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THE SUN AND NEW YORK HERALD, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1920, 11 Women Are Taking to Politics Like Ducks to Water Old Line Party Lead ers Studying the On certainty Injected by New Voters, This State Being a Shining Example By MARTHA COMAN. IT has been but a step from the suffrage ring to tho political arena. Women who have been trained aa franchise fighter have taken to the new environment and the solving of the larger issues like dunks to wntar. The men higher up admit their political adaptability and value, though they are still uncertain regarding the direc tion of the combined feminine activities. "How did you happen to go into poli ties,?" ono of the most aggressive Repub lican captains was asked. "Well" she answered tersely, "I was born in Ohio." Most of the women who are already leatl-cr- in tho two parties have the same or nir.ution background. They have joined hands in a friendly spirit with the men in the wider movement which determines the policies of tho country, and are availing themselves of every educational oppor tunity to fit themselves for deciding on i.-ups and candidates if not for actually holding offices. In national politics, so far as women are concerned, New York and Illinois have picked the political pluins. It may be re rnlled, for club activities arc not yet for gotten, that thc.se two States were leaders in the less important movements into which women threw themselves with heart and soul. It is only consistent therefore that they should be in the front rank when the new array is formed. Mrs. John Glover Smith, of Frankfort, Ky., and Miss Mary Garrett Hay of Now York are the leaders of the Republican Na tional Committee. Mrs. George Bas of Chicago reigns as the, head of the Demo cratic National Committec'h Women's Ru ieau. Mrs. South, whose political training dates back to suffrage days, is chairman f the Republican Committee of her own State and was elected to succeed Mrs. Medill McCormick of Chicago as chairmun of the Women's Committee of the National Republican Committee. Kentucky has been generous in her recognition of women in the Democratic party's activities by ap pointing Mrs. Samuel T. Castlcman of Louisville a member of the Women's Com mittee of the Democratic National Com mittee. Though not an equal suffrage State, Ken tuck" lias shown her desire for the national lecognition of the disfranchised sex by ratifying the Federal suffrage amendment. She's the Storm Centre. Miss Hay is bound to be the storm centre ( the New York State political campaign, which is already outlining its programme for the April primaries. Her opposition to the n6Tninat:on of Senator .lames W. Wads worth, Jr., for re-election to the United States Senate is causing the Republican party deep concern. Her disapproval of the Republican Senator is of long standing, and is based on his anti-suffrage attitude and his refusal to vote for the Federal suf frage amendment when his vote would have scored a victory for the women o tho coun try during the session of Congress preced ing that which finally indon-oU tho bill. Every time that Miss Hay publicly criti cised the Republican Senator she lei Will Hays, national committeeman, know that she was willing to resign from the national women's committee. But the chairman so far has declined to consider accepting her resignation. The situation has become so tense that the Republicans have been casting about for another Republican candidate in the event that the women's vote, which Miss Hay may or may not influence largely, is a ihing for the party to reckon with. As chairman of the New York City Iaguo of Women Voters Miss Hay may be nble to swing the deciding number of bal lots. Her suffrago training has proved an xecllent step into political leadership-and I er reputation is not only Statewide, but national. Both the State and the city leagues of women voters are non-partisan bodies, yet i's workers are allied with both the Demo--ratie and the Republican organizations. When the league decides to campaign for or against a candidate or an issue the re sult of its activities may or may not be pr- ciltollS. This element of uncertainty in the power i women leaders is a thing the seasoned oohtical chiefs arc pondering over. In fact hey are sitting up nights considering situa Mons that may develop and outlining a pro gramme of action that they hope will hold 'he women's vote and nwiire the nomina tion and election of their favored candi 'ltes. Going True to Form. In this one party predicament woman shows that she is running true to form, fliere is no movement or situation into Ineli she enters, whether it be domestic or civic, where the men feel absolutely certain f her opinion and her future action. Naturally a large number of the recently tiifranchised have gone into the two parties 'Mtti an eniirely partisan feeling. If an is sin ..r ,i nominee belongs to the Oimoerit ."c party, then these earnest new Democrats believe it or he to bo absolutely right, and they could no more view impartially the other sido or the opposing party's political tiering than they could make friends of an enemy. On the other hand numbers of women have declined in favor of an open minded nttitiule toward men and issues. They have enrolled' with the party of their choice, but they morve tho right to vote for the man they believe in and think will best fill the otlice, regardless