In 1912, when the Children's Bureau was established at Washington, we might have expected that one of the women constituents of the petticoated West would be placed at its head. Instead, President Taft appointed Miss Julia C. Lathrop, a resident of Hull House in Chicago, and a former member of the Illinois State Board of Charities, where she was credited with the enlargement of the Illinois State charitable institutions and their thorough reorganization, though, of course, obliged to work without the ballot. Time has proved the wisdom of Mr. Taft's appointment and also borne witness to the peculiar advantage enjoyed by women in politics, provided they are not shackled with the ballot. One of the thought-inspiring books of 1914 was also a splendid argument for the anti-suffragists. It was _Beauty for Ashes_, Mrs. Albion Fellowes Bacon's account of the securing of the Indiana Model Housing Act, which was accomplished through the initiative and leadership of this one woman, mother, and home-maker, with no political prestige, with no previous reputation built by long publicity, without the all-powerful ballot. Mrs. Bacon was supported by the Federated Woman's Clubs of her State, and enlisted the aid of earnest men and women citizens throughout the State. Her bill was bitterly contested by the worst class of landlords, but after three sessions of the Legislature, at which Mrs. Bacon was obliged to appear in person and explain her bill, it was passed. She says of that day: "The women, the homes of Indiana, were honored that day by the men of the Legislature, and we had won a law for the 101 cities of our State. No wonder the women applauded as some of the men who gave their reasons, added 'and because the women wanted it'." Her conclusion is: "Most strongly have I desired to show how much can be done by women's organizations by simply demanding right legislation, and to show their equally important part of helping to enforce legislation after they get it." Speaking of her own work, she says: "Having no hand in the management of political affairs, I may leave to the various political parties the care of reaping the thorns in each other's fields. It has been my pleasand task to gather only the grapes.... I have encountered more figs than thistles, and fewer thistles than what seems to be a sort of cacti, that, I firmly believe, might be Burbankized for human good. Would that they might be, and that we might include in the conservation of vital resources those great powers for good that are now so wasted by constant warring for political supremacy." That last sentence forms a scathing indictment of the shortsightedness of suffrage policy. It is pitiful to think of the energy and ability which today is diverted from channels of human helpfulness to this sensational struggle for a mistaken cause. It is not to be thought of that we can permit woman's energy to be permanently dissipated in political warfare or handicapped by party vicissitudes.