Senator Margaret Chase Smith Hits the Campaign Trail (1964)

are very excited about this today. Well they ought to be, the primary is very close. This flat rich prairieland is a new part of the country for Margaret Chase Smith and she hopes to see a lot more new country before November. A twelve hour workday like this is no novelty for her. Having answered almost seventeen hundred Senate roll calls, she is known on Capitol Hill as a one woman taskforce who can out work, out think and outmaneuver many a man. John F Kennedy called her a formidable her political figure. [indecipherable] said an Amazon warmonger hiding behind a red robe. Yet for all her self reliance and efficiency, she's feminine and considerate. 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 at Large, Mr. Nixon, Governmor Scranton, Governor Romney and Governor Stassy would all be on the ballot here to give to give you the widest possible choice instead of sitting this one out because of the apparent strength of Senator Goldwater with a Republican organization of Illinois. I'm going to ask now the 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 of necessity my answer has had to transcend the normal and understandable prejudice that a woman may have. My answer is short and simple. Woman's proper place is everywhere. Since 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 them. In other words to increase the availability of leadership. Women must by their own actions create and force that increased availability. And what do these observations have to do where the answer to what is a place for women? Simply 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 women in shaping the decisions of this country. Margaret Chase Smith of Skowhegan, Maine is no erratic, hopeful suffragette on