of his party affiliations, and to defeat a measure they hold to be unfavorable, whether it is put forward by their own party or by the opposition. This question of how large is the inde pendent vote will be decided at the forth coining election. And men will then learn how large a proportion of the women voters ate following in the footsteps of the more experienced party member. The two national jiolitical conventions which are to.be held in June, the Repub lican in Chicago and the Democratic in San Francisco, will mark the real entrance of women into the wider political field. Both parties have appointed women on their va rious national convention committees, and the question of sending women as delegates at large to the conventions is now rousing widespread interest. Miss Elisabeth Marbury, never a suf lrage worker, has bWn mentioned as a possible delegate at large. She is an out iMid out Democrat. She believes in Presi dent Wilson, the League of Nations, Gov. Alfred K. Smith and all her party tenets. She worked for Gov. Smith in his Guber natorial campaign and there is a firm be lief among her friends that she will receive important recognition from the Democratic leaders. How strong her position Is compared Millions Continued from First Page. fioiu a dead friend, the ' psychologist, F. W. II. Myers, that Raymond would be .lain, and the event did not take place unti' eptemler 14. "I am convinced." Sir Oliver says, "that death makes no sudden elinnge at all; that the next world is merely a phase, and nia not be a different world than this. De parted friends hnve talked to me of trees and flowers and animals that they observe, bnt they may be describing this world seen from another point of view. "The material .body is left behind at death. The ethereal body persists. That is what I speculate to be the mechanism of survival. The fact of survival has to be ascertained from the other side, but my long study of the ether helps somewhat to explain the way we are able to survive; to realize that we feel somewhat the same after death as we do in this world. "1 do not hold that we become saints or devils and go to heaven or to hell, as the case might ,be. I do not think we are good enough for one or bad enough "for the other. Most people are rather weak. Thev go wrong not because they want to. I think all of us want to do better, and 1 think we shall have the chance. At any rate, young fellows who wen killed in the war say we shall. I have talked with a good many of them. They have found a job and only hope that their people will not grieve too much and believe they have gone out of existence. They can't. I hnve known people who wanted to but couldn't. Suicide is no good. Man keeps right on iiviug, and suicide seems to be regarded as a crime over there. I dare say there are exceptions. I have talked with some. Most of them say they are horriifed, and feel that they have set abad example; that it has thrown them back." , The man who says this is one of the hardhcaded, scientific reasoners of a prac tical world, one used to all the balances and counterchecks of analytical judgment. He has been at work on the problem since IfiSO, though he did not accept belief- in spiritualism until ltHNJ. MRS MABEL Or fcEINECKE with that of Mrs. John Sherwin ..Crosby remains to be seen. Mrs. Crosby, widow of a leading Democratic organization Snnn, has for many years guided the women Dem ocrats of the city and the State. Long be fore women bad the vote in New York she organized and was president of the Wom en's Democratic Club. Some time ago she was appointed asso ciate chairman of the Democratic State Committee, and her followers feel that "if one woman is to be selected as delegate at large to the National Convention the choice should bo Mrs. Crosbv. III" ' r " -- Study Riddle of the The late Dr. Isaac Funk was oue'of the leaders of tho s piritualistic cult in this country. Among his settled beliefs was the conception that we are all spirits living in bodies, as much ghosts in the flesh as we ever could be out of it. He thought the only question to be solved really was whether disembodied ghosts could live. Dr. James H. Uyslop, one of the fore most of American investigators, has had in numerable strange experiences in the course of his years of painstaking investigation. The many instances of fraud and trickery encountered by him has never dulled his zeal or affected his belief that communica tion is a fact After the death of bis friend, Dr. Richard IJodgson, who had been constantly associated with him, and especially in observing and studying Mrs. Lenora E. Piper, the largely built, stolid medium of Boston, and whose psychic pow ers finally convinced both of the truth of spirit communication, he obtained through Mrs. Piper and another medium what he believes to he.spirit messages from Dr. Hodgson, as well as messages from his ' own father and other relatives that had died. Heroic Measures as Test. "I proved the genuineness of Mrs. Pier's "trances," he tells us, "by running needles under her finger nails and through her tongue nud by sprinkling red pepper in her nostrils and throat. She showed n consciounes of sensation. And in a pro found state of unconsciousness she wrote intelligent communications. She was close ly studied for years. Dr. Hodgson closely observed her for eighteen years." Again and again, isolated and guarded by men terribly in earnest, she described what per sons hundreds of