The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1943-12-15
By WESTRROOK PEGLER

NEW YORK.-There is something about the
British attitude toward women in politics which
appeals to my own very practical sense of
reality and my passion for equality under
law and custom. When woman enters poll
tics in England she becomes politician and
forfets, in the field of political activity, that
SPECIAL consideration which ordinarily is shown
to women. Unlike US, the British, from the
days when the suffra gettes were claiming
themselves to the iron fences around the
House of Commons and hunger-strikng for
the right to vote and hold office. faced the
fact that women and meu on the average,
are about equal in honesty, fairness and sim
cerity and that their political activity would
not result in any measurable publication Of
public life. This certainly mas teen our own
experience for, although we have had several
women governors, one woman cabinet officer,
a number of women members Of both houses
of Congress and countless female bureaucrats,
any improvement which the most sensitive
observer could discern has been purely in
cidental and evolutionary, if not imaginary.
One state had governor elected in the place
of her husband who had beer seriously dis
credited whose administration was just about
as bad as his had been. In the current House
of Representatives we have i chairman of
LlG COIlllllltee Oh ldUOT, MIS- MARY NOiCOH Oh
Jersey City, true anc faithful and typical
member of the organization of Frank Hague
whose machine elects ner. Mrs. Frances Per-
kins as secretary of labor, has been, in a
few kind words pathetic and beWildered
figure without the dignity to resign, as any
manly man would nave done l., like circunl-
stance, although she long ago was gently
showed into a quiet corner and the duties of
her office have been parcelled out among the
thn No, Lab rH
and the ManpoWer Commission. And because
among the communists, the female of the
species is as nasty as the male and as dill
| gent In conspiracy. we have accumulated
due proportion of boisheviks in skirts in vari-
GUS bureaus of the government and IN satel-
lite political organizations OF the new deal,
whose total contribution has been no different
| from that of an equal number of buck bolos
similarly placed.
In short women in politics have been just
so many politicians Notwithstanding winch we
doggedly maintain the old frontier tradition
of chivalry toward them, reaizlng all the
time that thew have shown neither special
comnetence nor craftsmanship and in most
cases, have been dreary, fumbng buds and
imposters claiming TO represen: Woman-kind
which, in a vote that issue, would repudi-
ate them with violent scorn
| 1 was reminded CT the British attitude by
. brief dispatch from London 4 few days ago
relating the latest incident in the long and
oarrulous career of Viscountess Aston, nj
oneer and veteran politician with a tongue
as sharp as her profile who long ago learned
y, her chosen career she must expect to he
treated as politician, and neither man nc,
| woman
Viscountess Aston interrupted III e deh.to
several times and Emmanuel Shlnwell. q IL
horite who may NOT be a gentleman, ve11od.
.Throw her out Something ought to be doua
about her, you know
49, ,,,or,oherS protested
eo5 interiections. the dispstch ssia Re-
George Davis, conservative, complained. W Tar
We had to put up with it TO- q, vears, >, we
Again when Lady Astor applauded a noia.
saying asar or hes you fn ss,d Enssa s9