Caretaker

Senator Medill McCormick of Illinois will stand for reelection next Fall. Most of the Senators who will do likewise still remain at Washington, not having begun their campaigns. Senator McCormick also remains in Washington. But his affairs in the home borough are being carefully tended. Mrs. McCormick, formerly Ruth Hanna, daughter of the greatest of all political bosses--the late Marcus Alonzo Hanna--is firmly entrenched on the home front. There are not a few who say she is a better politician than her husband.

The author of The Boudoir Mirrors of Washington (TIME, Dec. 31) has written: "Few women in official life have the versatility or dynamic personality of Mrs. McCormick. She is a clever politician, an ardent suffragist, a social leader, an expert horsewoman, an effective writer, and a successful farmer. . . . as a daughter of Mark Hanna, so long autocrat of the G. O. P., she learned the political game early. She played a prominent part in the fascinating life of the 'Little White House.' . . . Not even during its prominence as a political stronghold throughout the Civil War did this celebrated old Taylor Mansion on Jackson Place attain the distinction that came to it through Mark Hanna's famous country sausage and pancake breakfasts. It has been said that hospitality often masked political batteries. . . .

"When you make a list of the big women in Washington, you can't afford to leave out Ruth McCormick. . . . She is the sort you can't keep under."