miles away were doing and saying. I hnve worked in a cold, scien tific mood, determined to reject everything that could not stand tho tests and analysis of experience and reason. It is hard to understand how any sane scientific man can remain unconvinced to-day. "One of the foolish criticisms of this work of investigation is that scientific in vestigators cet communications thnt are MRS GEORGE BASS Democratic circles are disturbed just now by tho attempt of Miss Margaret Vale and a group of Democratic women to or ganUc a national body of women of this political faith. Naturally Miss Vale has met with some opposition, especially from Mrs. Bass, who disapproves of the charter. Associated with her in this organization of the Women .Democrats of America aie Mrs. George II. Childs, president of the Women's Democratic League; Mrs. Mary A. Morse of Buffalo, a party leader up-State; Mrs. Henry Keith of Jamaica and a score of other prominent Democrats. trivial or nonsensical. What' do they ex pect? It is impossible to say whether the spirit, in trying to communicate through the nervous system, the senses and the gen eral organism of a living peuson may find diminished powers of thought and memory. "I am quite satisfied that Dr. Hodgson has communicated with me since his death. The spirit of George Pelhaui, which con vinced Dr. Hodgson of the survival of identity after death, has communicated with me through several mediums. It informed me that spirits wore clothes which were created by their .own desires. My father's spirit gave nie a 'pass' sentence jn a rare langunge unknown to Mrs. Piper, tho me dium. He told me rever to recognize him, no matter what medium should seem to produce him, unless ho gave tho pass sen tence. I waste no time on physical phe nomena, rappings, table tippings and the like.'' Sincerity and Fraud. The foregoing opinions, comments and episodes, springing from the experience of scientists and scholars beyond a suspicion of chicanery (and these are merry a se lection from a multitude of reported phe nomena) are of fascinating interest surely whatever one's point of view may be. Can tbey, after all, be dismissed with a smile of derision? It is settled that the so-called "experiences'' of untrained observers can not be taken seriously, much less the testi mony of ignorant believers, for fraud and deception, practised in heartless, shameful contempt of sorrows that should be sacred are everyrrhcra rampant. Since the war pretcndedmodinms, long since exposed, have revived their ugly trade and are again in this and every large city fattening on the offerings of the distressed in heart. That has been true in America since mod ern spiritualism began with the Fox sis ters in this State sixty-four years ago. But one asks oneself perhaps if the calm asser tions of the Doyles, the Lodges and the Hyslops can be as firmly rejected. Very many men and women arc keeping their minds open nowadays, not convinced, nor even in the road toward conviction, hut passive, willing to hear all sides and to Magistrate Jean Norris, recently ap pointed to the bench by Mayor Hjlan. is an earnest Democratic worker "Alio is op posed to the new national organization of Democratic women. Mrs. Lillian Sire, pres ident of another Democratic club, is also among tho opposition. Mrs. Grace Strachan Forsythe;. pi evi dent of the Interborough Teachers Associa tion, stands with Mrs. Crosby. Mrs. Robins lu, an active club worker before the suf frage victory, is a member of one of the Tammany committees. Mrs. Charles L. Tiffany, Manhattan chair man of the New York City League of Women Voters, is an active Democrat and with the other members of her party in the league welcome the nnti-Wadsworth fight because of itsjielp to the Democratic forces Mrs. John Blair, another member of the league, upholds the principles of the Demo cratic party. Mrs. Arthur Livermore is Stnte chairman of the Republican Women's Committee and has been offering a series of educational Hereafter weigh, so far as they are able, the evidence that may be offered. The state of the world truly makes for this attitude of mind Certainly speculation has progressed a loug way since men wondered what fcaused the Fox table rappings. The interest in spiritualism, the present worldwide interest, like no wave of interest 'hat ever before ran around the globe, is due. first, to the grief caused by the terrible fatalities of the sreat war. Apart from ihi' vast emotional impulse is the hope that trustworthy advice in worldly matters cm be obtained through mediums, a hope tint has sent men and women to the fortune tellers since the world WB3 young. The more thoughtfnl spiritualists are cVelly interested in the assurance of life ir-d progress after death, and in the moral nod religions teaching they seek to obtain through automatic writings and trance speaking. Nothing like a universal spiritualistic creed has been arrived at, though the Ri vail doctrine of successive reincarnations with intervals of spirit life is popular. This view has made no headway in F.ng land and in Ihe United States, where the opinions of the great .majority of spiritual ists vary from orthodox Christianity to Unitarianism of an extreme kind. Eccles iastics of the Protestant Episcopa' Church in England have protested against the sweep through England of the spiritualis tic doctrine, and in this and other countries Roman Catholic prelates and priests have uttered sharp warnings