NATIONAL FIGURE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 122, 26 May 1930, Page 11

NATIONAL FIGURE

WOMAN IN POLITICS

PROSPECTIVE SENATOR

BIG AMERICAN NAVY

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW VO.RK, 16th April.

Mrs. Jiutli Hanna M'Corrnick, who defeated Senator Dencen by a huge "plurality in the Illinois Primaries for the United States Senate, will be the first woman to enter that chamber, if, as is expected, she carries the Senate election in November next, in the Republican interest. She lias much in common with Senator Cairenc Wilsoni the fil'st woman to enter the Canadian Senate. She has been brought up on politics, her father, Mr. Mark Hanna, having been a prominent Senator, and her husband, Mr. Medill M'Cormiek, having beeu in the Senate and House of Representatives, of which his widow has been a member'since 192(3. Unlike Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. M'Cormiek was a prominent suffragette. Of the lute Senator Mark Hanna,_ of Ohio, it is recorded that he made M'Kinley President and was the power behind the throne during his regime. Bovn into its atmosphere, his daughter has always been a student of the great game of American politics. Her husband, former Editor of the "Chicago Tribune," left her many millions when ha died in 1925; _ Although her flair has always beeu polities, she is a noted dairy cattle breeder, and was the only woman in the United States to be on the directorate of the HolsteinFriesian Association. She has a son and two daughters, the eldest thirteen, the youngest .four. WELFARE OF GIRLS. Shortly after her marriage in 1903, Sirs. M'Cormiek went to live with girls employed by the Union Stockyards to study their problem. As a result of her efforts, n welfare department was formed, through the wives and daughters of officials of . the great packing firm. She founded a home for girls at Washington and made a gift of 100,000 dollars to the Memorial Presbyterian Church of that city. With her husband, she followed Roosevelt into the Progressive Party, but came back to the regular ranks of Republicanism when Mr. M'Cormiek was elected to the Senate. Throughout the life of the Progressive Party, she handled all its women's organisations. In 1920 she was given a signal honour when she helped to close the Republican, campaign by speaking from the same, platform in Marion, Ohio, with Warren G. Harding. In that year she was, chosen' Republican national committee-woman- from Illinois. ' In the campaign just ended, the main issue was the entry of the United States into the World Court. Opposing it, she received th"c support of that bizarre figure, "Big Bill" Thompson and his satellites. She travelled 34,000 miles over the State in an open car and made as many as nine speeches in a day. Mr. Deneen beat her husband in the Senate primaries, and it i said in Washington that, when Mr. M'Cormiek died, she swore a political vendetta against his conqueror. Senator Deneen is a product of the Chicago school, a professional politician, used to the rough-and-tumble of office-seeking in its crudest form. Mrs. M'Cormiek was equally resourceful, knew every rope that should bo pulled, and could have every aid that money could buy. LIFE IN WASHINGTON. Twelve years after her husband was elected Congressman-at-Large she won the same post and went back to Washington, where her Sunday night suppers attracted as much attention ns had the famous Mark Hanna breakfasts in 1897. Washington is the most European pity in the United States. Rank and title, ritual and precedence abound there. Mrs. M'Cormiek solved the precedence difficulty —a problem that never ceases to rage at Washington—by giving buffet suppers, at which the junior representative of the Dakotas jostled the British Ambassador in getting a second helping' of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding from the sideboard. The Elihu Hoot formula for the World Court came in for scathing criticism at her hands. She urged her constituents never to allow the American army and navy to bo reduced to a point where it would be outranked by any other power, and that the United States should ever be mindful of George Washington's last warning that America should, at all costs, beware of foreign entanglements. By a curious coincidence, her election came about on the same day as. the agreement of the American delegation to the Naval Conference to curtailments of her naval programme, in consonance with the ideas of Groat Britain and Japan. On this point, we may expect to/hear from Mrs. M'Cormiek in the Senate, where everyone expects she will "arrive" at the November election. ______________