The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 30, 1921, Page 9

2 | < News of Women’s Nonpartisan Clubs A Live Woman Worker Twenty-One-Year-Old League Booster Is Publisher of Progressive Farm Paper NE of the youngest and also one of the livest editors in Minnesota is a woman. She is in charge of a farmers’ paper— the Mahnomen Free Press—which is one of the foremost fighters for the Nonpartisan league. She has also been an active worker for the Women’s Nonpartisan clubs, though she has not yet cast her first vote. Miss Elsie M. Weatherwax is the editor in ques- tion. Miss Weatherwax was born on a Minnesota farm and went to the country schools, like other farmers’ daugh- ters. Il health prevent- ed her from finishing high school, but when her health grew better she took a business course and a little more than two years ago went to work for the Park Region Echo, a farmers’ paper, at Alexandria, Minn., as bookkeeper and stenographer. Miss Weatherwax says: “When I went there I was very much opposed to the Nonparti- san league, not because I knew anything about it but because I knew my father and a few of our neighbors were against it. I simply took the job because it was a chance for me to earn my own liv- ing. I don’t think it was a month before I was _thoroughly converted to the League movement. After I really found out what the League stood for common sense told me that any one who fought the League was fighting his own interests.” "WORKED FOR SHIPSTEAD THOUGH UNABLE TO VOTE Miss Weatherwax joined the Women’s Nonparti- san club at Alexandria and worked with it during the last campaign, al- though she was mnot old enough to vote, not be- ing 21 wuntil January, 1921. At the same time Miss Weatherwax was i Miss Elsie M. Weatherwax, publisher and editor of Mahnomen Free Press. WOMAN MADE BOLIVAR STATUE The sculptor of the statue of Simon Bolivar, which was recently unveiled at New York by Presi- dent Harding, was a woman, Mrs. Sally James Farnham. How to Help Peace This is the second in a series of short articles by Miss Gray on subjects of especial interest to women. BY MARY GRAY Last issue we discussed the menace and cost of - militarism. What are we, as women, going to do about it? It is every woman’s duty, just as it is every man’s, to help by voting only for officeseekers who are pledged to end war. But women have a duty above that of a man, in training the minds of the next generation so that there will be no wars. Did you ever read the his- tory of the United States that is taught your chil- dren at school and notice that three-fourths of the book is a story of battles and wars, in which the United States is pictured as always right and al- ways victorious? Did you ever stop to think that the children of every other nation are also studying histories, principally about wars, and that these histories represent their countries as always right and always victorious? And that because so much space is given to wars and battles every child is led to believe that they are the most important. things in the world? ‘When your child gets on to high school and starts to study Latin he is given Caesar’s story of the Gallic wars to translate instead of the work of some Roman philosopher or student. Every effort of education today seems to be planned for the benefit of the munition makers. Why shouldn’t we, as women, have something to say about what our children are taught in the schools, and see that their training is meant to fit them for a world at peace, rather than for a world at war? BELGIAN WOMEN BEAT MEN In the recent elections in Belgium women voted for the first time, and there were more women voters than men. How States Rank in Women’s Work Laws HE map below, published by the United States department of labor, shows-at a glance how ality of its minimum wage law for working women. While these laws are of primary importance to Letters From - Live Workers Club Work in Summer “One Thousand Clubs by Fall” to Be Motto for Women This Season This is the third of a series of articles by Miss Gregg dealing with work of the Women’s Nonpartisan clubs._ ‘BY KATE L. GREGG National Manager Women’s Nonpartisan Clubs =z | HE Women’s Nonpartisan club, like %| everything else in nature, has to shape its activity according to the season. Like an oak tree it lives its own life in winter, busy enough stand- - ing off the adversities of a-winter climate, holding its own strength and preparing for the happier season ahead. The happier time now has come, and every Nonpartisan club in the land is planning the larger life that is possible in these summer days. : Summer time is organization time. Every club alive to the good cause for which we fight knows that now is the time to get ready for the next elec- tion, now is the time to increase the membership . of the home club, and not content with that, now. is the time to take care of the townships that have no Women’s Nonpartisan club. - : The live clubs now are arranging meetings in the neighboring townships and appointing committees to take care of those meetings. That little Ford that darts along from one farmhouse to another has in it, if you will look, a committee of three club members who are out signing up the members for a club in the adjoining township. A few days later, at a called meeting, this same committee will help the new club elect officers, choose a course of study and lay out their study program. And very proba- bly this is the committee that will give the new club the idea that the next township in turn is their responsibility. SUMMER THE TIME FOR “GET-TOGETHER” MEETINGS Summer time gives opportunity for joint meet-. ings with other clubs. The little clubs can now come to feel the enthusiasm of the larger ones and come into a livelier interest both in the educational program and in the organization work. At the big picnic meetings being arranged by so many of our clubs, matchless oppor- tunities will be offered to get new members and so find the nucleus for new clubs in townships far and near. learning more ahot the newspaper business. She was not satisfied with just doing her work as stenographer and book- keeper but was gather- ing news, reading proof and becoming an all- . around newspaper wom- an, capable of handling either the editorial or the business end. Recently the Mahno- men Free Press, another farmer-owned paper, wanted an editor. The directors had heard of Miss Weatherwax and decided to call her to the job, installing her March 1 as publisher and edi- tor. Miss Weatherwax took hold of the affairs of this paper with ener- gy. It begah to print more local news and to get more advertising from the merchants. Miss Weatherwax has been on the job less than four months now but al- ready the Mahnomen Free Press is attracting attention as one of the most progressive and wide-awake of the farm- er-owned weeklies. the various states rank in laws protecting women from unreasonable work hours. North Dakota is shown as the only state in the Mid- dle West with a 48-hour week. North Dakota. also leads every state in the Union in the liber- Coae=au 4FHews 60 Hours 64 Hours 66 Hours Y B 66 Hours 57 Hours 60 Hours 63 Hours the working women of the cities, yet the ranks of city workers are constantly being recruited -from the families of farmers on account of the general tendency to move from the farm to the city. ~—Chart by U. 8. Depart- 70 Hours, ment of Labor, PAGE TEN = . gether meetings. As well as giving ex- pansiveness to our club movement, this summer season ought to knit the clubs in solidarity. Now is the natural time for the county federations to come into existence. Now is the natural time for the all-county get-to- Now is the time for Leaguers to come to know each " other, and together plan and work for the organ- ization that can know no defeat. BLAINE CLUB Mrs. Flora C. Thoma- son, formerly national secretary of the Wom- en’s Nonpartisan clubs, writes the Leader that Wisconsin women have organized the first Woman’s Nonpartisan club in that state at Grantsburg, naming it the Blaine club, in honor of John J. Blaine, the governor of Wisconsin, elected by the Leaguers. “My mother and sister belong to it so I visit, of course,” Mrs. Thomason says. “At their last meet- ing they drew up a reso-