NEED MORE WOMEN IN POLITICS

...To her life is very serious...

...But these are only some of our planks...

...Oh can't you get along without me...

...They produce more than enough for home consumption and when they go out of the United States they must compete in the markets of the world...

...The moneyed interests killed it with propaganda...

...it is not practicable at present What farmer would be so unwise as to mortgage his place to put up another barn when he still had more barn room than he could possibly use...

...I haven't studied the question enough to say: but I do know that we are staggering along at present under a terrible burden of debt because of our overbuilt transportation systems...

...Having been brought up in the country and knowing the problems which beset the farmers of her district, Miss Macphail is intensely interested in that class of worker...

...It is plainly furnished with a workmanlike flat-top desk, filing cabinet and reference table, a couch and two or three chairs...

...It's slavery at times * * * And it's not because I'm a woman that I'm here"—harking back to her words of a few moments before— "but in spite of it...

...And it will be the destruction of them," she answered gravely...

...She is about 5 feet 6 inches tall, I should judge, with fairly full figure, hazel eyes guarded by horn-rimmed glasses, and wears her brown hair ordinarily in a psyche knot, brushed straight off her forehead...

...We've been sitting so late for several nights * * * That would make it 9:30 daylight saving time —well...

...have a graduated income taji on the profits of corporations...

...She has never cared for—and probably never had much chance to get—the pleasures and dissipations which attract most young girls...

...Foolishness...

...She has become disillusioned...

...Then, too, we would impose a direct tax on land values...

...Her tastes Were always for what she would call the worthwhile things of existence...

...Her taste is for simpliciyy in clothing, as in everything else, and she has worn all session but two colors that I have seen —a henna silk blouse under navy blue jumper dress, and a sand-colored silK sweater with havy skirt—and this latter costume sne wore when she met me in the corridor back of the green chamber and invited me to her den...

...Women Were Present THE day Parliament opened, the new M. P. was its most interesting exhibit, vieing even with the recently imported governor general, Byng of Vimy, and the women were agog with curiosity to see her and pass judgment on her appearance...

...As women are so will the race become, and if they fail in their duty, the men of tomorrow will have lower ideals...

...I've been trying to beg off, but it won't work...

...Most of her utterances at these festive affairs have been reported, some probably garbled, for she denies some of the things that have been attributed to her...

...Another picnic" was her explanation...

...I don't care which side they go to, or how many parties there are: what does the name of a party matter...

...And they are?—" "Well, personally, I stand on a straight U. F. O. (United Farmers of Ontario) platform...

...She came from Southeast Grey with an idea that government was taking the best from a collection of viewpoints and that to obtain justice—which is what she calls the farmers' objective—one had but to state the case and presto...

...She sees an object before her and, as though she had blinders on, cannot see, or refuses to see anything but the goal ahead...

...And the St Lawren^Ship Canal...

...Go back in history and you will find that every movement which upset existing conditions produced chaos for a while, and then settled down into different channels and its success came...

...A fern and some small potted plants lined the windowsill, and there were a couple of tiny framed watercolors on the wall over her desk...

...What do you think of the job of M. P. for a woman...

...When more women get into politics it will make for better political conditions...

...We are out to get our ideals realized...

...The leader, Tom A. Crerar, is a consistent free trader, but some of his followers would like to sneak a little protection in on the side, as it were...

...For protection produces a false inflation of values...

...Favors Direct Taxation "WE would change from indirect to direct taxation, and make an immediate and substantial all-round reduction in the customs tariff by increasing British preference to one-half of the general tariff...

...It supplies 50 per cent of our export trade...

...Won't this triangular business end in the Progressives who believe in a tariff no matter how low, going into the ranks of the Conservatives or Liberals...

...In 1911 we had a golden opportunity te embrace reciprocity with the United States...

...She is a bit of a fanatic, this young legislator, her Scotch forbears having probably bequeathed this along with other characteristics which make for solidity of character and oneness of purpose...

...but they won't be able to make the world a paradise by any means, though they have a tendency toward social reform, and as they do not approve of the double standard of morals they will try to better conditions along that line...

...she exclaimed, "and I seem to be able to learn only by butting my head against a wall continually in my work| I am so anxious to make good, not only for my people in Southeast Grey who elected me, but because I am the first woman here, and though I don't represent the women of Canada in any way—except those in my constituency —I feel sure that anything I may say or da which will not be wise will be used as a horrible example of the effects of equal suffrage...

...No Feminine Wiles SUE uses no feminine wiles—somehow one can hardly visualize her powdering or using rouge...

...Is Plain Speaker AS a speaker Miss Macphail talks plainly and clearly—an example which could be copied with advantage by many of her male co-workers...

...and the free traders in the Liberals cross into the Progressive ranks—and by and by we will have two parties again...

...Granted...

...Picnics are her specialty—and as June is the month of picnics, she is in great demand...

...We understand each other, the farmers and I; I talk their language, and understand their needs...

...but when they vote they take a deeper interest in the affairs of government, and thinking women will not become inert or parasitic...

...She is the first of a throng which these gallant gentlemen fear will soon be ousting them from the prerogatives and constituencies which have been regarded heretofore as belonging peculiarly to the male...

...I have so much to learn...

...True, but natural, too...

...They are wrong of course in desiring high protection, but they are consistent I can't say that much for the government...

...and give full publicity to all campaign fund contributions, how raised and how spent...

...She addresses the House pretty much as she has been accustomed to address her classes, and it must be admitted that while her words may not go ringing down the ages, she is listened to with respect and interest...

