Of People and Politics; 3; The Women

I believe that we are marking a most significant milestone. In this country it took us nearly 150 years to accept the simple truth of what Susan Beant and they used to preach. When she said, it was we the people, not we the white male citizens, nor we the male citizens, but we the whole people who formed this union. Let me now conclude by saying to each of the more than 150 women honored here today. Thank you very much. Thank you for responding to the call of your country. And to the husband's present, now I say that I hope, I earnestly and genuinely hope, that you will overcome your present feelings toward this administration before next year.

The National Educational Television Network presents of People and Politics, 21 programs about the way Americans perpetuate the system under which they live. Tonight, the women. Here is Richard D. Heffner. The American woman on the political scene. She's not a newcomer. Back in the year 1872, a lady named Victoria Claflin Woodhall was the first woman to run for President of the United States. A magnetic faithealer and a spiritualist, she ran on the Equal Rights Party ticket. As far as anybody could determine clearly, she ran on a platform of free love.

Mrs. Woodhall had some impressive qualifications, but none of them were political, and Ulysses S. Grant warned. The second lady to run for the presidency was a strong-willed suffragette named Belville Aquad. She tried twice to get into the White House. Her qualifications were notably superior to Mrs. Woodhall's. She was an attorney, the first woman ever admitted to practice before the Supreme Court. But the American people were not ready in 1884 to consider seriously the candidacy of a woman for President, and Belville Aquad received less than 10,000 votes. Now 76 years later, a woman has not yet been the American President, but women have been for over a century deeply involved in American politics. In March of this year, President Johnson appointed 109 eminently-qualified women to high federal positions. Some of the posts, Commissioner of Atomic Energy, for example, have never been held by a woman before, so that we've come a long way since President Thomas Jefferson said,

the appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor am I. In 1961, President Kennedy convened a President's commission on the status of women. The United Nations has a similar commission. Both organizations are greatly interested in women's political roles, and so are all political parties. But how are women doing in politics today? What are their capacities? What kinds of jobs do they hold? Why do they want to get into the political picture? And how do they do it? This is how Representative Francis P. Bolton of Ohio found herself in Washington. Well, you see, my husband was in here for nearly 10 years, and when he died, the middle of a term, his friends asked me, you better finish it out, Francis. You know more than anybody else about what he thought. And of course, I didn't tell him that I didn't know anything about what he thought.

A man shouldn't bring his thoughts home. He leaves them up here. And I was very glad to come in. I thought it was rather stupid to do it, but there was a year left. And it goes by the end of the year, I was intensely interested, and I've been here ever since. That's 24 years. Not all women have gotten into politics with such beings. The early ladies walked a long, tough, and frustrating road, creating a place for themselves in the mustard world of the man. The suffragette movement started in 1848 in Seneca, New York, at the first Women's Rights Convention. There was always something faintly ludicrous about these ladies who got out of the kitchen for the first time in history. The men said, this is an incongruous intrusion. The lady said, resistance to oppression is obedience to God. Progress was slow, yet in 1916, even before they had the vote, Jeanette Rankin of Montana

took her seat in the House of Representatives, first woman to get there. It was a significant breakthrough in the longest political argument the country had ever seen. And the girls, marching under the banner of a yellow John Quill, coming together 10,000 strong to parade at the 1916 conventions, or a lot more tenacious than the men ever thought they'd been. And finally, in 1920, they won. Susan B. Anthony's Constitutional Amendment, written in 1875, was added to the Constitution 45 years later. Speaker Gillette and Vice President Marshall signed the bill, and the ladies emerged ultimately from the Capitol that day armed with the vote. A woman voted, found it somewhat easier to become a woman politician. Eleanor Roosevelt, she got into politics by being the eyes and ears of a man who could

not walk. She went everywhere, endured years of ridicule, and emerged as the first lady of the world. Claire Booth-Luce wrote a hit play, married Henry Luce, won two congressional terms, and finally became Eisenhower's ambassador to Italy. Mrs. Eugenia Anderson is sworn in as our first woman ambassador. Dean Atchison congratulates a lady who first made a mock in local Minnesota Democratic politics, and a week later, she's in Copenhagen. Pearl Mester, with a fortune based on very heavy machinery, entered politics as the biggest party giver of the Truman years. She wound up as minister to Luxembourg, is today back in Washington still having a ball. Anna Rosenberg came up in politics on the Long Federal Road, an RA Social Security Board, Warman Power Commission, and finally, Assistant Secretary of Defense. Today most women start their career in politics by joining something.

