I appreciate woman's duties as mother, wife, and manager of a household, and I know well what many think of woman's occupying herself with politics. I have heard and read time and again that it is better for a woman to give real care to her children, her husband, and her house than to busy herself with politics; and that her descent into the arena of politics might cost her something of her femininity, so that she would thereby lose much of her excellent social standing.

I know all this — but we stand before an accomplished fact: the Western woman has gone down into the arena of politics, has worked in it for years now, has won no small success, and she will not turn back. She entered the field because she felt herself a member of society, with rights to enjoy and duties to bear; and the Western man shared this feeling with her and was persuaded by her point of view — namely, that man alone cannot do all the work, and that she is the member of society that completes him. So she worked with him and bore her share most creditably, and during the last war she proved that woman is fit to undertake grave tasks and to take the full measure of responsibility.

It is also a fact that the East has awakened from its heedlessness and risen up, seeking progress and the keeping of pace with the West, if not rivalry with it. In this renaissance of his, the Eastern woman has risen to strengthen the Eastern man's arm and to demand her right to work for the raising of the standard of living and of the social and cultural condition in the East. And her way cannot be barred.

The woman in Europe and America works alone in her house: she attends to the rearing of the children, the cooking, and the housework, for servants are few and their wages beyond the means of the majority. It is a mistake, then, to suppose that every woman there works in the field of politics and makes of it her one absorbing occupation. Some of those engaged in politics are women whose circumstances allowed them to be; but the overwhelming majority are those who do their household work and find the time to read the political magazines and attend the sessions of the political clubs to which they belong, without neglecting their domestic duties. The sensible woman finds a time for everything: she

studies her circumstances thoroughly and then shapes her life to fit those circumstances.

And why does man fear for the affairs of the household from politics, yet not fear for them from the tables of conquian, poker, and bridge?

I admit that the Eastern woman needs schooling and guidance before going down into the arena of politics — but the Eastern man, for his part, still needs them too. And let no one imagine that woman demands the right to vote out of love of display. If a small number of women have done so, they are matched by a like number of men who scramble for the seats of the Chamber. But there is a great number who take the measure of responsibility and know that behind the work of politics lie effort and labor, service to the country's good, and the raising of the level of woman's culture.

Some say that only a slender minority of women are fit to vote; we ask, then, whether an overwhelming majority of men are fit for it!

There are women whom God has endowed with capacity, intelligence, and circumstances that permit them to work in politics: let us leave them to work, let us encourage them and help them. And there are women whose circumstances do not permit it: let them keep clear of politics and confine their care to motherhood and the home, remembering that this is woman's most important duty, which may not be neglected for anything else, however exalted.