nelson Pen.
field as general legal counsel.
The committee for incorpora-
ton and organization is as fol-
lows: Mrs. Frederick w. Smith,
Mrs. Franklin J. Ely, Mrs. c.
Gray Capron, Mrs. Frederick T.
Proctor, Mrs. Henry B. Williams,
Mrs. George T. Vickers, Mrs. Lii
liam Samek, Mrs. Harry Y.
Haden, Mrs. Ralph H. Hunt,
Mrs. John r. Schermerhorn
and Mrs. Floyd Odlum.
A MATRIARCHY?
These are all good names,
as the news desk has it, and
those are clever and influential
women. Their declaration that
women own 10 per cent of the
wealth of the country-a star
ting assertion, it would SEEM
is backed by ample statistics.
For many decades, insurance
payments, trust funds, endow-
ments and legacies have been
seeping steadily over to the
distaff side of the house. This
tendency was augmented in
the depression years.
Men investors, seeking to pro-
tect themselves against def
cheney judgments, began put
ting their holdings in their
wives names. Luncheon tables
in and around the Street these
days touch off common COM
plants that Jane Doe is a tight
wad and won't let poor old
John Doe play that inside tip
on Picked Bees Knees (com-
nom. Does it mean that we
already have a matriarchy in
America? Tut! Tut!
But that pronunciamento of
the newly organized women in
vestors is a mighty militant
document. There is a hint of a
mop and broom crusade in
their fortnight announcement.
Women are realizing they must
tell the world that they stand
shoulder to shoulder" they say.
And explain that they are out
to get what's coming to them.
That's a far cry from the Tues
day Browning Club, the Wednes-
day Wordsworth Circle and the
Thursday MeredithianS.
It is true that in between has
come the battle for suffrage
and the surge of women into
political life, but the real we'll
springs of power are decidedly
in the economic, rather than the
political, terrain; and this rally
ing of the women investors APP
pears to be the first bold asser-
ton of economic power in ranks
of women of their social stratum.
Political power may not be so
very important. A man can stand
out in the middle of the street
and denounce the President Of
the United States most intern
perately, and get away with it.