Aunt Samantha

With the thesis that "Uncle Sam Needs a Wife," finding a thousand flaws in our man-made government, a woman wrote a book.* It was calculated to show how the feminine touch would set things right. One of the chapters was titled, "Wanted--A Female Moses." Ida Clyde Clarke, the writer, found that women needed a leader--one chosen not by men, but by themselves--and proceeded likewise to state what, in her belief, constitutes the inadequacy of certain women leaders of today:

"Mrs. Catt has power and ability.

She could perhaps be our Moses if she had patience and penetration. But she is impatient of the sluggishness of organized women to move toward any definite object, and she frets over their impotency. She is not able to forget that the General

Federation refused to endorse suffrage until 1913. Mrs. Catt could point women's way to world peace, because she is statesmanlike and clearheaded, but she lacks imagination and the magnetism that all really great leaders must have. Her appeal is to the mind and not to the heart and the mind is slow to work when the heart is cold. Jane Addams sees a century ahead, and she sees a clear path to the light for which we are groping--but she sees but one path. If we won't take that path, she walks on alone and leaves us to wander along as best we can."

"Mrs. Winter, for four years president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, seemed to have many ideal qualifications for the leadership of her particular group, but outside of that group women were not inclined to follow her. Alice Paul satisfies entirely the demands of her particular group of ultra-progressives, but her following is comparatively small."

As for the group of women officeholders: "Whatever may be said of the several women who have been elected thus far, they have not been placed in office through the interest of or by the votes of women."

Alice Robertson (Representative from Oklahoma in the 67th Congress) "not even reflected the views of organized women."

Of Mrs. Mae E. Nolan (Representative from California in the 67th and 63th Congresses), she says: "I heard some well-meaning and kind-hearted friends in California say they voted for her because they wanted to 'see her get the money' that her husband would have received had he lived to fill his term in Congress. It was our good fortune that Mrs. Nolan did no violence to any of our cherished principles and we liked her."

"Winifred Mason Huck, young and clever and ready to proclaim and stand for certain ideals that many of us applauded, served a fraction of a term in Congress because she was the daughter of a politician with a following--a following which she inherited at his death. Women neither selected nor elected her."

"Miss Jeannette Rankin, who goes down in history as our first woman member of Congress, though a woman of dignity and ideals and a feminist and a progressive of the first water, was never appreciated by American women. They paid very little attention to her and seemed to know little and care less about what she was doing. Always dignified, always well informed on issues that were before the American people and always on our side, she was a woman in whom we might have taken pride. But she has dropped into obscurity and is little known among the active organized women of today."

" 'Ma' Ferguson was elected Governor of Texas on a sob vote, husband 'Jim' having been ineligible because he had been impeached as Governor of that state. Many friends and sympathizers who thought he had not had a fair trial voted for 'Ma.' The gubernatorial toga may rest easily and becomingly on the form of 'Ma' Ferguson, but it was not placed there by caressing feminine hands."

"Mrs. Ross was selected by the Democrats in Wyoming as a candidate to succeed her husband, who was Governor of that state, three weeks after his death."

"A few women have been placed in high' positions through the active interest of women. Conspicuous among these is Judge Florence E. Allen of the Ohio Supreme Court. Judge Allen, personally and professionally, is a worthy representative of the highest type of American women. At home and abroad, she arrests attention and compels admiration. If she is a sample of the result of hand-picking on the part of women, for goodness sake let's hand-pick some more of them! As for me, I am satisfied to let the world look upon Judge

Allen as typical of the best that American womanhood has to lay upon the altar of public service."

*ITNCLE SAM NEED:; A WIFE.--Ida Clyde Clarke--Winston ($2.00).