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a rejoinder. You may not agree with her, you probably won't, for she is a sort of a political "jay-walker," and crosses the beaten track whenever and wherever she likes. But you'll like her just the same.

Mrs. McCormick came into national prominence in the old suffrage days when the lamented Anna Howard Shaw was our leader. She was one of the gems mined out of the solid rock of feminine indifference by those brave pioneers. Socially Socially prominent young women were not joining in large numbers in those days, and here was here was an influential, wealthy, attractive, intelligent young woman who was indeed an asset to the cause. She was made chairman of the Congressional committee of the National Suffrage Association, then the most important office in the organization with the exception of the presidency. That was about the time Alice Paul with her followers "bolted" and formed a Congressional committee of their own, out of which has grown the National Woman's party.

Mrs. McCormick, since early girlhood, has been interested in the advance of women. At various times she has supported the Women's Trade Union League, the National Civic Federation, the Consumers' League, the American Association for Labor Legislation, the Women's Club for Civic Improvement in Chicago, and the Women's Section of the Navy League, which she formed. She was active in the Progressive party in the days of its prominence, and in 1920 was elected chairman of the Women's National Republican Committee. She is an active member of the Women's City Club of

Chicago and of the Colony Club and the Women's City Club of New York. Social life, as we are accustomed to think of it, interests her no more than it interests her intimate friend Alice Longworth. Neither is she interested in the common or garden variety of women's clubs.

This, in brief, is the picture of Mrs. McCormick as the world knows her in a public way, but no description of this unusual woman, not even so slight a sketch as this, would be honest, unless it gave some insight into her personal and home life.

Really to understand her one must remember that even as a child Ruth Hanna had much in common with her celebrated father. She was very often with him, read with him, studied with him, campaigned with him, and knew personally and intimately many of the most eminent men of that day. She lived her father's stirring political life almost as keenly as he lived it. In 1903 she married Medill McCormick of Chicago, whose family traditions, political and otherwise, were quite similar to her own. They had common interests; and had he lived, I doubt if she would have sought political honors for herself.

All of her life Mrs. McCormick has been extremely active, and her activities have never been trivial or inconsequential; and yet a more devoted mother of three lovelier children would be hard to find. It was when Katrina and her younger brother John were quite small that their mother became interested in a pure milk supply. That interest, inspired as it was by a mother's love and concern for her babies, now finds expression in a thousand-acre dairy

farm at Byron, Illinois, where Mrs. McCormick has a noted herd of Holsteins, including "Aggie," celebrated for the quantity of milk she gives, and a number of other prize-winners. Mrs. McCormick spends much time on this farm and gives it a great deal of personal attention. There she has taught her children their first lessons. During part of each year the family home is in an apartment on the Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, and Mrs. McCormick also maintains an apartment in New York which she occupies occasionally. She has undoubtedly demonstrated that lifelong and enthusiastic interest in politics and in public life need in no degree lessen a woman's devotion and attention to her home and children.

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As to business ability Mrs. McCormick can hold her own with any man. One example will show her gifts in this direction. As chairman of the Women's Republican Committee her task was to raise money. One day her friend Helen Bennet was commiserating with her on this task. "I wish you would stop feeling sorry for me and give me an idea," was her reply. Miss Bennet proposed a Women's World Fair for the exploitation of the activities of women. Mrs. McCormick was interested but not convinced. She remembered that her friend Mr. Wrigley, of chewing-gum fame, has, so she thinks, an uncanny sense of the commercial value of an idea. In half an hour they were in Mr. Wrigley's office, and the big idea had passed the censor. People generally had told Miss Bennet that it would take a year to organize the project and put it through.