If you're a woman, a Republican, and you live in New York City, you can join the Women's National Republican Club of New York, and you can join a class called the planning organization and conduct of a campaign. The teacher, Colonel William J. Walsh, longtime campaign manager for Fiorello LaGuardia. Now, this course is based on the proposition that the objective of all political activities should be to win elections, either currently or at some time in the future, and elections require campaigns. When elections are lost, it is usually because of inefficiency in the planning organization and conduct of the campaigns. This is not true in every case. Many elections were lost or have been lost that could have been won by knowledge and competence in political campaign techniques. The class technique is simply to set up and run a simulated campaign headquarters, but

other women join groups dedicated to action now. The former president of Seralarans College, Harold Taylor, sees this as one of the most valuable things that they can do. I don't think that women yet have learned how powerful a political force they exert, particularly on the field of human rights, where one can be more radical than one's views publicly if one is a woman, without being suspect of being just politically subversive, than one can as a man. I think people are inclined to allow liberties of a political sort to women that they deny to men. Since 1961, women's strike for peace has been an action organization taking a resolute stand against the threat to human life from nuclear holocaust, but these are women with a wide range of political and social ideas. Here they sit down for an informal exchange with a group of Russian professional women

whom they invited for a three week stay in the United States. My question is, at what age does co-education in the Soviet Union come to a halt? I think if you sit, I might be an education inter-servic human. Is it so? Stand up, back off. That's right. I'm a teacher. I can speak in a loud voice. Well, education inter-servic human is co-educational with all the stages, so there's no separation of the sexes. So from the beginning, little boys and little girls go to the kindergarten together, go to elementary school together, they go to junior high school together, to senior high school together, and when they graduate from high school, they can enter an institution

of higher learning, that too is co-educational, so there's no separation of the sexes at any stage of education in the Soviet Union. Is that the correct answer to your question? But the thing women most frequently join as they move into politics is a campaign, leaving the issues in the sink. They head for campaign headquarters hoping secretly perhaps to be swept up into a vortex of policy-making, but knowing realistically that more mundane things are in store. Two hours, two days, two weeks, or sometimes four years, they work. They type, tabulate, telephone or stuff. Though some men may still question, as Jefferson did, their suitability for high office nobody can question their utility around a precinct.

Four out of five political workers on the local level are women. Six million women were volunteer workers in 1960, when asked if they would volunteer their services for the 64 campaign, eight and a half million women, Democratic and Republican said yes. On the day the polls open, it is women who open and run by. Gradually, their indefatigable enthusiasm is changing the face of American politics, because unlike the traditional male ward worker, these ladies do not have to make a living out of politics. They can be motivated simply by an interest in the candidate, or by a desire to be what the League of Women Voters calls a modest agent for change. Like most top lady politicians, Mrs. Catherine Lockheim knows all about life down on the unsung level.

Well, I began as most volunteers as an eager beaver at the Democratic National Committee, and nearly as I can remember, I did the bottom or the lower rank chores, and I've often thought about it since then, and in those days, we used to have to lick the envelopes and stamps. Nobody does that anymore, because we've got machines to do it. I was brought up by a politically minded father who taught me to love my country, who taught me about legislation, about our government, and when I saw the way our country was going, and so much of the evil around us, I decided that perhaps I should dedicate my life to what I believed in. Well, I got into politics in my hometown on I was a commitment, and I rang doorbells, and I carried petitions, and I did all those menial tasks, which I found extremely interesting I might add. The idea that that's a very deadly existence, I don't think is true. You get to know people, and you get to know your own people, which is what I think is very important.