tending to hold that supernormal manifestations are of the devil and not of Ood. The Great Riddle persists. Doubtless the evidence is not amplo enough to sway the many, though the few are convinced. But this' fact is startlingly true: that never in the world's history' were so many people's minds concentrated upon the .aystery. Never were so many hopes 9nd prayers sent winging into the beyond. Is it impossible for this tremendous and terrible concentra tion to appeal to break through the wall, the unseen andirapalpable wall, that has a! way stood, fo far as men knew, between the living and than we call the. deadt Every Presidential Boom Has Its En thusiastic Supporters Among the Women Politicians Conven tions May Surprise talks at the Republican Club, with Mrs. Walter Damrosch and Mrs. Pleasants Pen nington presiding alternately. Miss Maude Wetmoro of the National League for Woman's Service, has been ap pointed on the women's campaign commit tee for tho nomination of Major-Gen. Leonard Wood as Presidential candidate. Mrs. Mabel G. Reinecko of Chicago is exe cutive secretary of the Women's National Republican Committee. Mrs. Fletcher Dobyns of Chicago is in chnrgo of the women's work in the cam paign of Gov. Frank 0. Lowden for the Republican nomination for President. She is chairman of the Illinois Republican Women's Executive Committee. Thcso ap pointments of women show that ever- can didate for the Presidential nomination feels tho importance of having representatives of the new element on his committee. The practical work of women in politics may be illustrated by a few incidents which developed in the recent Gubernatorial elec tion. A woman captain of one of the live best Assembly districts has introduced a feminine touch in campaign-work which has been characterized by men ns "out-Tam-manying Tammany." By that tbey mean her methods arc effective because of their personal interest. They are fair if un usual. Few men would have thought of the ninny ways she has found of being helpful to the women ""of her election dis trict. True Politicians. "When ou heed help or advice of an kind call me up," this astute politician told the women of her district, on whom she makes frequent' personal calls. Being a stanch Republican, she cast a longing eye on four women of Democratic leanings who live in a large apartment house in her district. And one day a call came over the tele phone as follows: "You told us we were to appeal to yon whenever we needed help, didn't you?" questioned n feminine voie over the office telephone wire. "I did." replied the woman captain en couragingly. "Well, our dog has died and we have tried for two days to have it taken away and can't. Can you do it 1" "I can." promised the captain. "Rely on me, Your dog will be gone in an hour." Hanging up thereceiver, she asked her self what they did with dead dogs in the city if the organization in charge of that work was too busy to cart the carcass awayt "I'll take a taxi and go for the dog," she said to herself. "But what shall I do with it when I get it f" Her next thought was to telephone to the captain of the men's district organization. He had newr been asked in his political ca pacity to ciHcinte at the removal of a dead dog. But his ns'ociate's appeal could not be ignored. It meant not only a possible vote or two, but rendering distressed womer. a service and helping a fellow worker o make good on a promise. "Is it a big djjg?" he inquired anxiously, turning over in his own mind the taxi idea. "I don't know, but I'll call up and let yon know," tho newly appointed captain replied. It might be a Pekingese or a New foundland. The owners informed the anxious politi cal lender that the dog was large In less than one hour from the time the distivs-ed stranger from the South haC tel ephoned. the woman captain heard from the man captain of the district that a delivorv wagon beloligiug to one of the party work ers owning a store had carted the dead dog away. He didn't know just what had been lone with it, but at least the woraetTwere relieved and happy. This careful attention to a eminine call for aid won over two Democratic votes to the Republican party. Will II n vs. chairman of the Republican National Committee, has appointed from the various States seventeen women to serve on an advisory committee on platform and policies. His appointments include 152 men, also representing the various States. Both men and women will work together. Most of the women thus recognized owe their political preference to their long and active association with their own State suf frage organization or their afli!iation with the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which is being merged into the National league of Women Voters, or to both. This lisst, which gie Illinois thiee and New York two repsrntatives, includes the names of Miss Mary Garrett Hay and Mrs. Ogden M. Reid of New York, Mrs. F. T. Bagley of Massachusetts, Mrs. Arthur Bal lantinc of .Maine, Miss Caiolinc Hazard of Rhode Island, Miss Marie L. Obenauer of the District of Columbia,' Mrs. Itayroond Robins, Mrs. George A. Soden and Miss Harriet E. Vittnin of Illinois. Mrs. Anna Wolcott Vaile Colorado, Mrs. Rupert Asplund of New Mexico, Mrs. Clara B. Rurdette of California, Mrs. Solomon Hirsch of Oregon, Mrs. Walter McNab Mil ler of Missouri, Mrs. Josephine Corliss Preston of Washington, Mrs. M. D. Cam cron of Nebraska nud Mis. Theodore Ymi nians of Wisconsin. i