MOTHERS IN CIVIC LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 16, 20 January 1931, Page 10

MOTHERS IN CIVIC LIFE.

When I first met Congressman Ruth Bryan Owen, states a ritcr in a London daily, she was speaking to her countrywomen on women in public lifeHer dynamic, magnetic ■ personality gripped mo. It was difficult to decide whether it was her eyes, flashing under archnd, dark eycljrows. 1 (in contrast to Ivor iron-grey shingled hair); liter beautiful aud expressive mouth;'or the-magne-tism of her - oice, so full of cha'ra'iter, which attracted me most. - Then she spoke of motherhood. I realised then that it was her wonderful mother-love shining through everything she said which constituted her Arrest' ing personality. Congressman Ruth Bryan Owen (to give her. her official title) was one of the delegates to the International Parliamentary Union Conference, jutit concluded. She represents, in the Democratic interest in the United States House of Representatives, the fourth district of Florida, and she has been reelected recently (by a four to one vote on her nomination) for a further period of two years. The widow of Major Reginald Owen, Royal Engineers, she is warmly attached to England and the English. My second meeting with her was in one of those delightful old rooms in the Temple, , which appeal so much to the artistic side of this brilliant woman. We spoke of motherhood. Although she is most anxious that the fact that she is a woman should not bo considered in her public life, yet, behind all the efficiency which enables her to keep in close touch with a constituency which is 550ntiilea long, she is essentially a mother. .-■>■•'

"I have 000,000 constituents, and , I look upon them all as just one big family, and I am their mother," she told me, Avith a smile.

"I consider myself a better mother to my own children by extending the four walls of my home. I have four children and two grandchildi'e: r .ie of my children is only four years older than my oldest grandchild. Therefore there is no break from, one generation to another. They are all growing up together , ; before one is conscious of it they are grown "Mothers are the most precious possession of any nation. The services which a good mother can render to her country cannot be emphasised, too strongly, but, I -would add, these are rendered chiefly by extending, the four, walls' of her home. "It ' seems to me only logical that mothers • should interest -Mieaiselves in those things which affect children—their own children, other mothers' children: — and in those subjects which intimately concern her own welfare and happiness and prosperity, which so many laws and Government regulations do. "Many of the laws concern the home and the child. Take the Pure Food Law, which is simply a part of the mother's housekeeping, because impure food can make her children ill. ' "Then the laws which take care of the child "in the city, safeguarding the child on the way to schorl—all those laws are connected with motherhood.:'

"I consider in thefe rt-; :e f s that lawmaking is really housekeeping on a grand scale,", said Mrs. Owen. "I remember when I was only 21 (I was the mother of two children then)', I was told of the arrest of a boy of 12 for stealing a mel6n. He was put in prison. .That bore such obvious results to one's own family that I interested myself in the institution of the first Juvenile Court in the United States. : It seemed to be such a terrible thing for' a, child to be brought into a Court of law, where every kind-of case was being tried, and where he-jniglit see; arid hear •■ things which no child should see or hear. Now, if I had not been a mother I doubt if the arrest of that boy of 12 would have affected.liie so strongly. ;"I have always regarded the making of laws concerning the- homo as the most human- thing about law-making. Laws can have such far-reaching effects to the mother, "andi her.children."