And yet when you come right down to it, when you compare the number of women off his hold is with the number of men, how much have they accomplished since that convention and cynic are over a century ago? Well, I don't think it's smooth-fast enough, because all you have to do is look at the almost emerging countries, let's take India's the best example, but Japan is another example, but they've had democracy, so to speak, or voting rights for women in much shorter time than we have, and yet they have a greater proportion of women active in politics. Symbolically, it's a man who looks down on the convention of the League of Women Voters as they meet in Pittsburgh this year. The League founded in 1920, now has 135,000 members in 50 states. In partisan with respect to candidates, the League does take a stand on issues. This is usually a moderately progressive stand, so the ladies are sometimes accused of being a female front for the Democratic Party.

I am not a spar of Northampton, Massachusetts. I wish to present this not-precision-in-item, equality of opportunity, studying and evaluation of national policies and programs to improve equality of opportunity. Period. Point of order at number three. The national board would just ask a previous question, because I'd like a clarification of her wording. Did she mean that there was no action on the part of the national board or no opportunity for action because of the devious activity of the Congress? There was no action, no need to act. Number one, isn't the mic on? No, it isn't.

Because this is a new study, your name again, make Peters, California. Because this is a new study, we need an item that has direction if we expect our consensus to have any strength at all. And I think this is too broad and lacks direction. McCauley, State Board of Arizona, I just feel that we are wasting too much time on reconsidering at this point and losing time for program discussion. I move the previous question. All in favor of moving the previous question, I. Opposed? And so on the previous question, illegal women vote as votes. So no more dedicated than the suffragettes. They are more formatively informed over a much wider range of politics. They know candidates, the poll packs, reapportionment, urban renewal, race relations, foreign aid, everything. But their dedication is far greater than the dedication of most American women. With four and a half million more women than men in this country, men still dominate

at the polls. Law, because 22 and a half million eligible women did not bother to vote in 1960. And because in Pennsylvania, with women outnumber men by 330,000, the men outregister the women by 13,000. Ladies, a long way to go. One woman has emerged in the national scene this year, who may provide all American women with a kind of inspiration they have never had before. But Calipoles says that 58% of American men and 51% of American women would vote for a qualified woman to be president. Sir, if a qualified woman were nominated by the party of your choice, would you vote for her for president? Very definitely. The women of the United States are basically running our homes today. And I think that they could, a woman, a qualified woman could do a good job. Oh, she were the right woman. And I wouldn't vote for her just willy-nilly because she was a woman. Sir, would you vote for a woman for president?

Would you be? No. I think she'd get the nomination without being qualified. No. I don't think we'll ever have a woman president. For the reason that I don't think that the woman physically can stand the strain of the presidency, it's a terrific strain. And I don't think that a woman president would be the commander in chief of the Army and Navy at the time of war. And I don't think that the people of this country would want a woman as commander in chief of the Army and Navy and have the final say on what action our country should take in time of war. Margaret Chase Smith is a lady in question. As a candidate for the Republican nomination for president of the United States, she disagrees emphatically with the view of the former postmaster general. Arriving at O'Hare Airport in Chicago the week before the Illinois primary, Margaret Chase Smith is here to show Illinois voters the folksy and charming manner which he has been using to win elections in the state of Maine for almost a quarter of a century. Nothing makes the candidate more real to the voter than that moment when the candidate

reaches out and shakes the voter's hand. It is the most powerful persuasive moment in all politics, especially when it's accompanied by a nice smile. The Senate opposes appreciatively for a little local showmanship, and then her campaign modicade gets underway. Moving west across central Illinois in search of votes, she's serious about her effort realistic about the outcome. This is a typically modest informal Smith campaign trip. The signs are hand-lettered, and the total cost comes to $100. I think it was nice to do this on an informal basis.

