On March 15 last, Mrs. Laure Georges Tabet, president of the League of Women's Organizations in Lebanon, presented her candidacy for the Chamber of Deputies to the Ministry of the Interior, and broadcast to the Lebanese citizens her forthcoming electoral program. Among what she said in it:
Honorable citizen, The Lebanese Chamber will be for woman nothing but a wider door for the continuation of a devoted and sincere service embracing all fields of public effort, and directing particular attention to raising the standard of the family and strengthening the foundations of social justice.
We stand before a new era, the era of woman the human being, and at the threshold of this era I turn to you, that on election day you may appeal to the voice of conscience and rely on the powers of reason to decide the destiny of the homeland, which requires the cooperation of man and woman in the house of the nation.
Staying in the Battle
Then Mrs. Tabet, who is the Maronite candidate for the first district of Beirut, issued to the press this statement, in denial of the rumors circulating about her withdrawal from the electoral battle. In the statement is a shining picture of woman's steadfastness and the purity of her intentions and principles. She said:
"Out of respect for woman and for the principles in which I believe and from which I shall not be shaken, I declare that I have spoken frankly to all my honorable fellow citizens: that I hold fast to an honest candidacy and rely on the votes of the conscious people; that I have paid no sum to enter any list, and I shall not pay a single piaster along paths that I do not approve and that the Lebanese woman of honorable principles does not approve; and that I have spent nothing but the candidacy fee to the Ministry of the Interior."
And at the International Club the women of Lebanon gathered before noon on Sunday, May 26, at the invitation of Mrs. Tabet, to deliberate on the electoral affairs of the moment. The atmosphere was one of enthusiasm and solidarity; the ladies at the meeting expressed their support for the president of the League of Women's Organizations, and their readiness to stand by her in the coming battle, in vindication of the honorable principles that woman professes.
It was a morning coffee party, given at her home on May 17 last by Mrs. Eva Malik, wife of His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Charles Malik, in honor of the ladies of the American Embassy, in return for their earlier invitation to her. The gathering brought together some sixty ladies, married and unmarried, from among the wives of Foreign Ministry officials, along with a select company of active, cultivated women, and conversations of acquaintance were exchanged in a genial atmosphere of understanding and cordiality.
And there was a family tea party, to which the Association of Lebanese University Women extended invitations on Friday afternoon, May 31 last, to receive the university women graduating this year from the universities in Lebanon. The president of the association, Dr. Edma Abouchdid, welcomed those present, set out the association's aims and its purpose, and said that this gathering was to acquaint the new university women with our association and our activity. Then she introduced the presidents of the committees, and each of them gave a glimpse of her program and the kind of work her committee performs.
The program of the party included, besides this, entertaining diversions pointing to the various currents of university education in Lebanon.
It is worth mentioning that the number of women expected to graduate this year from Lebanon's four universities — physicians, lawyers, teachers, and so on — is as follows: 68 from the American University of Beirut, 60 from Beirut College for Women, 40 from the Lebanese University, and 20 from the Université Saint-Joseph.
Our congratulations to them all in advance.