We have heard many sayings about woman — some of them graceful and moving, picturing the flow of the noble sentiments that have tried to express woman; some disparaging, belit-tling woman and demeaning her dignity, besides being far from free of emotion. Among these descriptions: "Woman is man's better half." "Woman is a mother who rocks the cradle with her right hand and the world with her left." "Look for the woman." "Woman is wholly an evil, and the worst of her is that she cannot be dispensed with." "A virtuous woman — who can find her?" "Women are devils created for us; I take refuge in God from the evil of devils." "Paradise lies at the feet of mothers."

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These are very small samples from the flood of sayings and writings about woman set down or uttered by sages, poets, and men of thought generally. Some of them touch the truth about woman at its edges, but none of them penetrates to its core — as if this truth, for all its simplicity and self-evidence, had strayed from the eyes and minds of thinkers, or as if the stronger sex had deliberately ignored it, leading itself astray and mislead-ing woman along with it in a deep sea of descriptions and judgments that tried to fix the place of this creature in society and, naturally, failed. It is time, then, for us to display this simple truth in letters of fire, and to take it as a goal toward whose application we strive continually. This elemen-tary, simple truth is that "woman is a human being, and hers is the full right of a human being!"

On the basis of this self-evident rule it becomes clear to us that the equality of woman with man is a settled matter; in the light of this principle woman's sacred function, with which God Almighty has singled her out as

wife and as mother, takes its true shape, and by gaining her rights and her freedom woman can fulfill this function in its most perfect form; and by virtue of this truth, which obliges woman to be conscious of her humanity, she becomes able to appraise her responsibilities in life correctly, and she strives to be an effective member of her society, no longer forever a paralyzed half of it.

In our present age the peoples have come to look at woman with a more serious eye. Here are the international councils affirming her rights as a human being. She has begun to come forward in all fields of work, giving proof of many capacities and of worthiness in bearing responsibilities. The Western woman has outstripped us by long stretches in this arena and has obtained in some countries her rights almost whole and undiminished, save in partial respects. Perhaps the most brilliant example of the equality of woman with man is in the United States of America.

I have chosen the American woman as the subject of my description — and not, say, the Russian or the French or the British woman — only because I know her at close range and know next to nothing worth mentioning about the others.

The American woman is distin-guished by a general equality between herself and man in all sides of political, economic, social, and cultural life. These rights did not come to her cheaply; she struggled and sacrificed to obtain them for many years, from which she emerged victorious; then she entered the stage of organizing her affairs generally, until today she possesses a strong, orga-nized, many-branched women's movement concerned with all the activities of life.

Woman in the United States carries great weight. If we look at her in the political field we find

her a force, not merely behind the curtain but in the front line of the electoral battles — we find her nominating and nominated, working in this field in complete freedom, her freedom respected like man's freedom. She draws up her political plans and goes down into the arena to fight, and she does so generally in cooperation with the man who shares her same political leanings; she delivers rousing speeches setting out the programs of reform for the country which she will carry out if she is elected, or which her candidate will carry out, appeal-ing to her fellow citizens to elect him. Last year I followed in the American press the activity of the lady candidates for the American Congress and for the Senate, and I read with close attention the speeches of Mrs. Margaret Smith of the state of Maine in the north, of the Republican Party; she had been a member of Congress and stood for membership of the upper house, the Senate, and succeeded, and today she is the only woman "Sheikh" in the American Senate.

Woman in the United States of America has organized insti-tutions concerned with political affairs, of which I mention two: the "Daughters of the American Revolution," a conservative orga-nization inclining today to the support of MacArthur; and the "League of Women Voters," who demand that the equality between man and woman be made com-plete, especially in partial rights. Mention must also be made here of woman in the army. She makes up the numerous corps trained to perform the auxiliary tasks such as clerical matters, nurs-ing, and national administration, thus enabling

man to devote himself entirely to scientific production and purely military training. She wears a military or naval uniform proper to her rank in the army service.

We see, then, that the American woman's concern with the polit-ical side does not consist of electoral flurries alone but of organized institutions conscious of all the political currents, following the course of events