Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-03-28
By IsobeIIe Shelton

The political temperature Is
rising in 435 congressional dis
tricts across the country as the
November elections approach.
Here in Washington. the candi-
dates wives are getting together
and comparing notes on how
they can help their husbands win
reelection.
Several such confabs have been
organized among Democratic
House and Senate wives by Mrs.
Katie Louchheim, vice chairman
of the Democratic National Com
mittee, and others are planned.
All 435 House seats and IS
Senate seats will be up before
the voters this fall, and in al
most every district the women's
vote is taking on an added i'm
portance, as more and more
women are going to the polls
each year.
This has precipitated many
congressional wives into the po-
litical arena, to a degree that
would have been considered I'M
seemly in many districts only a
decade ago.
Mrs. Clair Engle, whose hus-
band has represented Cali
fornia'S I'd district for the
past 10 years, tells how she and
her husband cover his 600-mile-
long district by airplane-a
rented two-Seater or four-seater
which the Representative flies
himself.
They spend each August and
September attending county
fairs and rodeoS, dressed in
western clothes" tight from
tier pants and regular cowboy
hoots-which are practically
uniforms for such occasions.
ut wasn't that we were trying
to look like cowboys" she says.
''It was the only sensible thing
to wear, when everybody else was
dressed that way. Ours is
largely rural district, and there
are lots of cattle people. We
would have stood out like sore
thumbs in any other kind of
clothes.
Besides, I found the boots
wonderfully comfortable. We
spent most Of each day wander
ing over the fair grounds. in and
out of barns and exhibit build
ingS and scrambling into review
ing stands. You can't do much
Of that in high heels and ny
Ions"
Campaigning in their big
sparsely-settled district is large
" on a personal basis, she said.
I'VE don't hold very many big
political meetings. We just get
out and around and get ac-
quainted with people, and let
them satisfy their curiosity
about what we are like.
"I was new to the district
when I married my husband.
He knew everybody there. The
first thing he taught me was
always to smile at everybody and
say hello as If I knew them. He
said the chances are I had met
them, but there were 50 many
new faces at once ! couldn't re-
member them all.
THAT worked out all right
until one morning when he had
to go to a breakfast meeting. I
went to the Post Office by myself.
It was a sort of social gathering
place each morning. A big
cowboy came along the street.
I gave him a big smile and said
Hello, how are you?' He stopped
dead in his tracks, and said
We'll, hello there honey I
marched right home and asked
my husband II he still wanted
me to say hello to everybody"
Mrs. Emily Taft Douglas, the
wife of Illinois Senator Paul
Douglas and a former Illinois
Representative in her own right
(while her husband was in the
Marines during the war;, also
recalls an embarrassing expert
ence which grew out of pretend
ing to recognize a constituent
she couldn't recall.
''It was at a crowded meet
ing" she related. "a man came
up and said you remember me,
don't you The face was vaguely
familiar, and I said oh yes. of
course He handed me a plain