The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 16, 1921, Page 13

1 A Page of, by and for the Women How to Arouse Interest Anti-League Women Also Must Be Invited to Club Meetings, Says Miss Gregg This is the second of a series of articles on Women’s Nonpartisan club organization work. Other articles will appear on the Woman's page in future issues. BY KATE L. GREGG National Manager Women’s Nonpartisan Clubs- HE five or six loyal League women who have started a club often wonder how they are going to get the interest of the woman who is indifferent to polit- ical matters, or antagonistic to the League. What will waken the interest of the neighbor woman who does not care to vote? What will bring her into the group that can teach her why she ought to vote, and how she ought to vote? What will break down the strange preju- dices of the woman who sees in the League an ene- my to all mankind and all decent government? . . The strongest ally the new club will have in its dampaign for new members is the fact that the country has not as much social life as it ought to have, and that for the most part farm women will be glad of any social occasion that calls them to- gether. If the club realizes from the outset that its business in the community is to make occasions that call the people out into a community life, its growth ought to be rapid. Such a club will take care that a good many of its meetings are purely social. The members will invite in the whole neigh- borhood, they will put on a short program of music and speaking, they will end the evening with coffee. and sandwiches and cake. They will plan sys- tematically to give the visitors the best evening they have ever had in the community. If the neighborhood is one that likes to dance, they can set the phonograph going; if the neighbor- hood is one that does not approve of dancing, they can set the platter spinning.” The live club can send those visitors home with a conviction that @ 'Women’s Nonpar- tisan club is a good thing to have in the neighborhood. Parties in the win- ter and picnics in the summer will help to waken the most indifferent to the desirability of being connected with such a live organization. Home talent plays can do a good service for the club both in filling the local club treasury and in offering another occasion that calls Leaguers and anti-Leaguers together. This, too, is a feature that will be especially at- tractive to the young people in the community, in giving them a chance for a bit of self-expression. £ Hard-time parties, basket socials, raffles and auctions, bazaars, food sales, celebration of wedding anni- versaries and birthdays, surprise “Parties, “bees” of various sorts—any social function that the club ean spon- sor serves both to awaken the indiffer- ent and to reduce antagonism against the League. The most hard-shelled antis will conclude finally that “People that you can have’a good time with are really a pretty good sort, and maybe there is something to this League business after all.” What Women Say “No group in the United States, not even the farmers, suffer more from the reaction than the wage-earners. For months at a time tens of thou- sands of them have been without in- come during the past year. For other tens of fhousands who have escaped actual unemployment wages have been lowered, while rents and carfares have increased. 'Wherever industry cuts men’s wages so that fathers can not decently maintain a family of four children_there follow in dire proces- sion delayed marriage, venereal dis- ease, employment in mills of mothers ..of young children, child labor, truancy, . THE FARM WOMAN'S PAGE illiteracy, juvenile delinquency and all the trail of diseases of old and young which follow undernour- ishment.” — FLORENCE KELLY, in the Woman Citizen. “If you live in the state of Kansas, don’t fall downstairs and break your right arm, for it is really your husband’s right arm you will have broken and he alone can recover ddmages for it. Yeu can not. Your pain and suffering are, indeed, your own, no husband having as yet made claims to posses- sion of his wife’s physical discomforts.”—MARY OGDEN WHITE, in Life and Labor. “Supposing a woman had $100 a month to run her house on (that’s going some), and supposing she spent $93 on pistols and guns to shoot up her neigh- bors, which would leave her $8 to buy grub, educate the kids and pay for all peaceful pursuits. That is exactly what this man-handled nation is perpetrat- " ing this very minute.”—FLORA McFLIMSEY, in Maryland Women’s News. “Millions lack food while billions are spent for bullets. During the three war years congress au- thorized an expenditure of $52,330,000,000 —a charge of $2,200 for every family in the country. There is no woman in America who will not be af- fected by this expenditure.”—IDA CLYDE CLARK, in the Pictorial Review. ARE WE. ACCESSORIES? Editor Nonpartisan Leader: There are many ways of being accessory to other persons’ sins, one of which is silence. Farmers work hard for long hours so that the middlemen’s wives may enjoy life while their own are drudges. Why toil as they do to send the children of the middlemen to colleges while their own children so rarely enter even high school? Why is this? Let the women explain, as they so well can. MARY G. WALSH. Grand Junction, Col. " THESE YOUNG LEAGUERS HAVE PET PONIES In Behalf of Social Progress S Why Science Helps War 14 2 & Inventors Serve Cause That Pays Best— Neglect Housekeeping and Farming This is the first of a series of short articles on present conditions and women’s relations to them. Others will appear in future issues of the Leader. BY MARY GRAY LEADING eastern newspaper recently said editorially: “Two" of the.oldest trades are housekeeping and farming and it is just these which have benefit- ed least from the discoveries of mod- - ern science.” The paper proceeded to ' give the explanation that “the attention of modern - inventors and scientists has been turned toward other fields of industry.” What other “fields of industry” have been given such attention by inventors recently as war? Ber- nard Shaw, in a recent play, tells about an inventor who had patented an improved lifeboat. But his daughter, who wanted money badly, told him flatly to give up the invention. “There is no money,” she said, “in saving life. What you want to invent is something that will kill men faster.” Ninety-three per cent of our national budget goes toward meeting the expenses of past, present and future wars. Is it any wonder that inventors would rather turn their attention to work that will result in killing men faster, rather than waste their time in inventions that -will save life and make farm- ing and housework easier? Is it any wonder that we hear daily of new gases and poisons, so deadly that three drops, falling from an airplane, would kill a human being, while a small flask might wipe out an army? While our inventors are engaged in this task, the farmer and his wife go on with their labor, much as they did a hundred or a thou- sand years ago, to make more wealth for our militarists to spend. Farmers and housewives ought to make common cause in the fight to prevent future wars because they are the classes who stand to win the most if our nation and the world can once be organized on a permanent peace No. 1—Hally Gill of Ada, Minn., and other young Leaguers. No. 2—Children of Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Gill of Norman county, Minn., and their pets. No. 3—Fred Krueger of Max, N. D., and his pony “Jip.” neth Todl of Hendrum, Minn., and his pet. PAGE FOURTEEN % No. 4—Ken- basis. ~ What can be done to end wars? In the next issue of the Leader this ques- tion will be discussed. ‘Our Next Task Since the last issue of the Leader dozens of letters have been received in reply to the question, “Now that wom- en have the ballot, what is their next task?” It is impossible to print these letters in full: Following are excerpts from a few of them: Mrs. Frank Elliott, Hillsboro, N. D. —*“Last fall, when our women could vote for the first time, many consid- ered it a novelty and cast their vote without any thought .of the why." Others, busy farm women, didn’t seem to think that their votes counted. If our women’s clubs can get those wom- en together and show them that they owe it to themselves, their families and their communities to vote, and vote intelligently, our battle will be won. Bringing home to them the fact that through the ballet they .can bet- ter conditions for children, home and. neighbors will go a long. way toward blotting out that ‘don’t care’ and ‘too busy’ attitude.”. ~ Katheryne Meadors, Sidney, Mont. J —“Educate ourselves to- vote for the things that vitally concern the most people. - ‘Then go to the polls. If there is anything wrong with our govern- ment;.that wrong exists because of our consent, either because we voted for it or because we did not vote at all.” Susie. W. Stageberg,” Red Wing, Minn.—“The early crusaders for suf- frage wanted the vote for ‘the ‘cause that needs assistance and the wrong