Evening star., 1937-02-21

afternoon. 1t has been some time
since the league has had such a rous-
ing meeting. The members were on
the qui vive for what Mrs. Pinchot
would hand them next. She Is Re-
publican, all right, but without sub
terfuge, and does not mean to hide
her head, ostrichlike, in the sand:
like Popeye the sailor, she is ''I am
what I am what am." and that is
Progressive Republican. One had
visions of the "old one-horse shay
taking a deep breath on the last lap
and coming in on the home stretch.
Some of the members of the club
seem to have been bit down in the
mouth since Franklin Delano Roose-
welt grabbed those 46 States last Fall,
but not Mrs. Pinchot AS cheer
leader she was a great success, as was
shown by the animated discussions
that followed her speech. 1t took on
the appearance of an old-fashioned
town hall meeting.
Mrs. Kelley Sets the Stage
for Rousing Meeting.
Mrs. William Fitch Kelley, who has
been president of the league for the
past three years and who is in charge
of the programs for the series of teas
and luncheons which are being given
this Winter, introduced the speaker
of the afternoon. Mrs. Kelley is
petite-like most little people, is re-
freshingly direct but diplomatic; a
bit of an old-line Republican. So in
a charming conversational voice, in
which she always brings out the fine
points of the speaker and sets the
stage for the meeting. she presented
Mrs. Pinchot as the one who had been
reared in an atmosphere of politics
and of whom the late President
Theodore Roosevelt said she was the
best informed woman on politics in
the United States. AS she campaigned
for him in his Bull Moose campaign
in 1912, he knew.
Mrs. Pinchot's Darts Are
Pointed With a Smile.
It was delightful contrast to listen
to Mrs. Kelley introducing the speaker
in her quiet, soft voice and then to
hear Mrs. Pinchot zoom out in vibrant
ringing tones and with that inde-
and life, launch forth with all the
spice, verve, audacity and daring which
have made her one of the outstanding
woman speakers of America Her man.
ner is more that of the British women
on the hustings-one who can give
the heckler as good as he sends-she
boldly announced where she stands on
the questions of the day. Now and
then she reminded one of a bad little
boy, who knew he was being perfectly
shocking, but who did not give care,
for she was expressing her sincere
convictions. When she would make a
statement or announce an opinion in
which she knew a majority of her au-
dience did not concur she would smile
in her fascinating, Infectious way and
ask that they would not throw her out
of the window Perhaps her direct
manner was taken from Theodore
Roosevelt, the devoted friend of her
husband, Gov. Clifford Pinchot. The
two men had much in common-the
same aspirations and objectives in
life-but different ways of approach
ing them.
This is a story about Mrs Pinchot,
but it will perhaps not be de trop to
say that the Governor used to remind
one of Sir James Barrie's Sentimental
Tommy" but with kind of a viking
chivalry instead of English. He had
some viking ancestors; his bonhomie
is not assumed; his thought for the
underdog began early in life, even be-
fore his college days. Reared in lux
ury increased his desire to help, rather
than make him careless of, the less
fortunate. And his love of the sea
must have come from the bold men
of the North. On the journey he and
Mrs. Pinchot made to the South Seas
he named his three-masted topsail
schooner Mary Emo, after his mother,
because. he said: THE best thing one
could hope from any vessel was that