Walska Outwangled

Ganna Walska d'Eighnhorn Fraenkel Cochran McCormick last fall entered the U.S. bringing 15 trunkfuls of personal effects which she valued at two million dollars. She declined to pay duty, on the ground that she was a nonresident U.S. citizen whose home is in Paris. Unsympathetic customs officials impounded her baggage, declaring that a wife's residence was with her husband, and that Harold Fowler McCormick lives in Chicago (TIME, Oct. 8).

Since then Mme. Walska has been an ardent champion of the right of women to have legal residences separate from their husbands. Recently she went before the New York legislature with members of the National Women's party to advocate such a bill. Last week, the bill was voted on-and newspapers headlined "Walska's Pet Bill Passes." But it was Walska's pet bill in a deformed state. It gave New York women the right to establish separate legal residences for voting and office holding. For purposes of taxation they still, in the law's eyes, reside with their husbands. Thus was Dame Walska outwangled.