...The farm where her family lives is so poor that the family could not get along on its products, so Agnes, one of three daughters, taught for about eight years in the public schools of Ontario...

...Where has any other movement led...

...That people should work so hard and get so little seemed unjust, and she began to study the reason why of it all...

...Our good old neighbor next door is the most highly protected country in the world and is building a spiked railing around the top of the tariff wall right this minute," I commented...

...It was the one touch of imagination which she had voiced during the interview—the farmers and the dead hopes she could see in their tired eyes.—Dearborn Independent...

...Need More Women in Politics First Woman Member of Canadian Parliament, Representing Farmers, Sees Better Conditions With Equal Suffrage By HOLLAND COX WHEN Canada's fourteenth Parliament convened it brought with it a peculiar condition of things: a good-sized Liberal government, a small Conservative opposition and a larger third party which lies between the other two politically—a solid mass of farmers who call themselves Progressives...

...and her directness is more manlike than one usually finds in woman...

...And the farmers have asked for protection as well as the rest of the folks there...

...She has a passion for civics and political economy...

...behold a new order of things...

...it is all split up...

...The farmers will suffer more than any in the end...

...I always feel nervous about addressing them, but when I look into their poor, patient faces and their tired eyes where so many hopes seem to lie buried—I forget to be nervous and say the things they ought to hear...

...but it would be the best possible thing for both countries...

...I asked, for there have been a great many people on the anxious seats during the past few months since the agrarians have become a voting class...

...I don't knew whether we'll have such an opportunity again...

...They make no difference on account of sex...

...Oh, that's awful...

...Why add te an already intolerable taxation...

...It will have to stand in abeyance...

...Here she spends most of her time When not in the Commons chamber...

...Long before she became a candidate she saw the hard lot of the men and women who try to scratch along on their little acreages without the education and comforts which make the existence of the city dweller shine so by contrast...

...The movement is growing and although at present the Progressive party in the House seems to be headed in the direction of free trade all round, there are some in its ranks who would see that theory applied to every industry but the ones in which they themselves happen to be engaged...

...It is all wrong...

...and if she doesn't end up in the Senate (where the solid old British North American Act, unchangeable as anything British can possibly be, in effect says no woman may desecrate its holy calm) she may become a professor of her pet subjects...

...The role would suit her...

...They got something of a shock, for she is the quietest creature in the House one could imagine...

...She has little of the tact and savoir faire of the typical politician—and she isn't one, although she calls herself a propagandist, and she is, if giving expression to her views on the farmers' problems in the press and at gatherings which may be handy constitutes that...

...She will never in the world make a great statesman—or should it be "stateswo-man"?—or even a politician of note...

...One can see it plainly now, and to those who have watched her daily in the House it has been a gradual but sure change...

...a perfectly good Independent party of one—and he's a party more than 6 feet, 3 inches tall, named Neill, a canny Scot from British Columbia—and, what has carried consternation to the hearts of the Quebec Liberals who insist upon keeping their womenfolk unspotted from the world and upon a pedestal (from which they show violent symptoms of stepplng down)—a woman member...

...There are "also among those present" a Labor party of two...

...But surely that would be unjust," I exclaimed...

...She is learning that silence is golden—but then, what's a lady to do when she is being urged and coaxed to talk, and it is reperesented that she is losing a great opportuity to help on the Progressive movement if she refuses...

...She is too direct, too abrupt, not suave enough...

...They must prosper if the country is to prosper...

...Now, Miss Agnes Macphail, Canada's first woman to sit in the sacred green chamber, was a country school teacher living not so far from the United States border in a little village called Flesherton, near Owen Sound...

...Her job as their representative came about as a natural sequence of this interest, and her training as a teacher helped to develop the poise and directness which were natural to her...

...Not that I believe for one moment that women are going to do anything spectacular...

...She is now only about 30—though I was too polite to ask her exact age, since it isn't done any more in the best circles—and her funny bone must have atrophied when she was teaching the young idea how to shoot, for her sense of humor, as far as I could see, is very little in evidence...

...If she had an atom of the vanity which is commonly supposed to lurk in woman's nature, she would study her dress and appearance with an idea of enhancing it But that isn't her way...

...It is difficult to speak before the Commons," she went on, "but it is different when I go to talk to the farmers...

...Women have a place in public life—they are part of the human family and not mere fillers-in any more than men...

...We are in a transition period...

...We believe that farming is the great basic industry of the Dominion...

...It might be a very good thing—I don't know...

...It's not an enviable one for the man or woman who really tries to do faithful duty...

...All the same, I'll be glad when there are more women elected," and this she confidently expects will be the case before long...

...I am very tired * * All right, then, I'll go," she ended resignedly...

...But I mean—where is it to end...

...Her room is on the sixth floor of the new building which replaces the old stone Gothic structure destroyed during the war, and differs in no way from the offices of the other members of the Commons...

...Well, you know our party is out for reductions all round in expenditures...

...Fishing, farming, lumbering and mining—these are the great industries...

...We have grown used to the two-party system...

...Leads in Farmer Movement HIS farmer movement—where is it to lead...

...What about reciprocity...

...While we were talking the phone rang and I heard her side of the conversation that ensued: "At 8:30...

...This one started in the west and is coming east...

...Task Is Difficult til WILL say this for the Conservatives," she * said...

...As far as the members in the House are concerned, I must say that I have been taken in on a good-fellowship basis and treated as one of them, and have had every courtesy and kindness possible from them all...