Evening Star Newspaper, June 2, 1929, Page 97

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, Woman's Place s Social And Civic Leadership Says Mrs. John F. Sippel, President General of Federation of W omen’s Clubs BY NELL RAY CLARKE. ¢ 6 N SHAPING our social, educationgl and civic structure the leadership must be taken by women. “Let the burden of adjustment of American industry and commerce to meet the modern needs rest largely on the shoulders of the men. “We women, as mothers, and now as part- ners in the electorate, want to assume the re- sponsibility of giving to the community that touch - of life which we are under obligations to give as homemakers to the family life. “No, I do not mean that women are not to become part and parcel of the business world, if they want to, and if they are fitted for as- * suming such a place, Certainly that is their privilege and their right. “But the majority of American women are stid? home women instead of business women. They are housekeepers and homemakers. Nine- ty-eight per cent of clubwomen are home wom- en, not business women. Let them assume the duty of doing community housekeeping. Just as they allow no dirty corners in their houses, let them see that there are no dirty corners in their communities, no disgraceful back alleys and dirty back yards. “As they see that their houses have modern plumbing and heating and lighting, let them see that their communities are well organized, let them sce that there are no sections of their cities with amtiquated sanitation methods. Let them see to it that homes having no running water and sewer facilities are eliminated. As they assure lovely homes for their families, let them assure at least healthful and sanitary homes for everybody in their communities.” HESE are the sentiments of Mrs. John F. Sippel personally, and they represent the policies which are to be pursued during her regime as president of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. They seem to constitute just the right sort of policy for Mrs, Sippel to have—just the sort of thing you would expect of her, for esseatially Mrs, Sippel is the mother- woman. There is a gentleness in her face, set off by its graying hair, which makes a great many people tell her that she reminds them of their mothers. It is the mother-face, softened and " molded by sympathy and understanding of the problems of her child and her grandchild. She is a descendant of one of the earliest " of the Maryland settlers and she did her first club work for the Daughters of the American Revolution. Then she became interested in the problems of rural women and served on the Agricultural Commission of the State of Maryland. At last she found the work best to her taste and talents in the General Federa- tion of Women’s Clubs in guarding and guid- ing the American home and the American community. Now she holds the reins to direct the activi- ties of more than 3,000,000 women, not only in America, but in other parts of the world. “The federation is a general federation, not a national or American federation,” Mrs. Sip- pel explained. ‘“There are 60-odd clubs in 16 foreign countries—in New Zealand and Aus- tralia, in Japan, China, Austria, England, Ger- many, France and Czechoslovakia, now affiliated with the thousands of American clubs in our organization. “There are so many things in the field of public welfare that we home women are espe- cially qualified to do because of our house- keeping and homemaking experience. For in- stance, at the present time, many large manu- - facturers are moving their plants away from the congested districts of our large cities into the smaller towns and country districts for . business and humanitarian reasons, Their taxes will be smaller in the rural areas, and they will be able to build the right type of buildings for their plants because of increased space. “It is up to ths women in the communities to which these plants are coming to see that the newcomers will have the right sort of hous- ing, that there will be libraries, schools and churches, and recreational centers. They owe & duty to their town, which must suddenly expand rapidly to double or triple its size, to see that there will be some definite plan for its growth, that the streets will be made wide enough, that parks and playgrounds will be provided for, that proper schools will be built and that proper sewage facilities will be plan- ned and installed. The men wili undoubtedly be carrying the weight of the burden of the business end of the work and the expansion. It 1s up to the women to get the new big vision of their town and to keep that vision alive during its growth, “I really feel that the housekeepers and homemakers have a real responsibility to thei: communities because of the increased leisure which has come to them as a result of the many modern labor-saving devices. They should do something worth while with their leisure. Their strength is greater when they are united in the club and when the club is a member of a powerful federation, first Stafe and then a general federation. “IT is hard to realize what a far cry thers is from the General Fedcration of Wem- > en's Clubs and other large and powerfut wom- en’s clubs of today to the struggling efforts ot women just 62 years ago, when an article in Godey's Lady's Book of May, 1867, began witi the horrified statement that ‘Women have formed a club. The next thing they will be doing is building a clubhouse!’ " “It is also hard to realize that within our century a woman dared to make a speech in public and the indignant citizens of Boston enraged at this lack of propriety, threatencd D. C. JUNE 2, 1929—PART 7. to burn down the building in which she hac spoken., It is a little amusing and soincy st - pathetic to look back upon one of those first womeon's club meetings about the time of the Civil War, when the subject of the first club paper was, ‘Whether It Is Betier to Be Good Than to Be Beautiful” and compare those first efforts with the aims and purposes of the women's clubs of today. “Not very long ago I had a letter from a doctor’s wife in a very conservative historic small town in Maryland, telling me that a large industrial concern was moving to the - town, ,which. would increase its size fourfold. She asked me ‘what her club could do to help meet the new conditions. That meant a big Mrs. John F. Sippel, p"udem general of the Federation of Women’s Clubs. step for those women to take, home women conservative by nature and training, living in a conservative community, where women'’s clubs had never done anything of that sort beforz. At that time I could tell her only a few things to do, but if the same question were put to me now, I would tell her: “Plan definitely for your town’s continuous growth by organizing a citizens’ planning com- mittee. “Be sure that you have made provision for the attractive residential streets in new sec- tions, built up and landscaped in keeping with your climate, your topography and your tradie tions. “But be sure that your town has made provie sion for well designed and equipped schools and libraries conveniently accessible to new home sections. “Make provisions for outdoor and indoor recreation and park spaces for people of all ages to enjoy. Plan public playgrounds and athletic fields. “Be sure that you have a large enough cem= tral supply of pure water for personal, busi=- ness and fire needs, that sewer connections are made to every house that is built in your rapidly growing city. “Make arrangements for the sanitary dis- posal of garbage and trash. “See that there are enough through streets or roads, that there is sufficient electric power service, gas service, telephone and telegraph service. “Watch out to make your city beautiful in every way, in building designs and in its land- scape effects, and in every other way possible. “There are at least 2,300 communities of more than 2,500 population and thousands of rural communities without any plans to guide their future development. “It seems to me that there is a tremendous amount of work for home women to do in these fields. “All communities are not growing with such strides, of course. There is even more work to be done, however, by those women who are living in cities. and towns which are old and settled in their ways of doing things. They have ugly main streets, congested slums, crowded streets, badly lighted, unventilated homes and work places, smoke, dirt, awkward buildings and ugly houses, Some of the cities have planning commissions, but not all of these planning commissions have a woman member to see that the city will be a good place for children to grow up in and a lovely place for grown people to live in. “We found out in our recent survey that in large towns and citles there are more than 600,000 dwelling houses which are not con- nected with the city sewage systems and more than three and a half million people who do not have running water in their homes. In many of such cities the children are ploving in dirty trash-covered streets and alleys and living in houses which are dark, ugly and un- healthy. . “The crowding and crystallizing of the foreign-born in segregated districts of our cities, the ‘Little Russias’ and the ‘Little Italys,” etc., is a citizenship defect upon which women should direct their influence for correction. “It is surprising to me how many people there are who have no idea of how much work of this character women’s clubs of the coun- try do. In many towns and cities, the au- thorities look to the women’s clubs to do what they feel they cannot accomplish themselves, particularly in the line of improvements and reforms. City fathers realize that when you put a common ambition or purpose into a group of energetic and enthuslastic women something is going to be done, . Continued omn Page Twenty,