Can you decide a question until you have heard both sides of it? Is it safe to believe all you read, or does it pay to consider when you read it, who wrote it, what personal or party reason he may have had for writing it? Consider your local newspaper. Do you know the difference between the “set” matter and the “plate” matter and the “ready-print” matter in its pages? Why is this difference _very_ important in deciding as to the value of an article in that paper? Who writes set matter? Has he “any fish to fry” when he writes? Who writes plate and ready-print matter? Has he any fish to fry? With a little care you can tell these three kinds of printed matter apart in your local paper. (Ready-print matter is used only in some country weeklies and dailies and some other small local papers. It can be “spotted” by noticing what pages of the paper always have it. Unfold the paper and lay it flat on the floor. If it is ready-print and has few pages enough to make only one sheet, all of the pages on one side will be ready-print. There won’t be any local articles or items in the print. Both ready-print and plate are in different type from set matter.) If a corrupt man or corrupt men wrote the ready-print and plate could they wield a vast influence? More than by writing the set matter? It is well worth thinking about. Are there many magazines or papers that are not controlled by political or business interests? How much can you believe in a publication controlled in that way? The voters of the country are divided into several political parties. Would it be better or worse if there were no regular parties and every voter voted independently? What is a real democracy? Is the United States a real democracy now? Why? What is meant by direct legislation—the initiative, referendum, recall and imperative mandate? Big words, but they stand for things worth knowing about and having an opinion on. And they are easy enough to understand. Would these things tend toward real democracy? Have they been tried in actual practice? If so, have they proved a success? Why? What effect would they have on the whole party system? There, I think that is enough questions for one person to ask. Someone is likely to ask me a question in return—_How_ do politics affect our daily bread? Well, there are several hundred answers to that. Let’s each of us suggest for the May number one or more ways that politics (according to both definition No. 1 and definition No. 2) affect our daily living. We are not going to try to become experts in politics, but we do want to have an intelligent general idea of them. It is our _duty_. In our May number I hope to have many opinions from women all over the country. [Illustration: _THE INTEREST OF EVERYDAY THINGS._]