sewing-women who earned less than twenty-five cents a day.

But there have been rapid and radical changes in the political and economic status of women during the last fifty years, and it is a safe prediction that should the organized women of the country decide that they want a woman in the White House, and if they could agree on the candidate, it would be no laughing matter to the men aspirants for the honor or to their supporters. It may be interesting, therefore, to consider the women citizens of these United States who may have personality, power, popularity, and political technique enough to make a creditable race for the presidency.

A wide sweep of the field brings the number of our female presidential possibilities down almost to the vanishing-point. Few women can be classed as "timber," politically or otherwise. Most of us are still in the vine class and have tendrils going out in every direction seeking something to cling to.

In fact, we are not satisfied to be mere clingers; we wind and we twine and are never quite willing to let go.

There are, it is true, some "favorite daughters," but, however able they may be, none has yet attained in any marked degree national prominence or importance. Among the increasing number of women holding public office, none, so far, has achieved such national popularity as would sweep her into the White House.

and native ability, as well as by training and experience, as a worthy claimant for any high political honor. But she is the spokesman for the aristocrat among women's organizations, and her popularity is among the sophisticated few. It is scarcely to the credit of women that, after almost a lifetime of zealous, persistent, and highly effective effort on their behalf, Mrs. Catt is able to muster only a million or two of the twenty-seven million eligible women voters to march under her banner of feminine freedom. feminine freedom. The magazine which bears the stamp of her personality, carries her name at the masthead, and has continued to exist largely through her faith and generosity, has never had more than a few thousand subscribers. This lack of appreciation and loyalty is, to me, one of the most discouraging aspects of the present situation regarding women. It was in the convention of 1900 that Mrs. Catt, newly elected president of the American Suffrage Association, and referred to by the press of the day as a representative of "the younger generation," was led to the platform by the venerable Susan B. Anthony, who said: "In Mrs. Catt you have my ideal leader. I present you my successor." And from that moment to this Mrs. Catt has been on the firing-line in every battle for the freedom of women. It might conceivably be that the women of America, having neglected and failed to appreciate Mrs. Catt for all of these years, would rally to her standard in case she were a candidate for the presidency.

women, it is natural for us to think of the club-women. It is doubtful, however, if there are more than three or four million women in the United States who may be classed as "clubwomen." If the General Federation of Women's Clubs has three million members, and the National League of Women Voters has two million, at least one million will have to be counted off because of overlapping membership. In fact, practically all members of the League of Women Voters belong to other clubs of one kind or another.

So organized women, even if they could agree on a platform and a candidate and this they will probably never do-do not hold the balance of power, and it is doubtful if they have a leader who is able, magnetic, and appealing enough to capture the votes of the other millions of unorganized women voters.

And then there are the national political parties to be reckoned with. The very thought of a woman president is, as yet, intolerable to the parties; and though women have, in certain local situations, demonstrated that they will scratch the party ticket if the challenge rings high enough and clear enough, no national test of women's party loyalty has yet been applied. And it is exceedingly doubtful if women have yet achieved anything like enough independence of thought and enough courage of action to heed the still small voice within a women's "bloc," when men are sending megaphone messages from national party headquarters.

It appears that the woman political racer for big stakes, who might be swift enough to outrun her op

We have, I believe, not more than three women who possess the tremendous potential power necessary to achieve high political honors, aside from group influence, and only one of these is exercising her power politically or has any avowed political ambitions. These three are Anne Morgan, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, and Ruth Hanna McCormick.

Each is a worthy representative of a celebrated American family, and each has undoubtedly inherited certain rare gifts and striking traits; but in addition to inherited wealth, talent, family name and traditions, each of these remarkable women has brains and ability that would mark her as exceptional, aside from her family background and recognizable inheritance. Each is distinguished for having inherited specific talents from a celebrated father; but it is the plus-the feminine embodiment of these gifts-that gives to America three super-endowed women, any one of whom could probably get what she really wanted if she should set her head to it and put the full force of her influence back of the effort.

Now I am not considering popularity. I am considering power, potential political power in the possession of women. If the millions

of American women should be asked to vote for the woman they like best, the majority of votes would doubtless be cast for Mary Pickford or some other "queen of the silver screen." If the younger generation were represented I do not doubt that Helen Wills would be a favorite.

No male aspirant for the White House need quake a single quake in his political boots on account of Anne Morgan, for she is not politically minded in the least. But I believe she might be the first woman in the world to achieve the highest honor within the gift of a people if she really craved that gift. However, she does not now, nor do I be lieve she ever will crave such honor. Her mind works quickly and definitely with a majestic Morganesque sweep-but it does not work politically.

Anne Morgan is essentially kind. She is socially minded to an unusual degree, and without being conscious of it. She is sympathetic to a fault. She is easily influenced at times by people she likes, and she likes people thoroughly and often on short notice. Anne Morgan has the human sympathies of a Lincoln, though she may lack his deep understanding of humanity; she has the high impetuous spirit and the personal magnetism of a Roosevelt, though she may lack his acute political sense; she has the inner poise and surety of a Coolidge, but in times of stress she would never be willing to keep cool with anybody. She is all for action, and her policy is invariably a positive and not a negative one. And, I might add, she can out-Hoover Hoover when it comes to organization ability.

Her work as head of the American Committee for Devastated France will forever stand as an example of fine generalship, and it is to the credit of America and to the honor of American women that she belongs to us. She is one of the few women who know how to delegate detail work. She sees things always in the large and in outline. She never starts a thing until she can see the finish of it. She is not infallible in her judgments, she is often mistaken in people, and she is not inclined to change a plan once she has made it. But she is a good sport. If, in the end, she finds that she has been wrong, she knows it and admits it; and if financial loss has resulted from her decisions made against the advice of her co-workers, she dismisses the whole matter speedily by personally making the loss good. And, biggest and best of all, she is an adept in the fine and delicate art of being a friend.

