The American Woman and Political Awareness

The labor federations and their unions have of late been taking the keenest interest in spreading political awareness among women in particular. And no wonder: the number of women voters in the United States — those entitled to vote and to elect — exceeds the number of men by about a million and a half.

This, perhaps, is what has moved the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the American Federation of Labor to exert their utmost effort to make the working woman, and the worker's wife, understand that the exercise of political rights is the road to a better life. To this end the Congress and the Federation seek to guide women toward supporting and backing the friends and champions of labor, whatever their party color.

The Congress's choice fell on "Mrs. Esther Murray," who heads the Congress's committee for political guidance, while the Federation chose "Mrs. Margaret Thornburgh," head of the women's political education section, to look after the programs of political education that are to be spread and generalized in women's circles, and among working women in particular.

It should be recalled that Mrs. Esther Murray, a native of Santa Monica in the western state of California, opened her political page the day she volunteered, twenty years ago, to help a friend of hers in the elections and to canvass the voters' ballots for him. At first she felt hatred and bitterness at the meddling and intruding upon people and the begging of votes for her friends.

But that time has passed and gone, for over the years she came to grasp the social value of people's exercising their political rights. The wheel of time has turned, and it has become incumbent upon woman, too, to take her share in whatever new legislation arises. Today she goes the rounds of the industrial districts and strives with all the strength given her to spread political awareness among women generally — sisters, wives, and mothers. Time and again she has said that the labor institutions are bound to concern themselves with the women voters and not to overlook their place in the political programs. Mrs. Esther Murray does not concern herself with mere resolutions; she cares first and before all else for tendencies and inclinations in general. Hence she strives always and forever to dispel the false illusions that may block woman's path or prevent her sharing in the affairs of life generally, and of political life in particular — so much so that you often find her laying the blame on the worker husbands for neglecting this task, simple as it is, in their homes and families. What she said in this regard at a labor meeting, addressing her words to the men, was: "It is your wives who can change the face of the district in which you live. They are in full and constant touch with every branch of social activity. And if the founding of a family is a task the wife shares with her husband alone, there is a task greater in measure and weightier in consequence: the choosing of the body that makes the laws and enacts them. In truth it is a stirring task, and woman's sharing in this field helps to shape the kind of life we want."

Thus Esther Murray — that blonde who overflows with abounding vitality — has not failed to penetrate to the very heart of the family: she has raised this side of the matter and set it forth in numerous pamphlets, nearly all of which turn on the same subject and present a portion of the facts, and of woman's political activity and its importance.

What is said of Esther Murray may be said likewise of Margaret Thornburgh, a young lady brimming with vitality and energy, who also strives to promote woman's exercise of her political rights and her sharing in political life generally. And so she says frankly: "I know no better task for the wife or the mother or

the sister of every man who is a member of the labor institutions than to use her spare time in the political field, and so help to elect the friends and champions of the workers who seek their good."

She worked for about thirteen years at the "Ball Glass" works in her town in Oklahoma, and from the beginning of her working life she was constantly a first-rate union member. She spent great effort on the union's committees, which fitted her for the presidency of the local union branch for some eight years; then she was chosen vice-president of the Oklahoma federation of labor. Since 1947 she has been at work on administrative organization for the glassworks union, the "Glass Bottle Blowers."

This young brunette does not forget the day her son "Joe," eighteen years of age, joined the glass works, when she, in her capacity as president of the local union branch, was responsible for registering his first union card. And of the members of the Thornburgh family, only "Mary Lou" has not yet won membership in any union — a girl who has not yet passed her fifteenth spring.

By her political activity Mrs. Margaret aims to encourage the women of the labor federations to take an effective part in the unions' programs. She wants woman to leave no unit of the labor federations without her participation; in this way she is enabled to share, and to be represented, in whatever resolutions and enactments are adopted.

Nor does Margaret Thornburgh's activity stop at this point: she delivers many speeches and lectures, and undertakes the preparation and distribution of the pamphlets that urge the necessity of woman's sharing in political activity and proving her indispensable presence in this vital field.