The Evening Star FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1924. WOMEN AND POLITICS.

Evening Star, Issue 18784, 7 November 1924, Page 6

The Evening Star FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1924. WOMEN AND POLITICS.

Woma.v suffrage now is an accepted principle. in most countries, but tho number of women politicians increases but slowly, when it increases at all. It is to be feared that ardent feminists will be unable to view the results of cither the British or the American elections with much satisfaction. Porty-ono women were nominated for British seats, and only four of them—Txuiy Atdor, the Duchess of Alboll, Mrs Hilton Dhilinson, and a newcomer, Miss 'Wilkinson—wore elected. There seems room for a com plaint that has not yet been uttered in the fact that whereas it look, roughly, 19,000 votes to elect a Conservative, 36,000 to return a Laborite, and 72,000 to make a Liberal successful, mors than 100,000 votes were required to elect a woman. Four women members make only half the number that sat in the previous Parliament. There would appear to be something very inconsistent in an electorate that could admit the value of women’s representation and confine it to so insignificant, and comparatively uninfluential a number. “The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink together,” says the poet, but, politically, the odds are still against tho woman. Tho significance of some of these feminine defeats might easily he over-estimated. Miss Margaret Bondfield was among the rejected, but it was only ns a minority member that slio was returned a year ago. Miss Susan Lawrence, another Labor member, might have stood more chance of being returned again if her zeal had not taken her to Russia recently. The successful women candidates were, with one exception, Conservatives, supported by that party and not by any disciples of what might bo regarded as more advanced thought. If the cause of women’s representation has gone backward in Britain it docs not seem to -have gone forward particularly in America, Only twenty-two women were there nominated for a House of 435 members, which would suggest that in the most advanced democracy in tho world the ambition of women to sit in Parliament is not more than a most exceptional one. Probably the majority believe that it is better not to have political fame, but to have power over those that have it. It is not reported that any Congress women have been elected. There seems a prospect of two women Governors being returned, which would make a now sphere for women’s direct control in the United State?; hut those victories, if they occur, would appear to involve only tho smallest significance for feminism. Airs Miriam A. Ferguson stood for the Governorship of Texas, not because she believed that women should be Governors, but to vindicate the honor of her husband, who bad been hounded from that office by a Ku Klux Klan campaign and was ineligible to stand 1 himself. As there was no other Democratic candidate, Texts, being part of (he “solid .South," irrevocably wedded to the Democrats’ cause, would have had no alternative but to elect her, irrespective of, the appeal which must have been made to men voters by such an example of wifely devotion. Mrs Nellie Boss, in Wyoming, promise? to succeed her late husband as Governor. A cable .message from America, of unusual frankness, pays a, tribute to the courage of Mrs Fergnfcii in facing the polls, despite the “ inherent disimlimit-ion of men to vote {or a woman." Tho general fate of women candidates in both the British and .American elections would, make it usedess for men generally to plead that they arc maligned when that reluctance is imputed to them, but it is as plain that the im-willingne.-s or tho prejudice is not confined to tliein sex.

Two American professors have been considering the question, why I .he invasion of political positions by women has not made mom progicss in Urn Lulled Slates. I’vacticallv thev find it in the hint that fern-

inisnx, as an active causa, ba» comparatively few convert® yet either among men or women. I 1 ic records of Illinois, which alone among American States keeps separate statistics of men’s and women’s votes, slnaw that women do not, vote there in anything like the same proportion as men. In the Presidential election of four years ago the feminine poll was only 6L5 per cent, of the other. Even in local elections, involving issues like that of Prohibition, which arc usually presumed to appeal particularly to the woman voter, this disparity was shown. Prom estimates which have been made for the other SUaies, with the earlier proportions of men suffragist® known to have exercised their privilege and the general increase of votes since woman franchise was adopted to servo as guides, it is concluded that the position is not different, except in the greater apathy of women, for the Union as a whole. Two points which have been established from the study of the Illinois records are, first, tho high support given by women, as compared with men, to the Prohibition Party (generally assumed to be the same in other places, where statistics are not kept separately); and, second, tho weakness of tho women’s vote in the so-called I’adical parties. The woman’s vote iu Britain may yet bo the chief bulwark against Socialism. As to the attitude of men towards women politicians, tho professorial inquirers, whose conclusions appear in a recent number of ‘Current History,’ are not more flattering Ilian the cable message we have quoted. In many States in America, women are now afforded equal representation 10 men upon all national, State, and county committees of the politicqi party organisations. Tammany Hall makes its women leaders in each district nominally as important as men. But the real control, according to these investigators, is always reserved by men. Only the appearance of it is given to women, “ because there is a new body of voters upon whom the male politicians must smile.” The major parties seldom nominate women for political seats, except when they are hopeless seats for the party. Nor is it otherwise in tho matter of office-holding. “In the main, women occupy positions that are lacking in one or both of the two features which make office-holding att.m/'iivA to men —salary and nowet.” ■■