The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-03-19
Now Woo The Women
Bv MARY HORNADAY

By MARY HORNADAY
With 5000 900 men overseas likely to be
counted out as a real factor in the November
elections, both political parties are beginning
to sidle up, unabashed to women.
Gallup Poll some time ago mdlcateo tnat
, women may have cast So per cent OF the Votes
in the f94O election that gave President Roose-
welt q third term. This year, with so many
of their nenfolk away from home, ana SO
many housewives out Sin the world for the
first time, they are expected to weld an
even more clear-cut influence.
The political wooing of women on national
scale began in earnest this last week. AT two
luncheons, one for Congressional leaders ana
one for the press, Mrs. Dorothy Vredenburgh,
the new glamour girl' secretary OF the DEM
ocratic National Committee, MADE her Wash
ington debut.
1.-THE Republicans have a glamour girl so
we thought we ought to have one, too,'' the
Democrats new publicity chief Paul Porter,
said in introducing her. Presumably he was
referring to Congresswoman Clare Luce.
Though Mrs. Vredenburg is indeed photo
genie and has hit the front pages OF many
newspapers, her job as secretary is largely
a routine one having to do with supervising
convention arrangements and issuing various
calls" Twety-seven-year-old Dorothy Vre-
denburgh is hardly the type to develop real
feminine leadership within the party OF the
kind, for instance, Molly Dewson built up at
the beginning of the Roosevelt Administration.
| Over the Weekend Republican women lead
ers from all over the country converged here
for meeting of the Advisory Board of the
National Federation of Womens Republican
Clubs. Some of the same old faces were
there, but there were new ones, too Mrs.
Robert F. Archibold, Jr., of Denver, for in
stance, came with right-offthe-g riddle news
about the Gillespie victory for Congressional
seat in normally Democratic district The
Democrats, she told around, had picked a
wounded war veteran in hopes of drumming
Up sympathy vote from the women. 1t
didn't work. The women showed they pre-
ferred the staid businessman type.
A Republican woman who is just now trans
ferring from the New York State scene to
the natonal-she may either get a seat in
Congress or become active in Governor Dew
eys campaigns Miss Jane H. Todd, who
has had 10 years experience in practical pol
itics in the New York Assembly.
Miss Todd was chairman of the Republican
Women's Resolutions Committee which this
week foretold some of the issues women will
be interested in when they get full recognition
on the convention platform committee at Chi
cago in June-Congressional independence, a
| legal soldiers ballot, aid for women and chill
dren in war-producton centers, women at
peace councils, and postwar jobs without dis
elimination in pay because of sex.
| Democratic women achieved equal represen-
tation with men at their 1910 convention for
the first time. Republican women have a
promise from their National Committee that
they will get it in June. The scarcity of men
will undoubtedly mean more women on con-
venton delegations of both parties.
| Women are realizing too that if thew have
hankering to pun for Congress, 1914 gives
them their big opportunity. Two announced
| Democratic aspirants Mrs. Paul H. Douglas
of Chicago and Mrs. Helen Gahagan Douglas
of Los Angeles have husbands in the armed
forces overseas so there can be no legitimate
charge that their place is in the home. Mrs.
Paul Douglass candidacy will furnish Chi.
cago voters with test on foreign policy. As
executive secretary of the International Re-
lations Bureau and longtime intervention
list, Mrs. Douglas is challenging the seat OF
Stephen A. Day, pre-Pearl Harbor non-inter-
ventionst. Helen Gahagan who with her
movie-star husband, Melvyn Douglas, has long
been active in Democratic politics, is trying
: to win a seat now held by Representative
Thomas Ford, who has announced his support
, of the former actress.
With the exception of Representative VIM
fred Stanley, whose job of New York Con
gresswoman-at-large goes out of existence
| none OF the eight women in Congress has
announced decision not to run for reelection:
so there is a possibility of record number
OF women in Congress next January
With political primaries putting the 1914
campaign into full swing in the next few
weeks, women's interest in politics is reported
by Washington visitors to be flourshing, but
it can still be blighted by male politicians
old-fashioned impression that glamour or tear
jerking is the way to appeal to women who
wish and expect to be a real force in the
world to corne.-Christian Science Monitor.
i II ADDC