Well, I like it. It's not like getting into the homes. I think people feel a little better, and you get a little closer to people when you're doing it all, and I think the role of the rallies, I don't know how much you have, how much you do with rallies, but I think they're of the past. Well, we're not going to have anything like that today. It's going to the South through, either in about an hour. And the regular organization of three counties is sponsoring us today. No interesting. So then we'll move on to more lean. This is a new part of Illinois to me, and I don't know what you think about this. Well, we're covering the central part, central and western part. It's a very great privilege to go in like this, and it all set up before we get in. The people are very excited about this today.

Well, they ought to be probably pretty close. This flat rich prairie land is a new part of the country for Margaret Chase Smith, and she hopes to see a lot more new country before November. A 12-hour workday like this is no novelty for her. Having answered almost 1,700 Senate roll calls, she is known on Capitol Hill as a one-woman task force who can outwork, outthink, and outmaneuver a many a man. John F. Kennedy called her a formidable political figure. First job said, an Amazon warmonger hiding behind a red row. Yet for all of her self-reliance and efficiency, she is feminine and consider. She's careful to get the little girl's name just right before signing the autograph book. Like all politicians, she knows that children have parents, and that the children themselves grow up faster than you might think. More mileage, more towns, more coffee, more people, more handshakes, and then, at the end

of the day, the inevitable political chicken dinner. After the waiters have stopped rattling the dishes, Margaret Chase Smith stands up and tells the folks exactly what she thinks. If I had my way, Governor Rockefeller, Ambassador Lodge, Mr. Nixon, Governor Scranton, Governor Romney, and Governor Stassin, would all be on the ballot here to give you the widest possible choice instead of sitting this one out because of the apparent strength of Senator Goldwater with the Republican Organization of Illinois. I'm going to ask another subject, which is where is the proper place of a woman. It's a question that's often asked of me.

The quizzes have asked this question defiantly, ambitiously, hopefully, and just plain inquisitively, but it has been asked so many times in so many ways, and by so many types of people that have necessitated, my answer has had to transcend the normal and understandable prejudice that a woman might have. My answer is short and simple. Woman's proper place is everywhere. This is the granting of suffrage to women. The only differential between men and women as citizens has been the availability and acceptance of leadership. Some claim that the availability of leadership to women has been unfairly limited. I have no sympathy with this view because it is only those who make the breaks who get

the breaks. In other words, to increase the availability of leadership, women must by their own actions create and force that increase the availability. And what do these observations have to do with the answer to what is the proper place for women? For this, America, the peace leader of the world, has granted the greatest opportunity to the women, and America's peace leadership stems directly from the influence and participation of American women in shaping the decisions of this country. Margaret Chase Smith of Skohegan Main is no erratic, hopeful suffragette on the Equal Rights Ticket.

The significant point about her is that she is a qualified, experienced, hard-working, Republican politician. The significant point about the thousands of ladies down on the lower levels is that they today are equipped for the jobs that they are doing, and with their intense interest in family, home, and school, they've succeeded in injecting these themes more and more into the daily political life of our nation. The time has passed when the phrase women in politics evokes a vision of a group of ladies in ornamental hats, applauding a male candidate with ladylike enthusiasm as they provide a kind of window dressing for his campaign. And no longer content to hold down merely honorary jobs for the glory of their sex. A kind of workday life is at last opening for women in politics as it did long ago in journalism, in business, and in medicine. The future of American women in politics is, of course, not entirely clear, but it would

seem that President Johnson's view is winning out over President Jefferson's, that capable women are here not only to stay, but to flower, and one day we may find them not only in the precincts, but in the presidency too. Next week of people in politics examines primaries, from FDR in New Hampshire, to Barry Goldwater in California. Do they really work? Or are they a perfect example of a reform gone sour? What have they meant to a candidate's chances in the past? And what will they mean in the future? Next week, the primaries. Please clear the aisle. The National Educational Television Network has presented of People and Policies.

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