that a press poll takes people by surprise, for some of those polled find it hard to remain in a natural state. Some begin by saying:

I have no opinion on this question. Or:

My opinion might not please people...

Some dodge the answer, and some "make themselves scarce," busying themselves with the telephone or with calling the usher to attend to some errand — and all of them remember that they are Lebanese, and so order refreshments.

And what touches the "delegate" before these "some" is her feeling that she is a mother facing a guilty child... Good Lord! How does this man, the monopolizer of all rights, come to fear giving his opinion before a woman... that very woman... the one whom he stripped of her right to the title of citizen.

With the poet Mr. Salah al-Labbabidi, chief of the bureau of the Ministry of Education

The poet tries to escape, then returns to his well-known courtesy and says:

I believe the Lebanese woman will attain her rights by way of her culture and by way of her direct influence upon man, for I know many brothers and husbands who still oppose this right. She must therefore, first, pursue her culture; second, win man's sympathy for her cause.

The delegate — Do you think culture is a basic condition for obtaining rights? Then why were these rights given to the uncultured?

Answer: Because the law gave this right to all men without distinction.

Question: And if there is an error in this law?

Answer: She must strive to reform it.

Question: Do you think woman's victory is near?

Answer: I believe the appointed day is still far off, for there are nations more advanced than Lebanon that have not yet allowed political rights.

Question: For example??

An official of some standing had entered the bureau and wished to join the conversation, saying:

For example? Turkey.

The delegate — If only you had not said it! Turkey! The first thing that great man Mustafa Kemal did was to give woman her political rights! The proof is what happened in 1935, after the women's congress held in Istanbul, when the Turkish Women's Union saw that Mustafa Kemal had given the Turkish woman what governments long and broad had fallen short of, and so resolved to dissolve itself! For the Turkish woman no longer had anything left to ask!!

And the delegate remembers that her acquaintance

with the speaker is superficial and recent, and regrets the phrase "if only you had not said it," and her face reddens with embarrassment. And the speaker's face reddens for his ignorance of what goes on among the neighbors... and he withdraws in good order... Perhaps the counterattack affected the

poet, or perhaps he feared the anger of his daughter Miss Layla, for he said, amending:

— In any case, I think we should begin by giving her the right to vote only.

The delegate — On that basis "The Woman's Voice" may count you a "half-supporter" — and should it blame you for it??!!

In the Inspection Departments

The poet Mr. Nicolas Bustros, inspector of national education in Beirut, still — despite all his poems in praise of woman — considers her less than half a man. He says:

— I absolutely do not favor woman's taking her rights in Lebanon.

Question: You say "in Lebanon" — as though you would allow this right outside Lebanon?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And why this distinction?

Answer: Because woman in Lebanon is still weak in the social sense. — Let us set aside a distinguished elite, which relative to the whole is a tiny minority — the Lebanese woman is a salon lady of the first order and a gambler of the first order; she is, generally speaking, slight of culture and weak of argument.

Question: And all these efforts in the fields of upbringing, teaching, and public relief do not tip the scale in your view?

Answer: No. Because the minority does not mean the whole. Culture must be spread before political rights are given.

Question: You all strike the same chord! Culture. And the porters — are they cultured? And the convicts in the Raml prison — they voted before their sentences were passed.

The poet leaps from his seat and says:

— Let us understand each other: I give woman the right to vote only, not all political rights.

The delegate: We have understood each other! You, then, are a half-supporter...

And the delegate goes out, her hope disappointed in two of the great officials of the Ministry of Education, saying to herself: assuredly, the poets of love-verse are one thing, and the seekers of human progress are quite another.

Her hope returns when she enters the office of Mr. Wasif al-Baroudi.