"Disgrace, Ruin"

Mrs. Florence E. S. Knapp, first woman ever elected to public office by statewide vote in New York, was last week sentenced to 30 days in the Albany County Jail. Her crime was grand larceny. In addition, her judge said that she had "persistently endeavored to defeat the ends of justice, and to carry out her purpose she was guilty not only of perjury but of subornation of perjury."

A lesser personage might have been more heavily punished. Mrs. Knapp was New York's Republican Secretary of State in 1925-27. In taking the State census she padded the payroll and forged check endorsements to the amount of some $24,175.82 (TIME, June 4). Democratic Governor Smith put Republican Attorney-General Albert Ottinger in charge of the case and the latter begged a suspended sentence because of Mrs. Knapp's "physical and mental suffering, her exposure, disgrace and complete ruin." But 30 days of gaol she had to serve. She was Syracuse University's Dean of Home Economics after leaving, office and until exposed. She went to prison in a trim navy-blue dress and tan felt hat, matronly, greyhaired, self-possessed, "disgraced," "ruined."