Mr. Wrigley saw things differently. "Go ahead and do it," was his advice. "Hire a hall, make the best showing you can the first year, open the doors, and tell the world to come to the first Women's World Fair ever held. The idea is good for five or ten years, and you can improve it every year." In four

That was in December. months the doors were opened. There was no underwriting. There was no borrowed money to pay back. Every Saturday all current bills were paid. The fair opened absolutely free of all indebtedness, and the bank-balance stood around $20,ooo. When the doors were closed at the end of the seventh day there was a clear profit of over $40,000. The next year the experiment was repeated with even greater success. The fair is no longer the project of a political committee but is operated on a permanent basis by its own independent organization.

The beginning of this great and expertly handled enterprise furnishes a shining example for women who wish to raise money. A new bank building offered the most desirable place in Chicago for the fair. The bank president said the rental was $1000 a day, $7000 for the seven days. The women said that was too much, and that they could only pay $5000. He said he could not reduce the price. Did that settle it with those women? It did not. They took a walk, and in the course of the walk they asked some thirty people, selected at random, for directions to that building, and not one of them knew where it was. They went back and told the bank president about it. They convinced him that the place needed ad

vertising and reminded him of the advertising value of a Women's World Fair. He stuck resolutely to his price, but the next day he telephoned Mrs. McCormick that if they would rent the place for $7000 his bank would take $2000 worth of advertising space at the fair, and the proposal was accepted. Now notice this: His terms called for $1000 cash on the signing of the contract, and their terms called for 50 per cent cash on the signing of the contract. He paid $1000 first (at their suggestion), and then they paid it back to him!

That same day they went to see the manager of Chicago's largest department-store. It was an inviolable rule of that store never to take space in any fair or exposition. It never had been done, and it never would be done. That was what he said. But, lo, the inviolate became violate. The contract was signed, a check for 50 per cent of the amount given, and the next day the bankaccount was opened.

It is not surprising to learn that Mrs. McCormick is personally handling her own estate and that of her late husband. She is the guardian for three orphaned children, runs her farm, and in addition to all this she may be a candidate in the near future for some high political office. As a mother, as a business woman, as a speaker, as a politician, she is all that American women could desire as their representative in public office. But both by marriage and in her own right she is a hopeless "irreconcilable," and therefore her views would not be in harmony with those of the majority of organized women. She She has been from the beginning opposed

to the World Court and the League of Nations, on the ground that there is no question that we could conceivably take before the World Court that we could not take before the older Hague Tribunal, whether we belonged to the World Court or not; and that in joining this court we become morally liable for its actions, liability which she thinks might eventually force us into war. She says she is opposed to war, but believes that our present efforts toward peace are misdirected and that they will prove ineffectual.

Here, then, is the woman who may, within the next few years, generate enough power to put her in some high public office. If we are to have a woman president in my day and yours the miracle must be wrought through wrought through power and not through popularity. A woman who could charter a train at an expense of about $12,000 to take her from New York to Chicago in order not to miss a meeting she wanted to attend, as Mrs. McCormick did recently, could probably do almost anything she willed to do. You possibly may not agree with her political views, but you will like her for her ability, her simplicity, her directness; you will admire her for her beautiful home life, for her fine qualities as a wife and mother, for her business genius. If Ruth Hanna thought as organized women of America think, or if they thought as she thinks, what a leader she would make!

At any rate it is interesting to know that we have at least one woman with a political technique heretofore supposed to be possible to the male only-even though we do not agree with her.

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A PIRATE IN THE LINEN-CLOSET

THEODORA DU BOIS

UNCH was very pleasant. Leslie was always thankful that she had stuck to Colonial in the dining-room and not gone off into Spanish with its refectory-tables and lanterns and exotic things like that. White wainscoting and grass paper and good old mahogany-you couldn't get anything much better. As a matter of fact the room looked like one of those photographed interiors in "Home and House" or "Beautiful Gardens," only in the pictures you couldn't get the color, or the breath of warm cut grass from outside, or the spiciness of the nasturtiums in the center of the table, or the drowsy sound of crickets, or the stir of curtains in the wind. If she hadn't married, or if anything should happen to Peter, she knew she could make a fortune at interior decorating. That chintz at the French windows was particularly good, yellow and orange and red and green and parrots climbing among woven tropical branches, and who else would have had sense enough to use Quimper ware in this room? She loved its gay colors on the heavy cream linen runners. And her iced tea had caught all the browns and yellows and golds and turned them to liquid amber with a sprig of green mint like emerald in the frosty glass. It would be fun to try your hand at decorating! The freedom of