Her method is admirably exemplified in her recent work in the interest of the project of the American Women's Association, of which she is treasurer, for the seven-milliondollar club-house for business and professional women to be erected in New York.

The association had acquired property carrying a mortgage of a million and a half dollars, and had been aggressively at work in an effort to sell three million dollars' worth of stock to make the proposed club-house a reality. When things failed to go as she thought they should go, when campaign enthusiasm was on the down beat, when discouragement settled over the faithful few who had worked with soldier-like fidelity,

Anne Morgan took an office in Wall Street and occupied it during business hours of every business day. How she did it is beyond the ken of those of us to whom Wall Street and its doings are deep and magnificent mysteries, but since Anne Morgan opened that office something has happened. The building-site previously secured has been disposed of, and another more desirable (and incidentally a million or so more expensive) has been secured on Fiftyseventh Street, in the very heart of New York's most expensive business district, near the site of the new Metropolitan Opera House; and whereas the enterprise had been a four-anda-half-million-dollar one-staggering to the brain of the average woman— it is now nearer a seven-milliondollar undertaking. On that site will be erected the greatest women's club in the world, the exclamation point in the story of women's progress.

Since seeing her recently exploited recommendation of a beauty cream (and I confess this astounded me), I have come to the conclusion that Anne Morgan might become so interested in some cause as to run for office if she could be brought to believe that in so doing she could serve that cause. But for her I believe it would be a very great sacrifice.

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As for Alice Longworth-it is doubtful if there is an American woman who is better informed or who has more decided opinions on national and international politics and affairs than Alice Longworth. But if she has or has ever had the slightest purely personal ambition in the direction of politics she has never

given an outward sign. Perhaps she works off her political steam vicariously. Underground gossip at Washington is all to the effect that the Hon. Nicholas Longworth is dreaming a big dream of taking the charming Alice back to the White House some day, and she may be waiting for that. Every now and then some one used to rise to prophesy what might happen if Alice Longworth should take a notion to run for the United States Senate, but she seems to think that one statesman in the family is a full quota, and after the arrival of baby Paulina all fears of her mother's breaking into politics subsided. And if there remained any doubt as to her attitude, the doubt was set at rest when she declined the appointment last fall as national Republican committeewoman from Ohio.

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But behold Ruth Hanna McCormick, daughter of Mark Hanna and widow of Senator Medill McCormick of Chicago, clad in all her inherited and acquired political glory, and glad of it! "I was the first woman ward politician," she says proudly. In the early days of her career she was even quoted as saying, "I am a professional lobbyist, a ward-heeler, a favor-seeker, an office-seeker, and I hope something of a precinct boss."

Well, that was some years ago. Ruth McCormick has long ceased to think in terms of precinct or ward. Sitting in her pleasant drawing-room on Lincoln Drive in Chicago, she told me quite simply and frankly that the only two offices that would interest her would be the governorship of Illinois and the United States senatorship.

"Or a place in the president's cabinet?" I suggested.

"No," she said immediately, as if she had thought it all through; "that doesn't interest me. There's nothing there I want."

"Isn't there any diplomatic post you'd like?" I asked, but she was ready for that question too.

"No," she said. "There are so many things to do here at home. And, besides, I don't think women are ready for diplomacy yet. In fact, I don't want to be appointed to anything. That wouldn't appeal to me. I want to be elected in a fair fight on a clean-cut issue."

So be sure of this much: no political widow's weeds for her. She wants her plum-blossoms fresh and in full bloom, and she chooses to pluck them for herself, thank you! Ruth Hanna was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1880. She made her first political speech when she was sixteen from the rear platform of a special car in which her fatherthen, and for some time thereafter, the most spectacular figure in American politics-was campaigning. He had made his speech sixteen times that day, and she had heard it sixteen times. At eleven o'clock at night another crowd was clamoring for a speech. His throat had given out. She knew that speech, word for word, and so she delivered it.

Mrs. McCormick is the only woman in America with a political technique. If she achieves high political honors it will not be because of her personal popularity. Women do not like her, and she knows it perfectly well.

Men are afraid of her, and she knows that too. The women of her own political party voted for her as

a national committeewoman, but she was not of their choosing. And she prefers it that way. She prefers power to popularity every time.

Yes, Ruth McCormick's political technique is superb, and the men know it. There is nothing hidden in the big game of American politics that has not long been revealed to her. She can meet the men politicians on their own ground. Important men come frequently and from long distances to consult with her, and most of them would be considerably more comfortable if they knew just what she does intend to do.

As a matter of fact, Mrs. McCormick has announced no political plans whatever. That is why so many people are worrying about her. If they could only know what she is going to do! Not that she is either waiting for or wanting what politicians call a "walk-over." "I love a fight-and the stiffer it is the better I like it," she told me with a toss of her head, and any one who has known this clever woman as I have known her is convinced that she means it. Just now she is merely "sitting pretty," biding her time; and every prospect pleases. There is no man in her party better informed on political issues than she is, and she is sure to play a star part in the political drama of the next few years.

In personal appearance she is tall, slender, and dark. She dresses smartly, and invariably with extreme simplicity. She is one of the best speakers in the country, being concise, logical, and convincing. In debate she is brilliant. Even when she speaks on highly controversial topics to unsympathetic audiences, she is never confused or unready with