intention and petitions for naturalization by their husbands. Well, this is all very fine as rhetoric and the expression of pious wishes. But what comes of it in reality? An elaborate table in the report for 1919[157] shows that in the fiscal year ended June 30th the names of 108,395 wives of candidates were furnished to the school authorities in cities and towns showing a total population of nearly 35,000,000 people with a “foreign-born white male of voting age” population of more than 4,400,000. And on the next page are tabulated reports of 166 school superintendents as to classes for foreign-born persons in English and citizenship, showing: TABLE XXXVI MAXIMUM ENROLLMENT IN CITIZENSHIP AND ENGLISH CLASSES IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1919 =========================================== Men | 11,854 Women | 2,733 Unclassified | 1,287 ----------------------------+---------- Total | 15,874 =========================================== Every bit of it valuable, no doubt. Presumably, also, the complete figures would present a much larger total, but, as an exhibit of goods, it is hardly up to the promises of the show window! FOREIGN-BORN WOMEN WITHOUT POLITICAL EXPERIENCE The fact is that the married women of foreign birth, who are made citizens by the naturalization of their husbands, have had, as a whole, not the slightest practical interest in any stage of the business. In the old country from which they came they had, as a rule, no participation in government; the traditions of the society in which the majority of them grew up relegated women to domestic employments, made them subordinate to their husbands in every phase of public life; they have been slow to learn the language here, and the proposal that they go to school in order to fit themselves for a function about which they know nothing and care less meets with little enthusiasm on their part--as the statistics of the Naturalization Bureau plainly show. The intelligent woman’s advent to politics always has been dreaded by the professional politician. He felt it in his bones that she might not have the political superstitions and docility that have been exhibited by the average male voter; she might ask questions and display initiative; she might remember with an eye to reprisals the things that politicians, legislators, and executives have done to the interests of women in ages past. He grew eloquent about the “place of woman in the home,” the demoralizing atmosphere of the polling place, and so on. And, as for the foreign-born woman, he knew, first, that the foreign-born husband as a rule was opposed to having his wife and daughters meddling in such matters, and second, that all she would do, anyway, would be to duplicate the vote of her husband or father. THEY ARE GOOD MATERIAL