it and the joy of working with colors! She would buy one of those shiny low sport-cars for herself-maize yellow perhaps, with a fascinating naked nymph diving off the radiatorcap. Of course she didn't want anything to happen to Peter, but marriage did simply choke all your talents and abilities, and children weren't enough. Although they were darlings! How sweet they looked with their little faces reflected in the table! Those sailor blouses were perfectly darling on little Peter, but he was far too thin and pale lately and cried too much. Dr. Baldwin was bound to have his tonsils out.

"June dear," she said, "I haven't heard a word you've been saying. What is it?"

"Why, about Jingle, you know. There's a little gold door in the garden wall back of the rhododendrons, and every day a man comes out with a peacock and plays with us. He's got bells on his clothes that jingle, and a white peacock too."

"He has bells,' not 'he's got bells,' June dear."

"Yes, and he hates the pirate too. Mother, I don't think Petey ought to play with that pirate so much, he's so afraid of him." "Don't say that. Don't say that. Don't say that." Petey was just on the verge again, shrieking so.

"Don't tease him, June," Leslie said. "You'll get him all upset. Peter, it's all right, darling. Juney won't say it. Eat your chop." How adorably his lower lip turned in! He said, "Its lumps stick in my froat."

"Shure there's no lumps, Mrs. Anthony. I cut off every bit of fat.” Martha was a good nurse and much nicer looking than most, so thin and with a really decent haircut-not like a wild woman at all. But she was apt to feed Petey too fast. "Here, ate this, Pater," she said, "or ye'll not grow to be as big a man as yer father."

Now what was there in that to upset the child so? He howled and beat his Quimper plate with his knife. "Don't say that-don'tdon't-"

"Peter, stop this instant. Don't let him have the knife again, Martha. You'll have to finish your lunch out in the kitchen. Take him out please, Martha." It was remarkable that Martha wasn't deafened with Peter howling into her neck like that. Lovely hair he had, like unsalted butter.

"He didn't like Martha's saying that about he wouldn't grow to be as big as father. He always says when he's as big as father he'll kill the pirate. He's awfully scared of the pirate. May I have some more peas, mother? I've got to liking them, haven't I?"

"Don't say 'got' so much, dear. Yes, you may have some peas." She stretched her foot about under the table and finally found the humped place in the rug that was the bell.

"Peter's awfully funny, mother.

He cries and hits the pirate on the head when he sees him crawling out of the little gold door, but he says he has to play with him all the time."

"That's perfect nonsense. You children are not to play such silly games. Please pass the peas, Delia, and I should like some more bread." How lucky she was not to have to worry all the time about getting too fat, like most women!

"Thou shalt do no murder," June said. "What commandment is that, mother? I mean what number?"

"Isn't it the sixth-or the second?" What did that combination of numbers remind her of? oh, yes, that absurd song, "Put down six and carry two-tum-ta-ta-tum-ta-ta.” Was it "The Red Mill"? No"Babes in Toyland," and she had won a blue crêpe de Chine dress with a long full pleated skirt and a high collar with bones and ruching. How ridiculous she must have looked! "June, don't let your peas spill over the edge of your plate."

"All right, mother. I wonder if we'll have peas at the Brown party. They 'most always do. They're going to have a Punch-and-Judy. I do hope I won't get measles or anything. I haven't been to a party since Christmas. I'm just estatically anxious to see a Punch-andJudy."

Leslie laughed. "You know Mrs. Brown is coming over for tea this afternoon, with the children." How dreadful it would be if Petey and June were as plain as the little Browns! Terrible if they should have to wear glasses-goggling out at the world like little frogs. The water-pitcher was tarnished around the handle. She could see it even

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