Shining Stars

To Chicago's Stevens Hotel last week went 2,000 self-supporting women to attend the biennial convention of the Federation of Business & Professional Women's Clubs. Between ballotings and speeches they anxiously discussed the progress of professional women during the depression.

Great was the applause when Ohio's Supreme Court Judge Florence Ellinwood Allen rose to speak. No sentimentalist, Florence Allen struggled long & hard for a lawyer's degree, practiced successfully in Cleveland, studied international law to find a way to abolish war. As Judge of Cuyahoga County Court of Common

Pleas she was the first woman jurist to sentence a man to death. As Supreme Court Judge she is rounding out her second six-year term. - Upon her the Federation of Business & Professional Women has conferred the title "preeminent professional woman of the nation." "The unmarried woman earning her living has stood out like a shining star," said Judge Allen to her sisters in Chicago. "I do not know what many a family would have done if it had not been for that refuge from their problems, the 'old maid' in the family. When married women were being turned out of their jobs because they were married, and when fathers and bread winners lost their employment ... it was the salary of the old maid in thousands of homes that kept them going." Next evening in the ballroom was a "famous firsts" dinner in honor of feminine leaders. Principal guest was Montana's Jeannette Rankin, first' woman member of the U. S. House of Representatives, the lady who cried "No!" and burst into tears when called upon to vote for War. At the speakers' table sat Mary Anderson, onetime immigrant girl and garment worker whom President Wilson appointed first Woman's Bureau Director of the Labor Department ; Genevieve Cline, first woman Federal judge (New York Customs Court) ; Annabel Mathews, first woman member of the U. S. Board of Tax Appeals; Mabel G. Reinecke, first woman collector of internal revenue (Northern Illinois) ; Jean W. Wittich, first woman state budget commissioner (Minnesota) ; Earlene White, first postmistress of the U. S. Capitol Building. At the Palmer House two days later another conclave of women began : the International Congress of Women of a Century of Progress. To preside over it came Lena Madesin Phillips, Manhattan lawyer, organizer and onetime president of the Federation of Business & Professional Women's Clubs. She opened the conference with the gavel used by Susan B. Anthony. To help settle the conference question, "How best can we serve our common cause--civilization?" came Jane Addams, Carrie Chapman Catt, Authoress Mary Ritter Beard, and many a foreign notable. From England came Dame Rachel Crowdy. only woman ever appointed a section head (Social Questions and Opium Traffic) of the League of Nations, and Margaret Grace ("Saint Maggie") Bondfield, first woman member of a British Cabinet (Labor, 1929-31). From Japan came demure Baroness Shidzue Ishimoto, birth control advocate who lecture-toured the U. S. last winter. From Berlin came Dr. Marie Munk, first woman judge in Prussia. At the Columbian Exposition in 1893, women had a special building. This year they explained that since they had achieved equality they did not need one.

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