Congress

While the Bumpkin Associated Country Women of the World were being feted by the Roosevelts in Washington last week (see p. 15), a more affluent sisterhood convened in Chicago's conservative Palmer House for the first Finance Congress of Women. The Congress was sponsored by Women Investors in America, Inc., as bitter an enemy as the New Deal boasts. And from 18 states went female capitalists to extol the right of property, to exhort each other to defend their investments as they would their young.

Head of Women Investors in America, Inc. is Cathrine Curtis, a tall, grey-haired onetime radio commentator. Wearing a tan costume and a roughrider hat, Director Curtis keynoted: "Have we been blinded by demagogs? Have we been lulled to a state of catalepsy by political pap, or have we been too lazy to assert and demand our sovereign rights? . . . Capitalism is not a devouring monster, and all the bitter denunciations emanating from ignorant and prejudiced sources cannot alter the fact that America owes her supremacy in world affairs to capitalism. . . . Woman, of course, through her great ownership of insurance, trust funds, stocks, savings bank accounts, homes, is the greatest capitalist in the world. We mobilize to save this capitalism!"

Keynoter Curtis recalled that she had struggled for many years to make women "money conscious." without much success until her radio talks in 1934. Then, she said, some of her followers in Utica, N. Y. invited her to address a mass meeting. Founded therefrom was Women Investors in America, Inc., pledged to awaken women's minds to finance (TIME, May 27, 1935). A W.I.A. survey had shown that women controlled 80% of U. S. life insurance, 65% of savings accounts, 48% of railroad securities, 44% of utility stocks, 40% of real estate. Director Curtis adopted as the organization's slogan: ''One Woman Can Be Forceful; One Hundred Women Can Be Helpful; One Thousand Women Can Be Powerful, BUT ONE MILLION WOMEN--UNITED -ARE INVINCIBLE! LET'S GO!"

By last week Women Investors, Inc. had gone quite a way. Despite the half-filled auditorium there were 4,000 registrations for the'"Congress," and the first issue of Woman Courageous, new W. I. A. organ, had a press run of 25,000.

The two-day program, loaded with speakers who could be counted on to roast Franklin Roosevelt and all his works, opened with an Advance of the Colors, a pledge of allegiance, the singing of America.

Hearst Columnist Merryle Stanley Rukeyser told the earnest delegates that the Administration was "motivated by repression and tends to stratify our society."

Chase National Bank's Assistant Cashier Mary Vail Andress reported that the ratio of investments to loans in Federal Reserve member banks had risen from 44% in 1925 to 150% in 1936. "From my reading of Biblical literature I infer that Eve was created for Adam's express company," observed Miss Andress. "From my readings of financial literature I infer that commercial banks now exist for the express purpose of financing Government deficits."

Up rose Mrs. Grace H. Brosseau, onetime D.A.R. president, now a W. I. A. director, who got a divorce from Mack Truckman Alfred Joseph Brosseau in 1930 because he slapped her face when she refused him the key to their wine cellar. Small, grim, wiry Mrs. Brosseau said that whenever the U. S. had "paused on the long trail of progress," women had been "right there with their first-aid kits. The state at which we have arrived," she cried, "did not spring up in a night. It dates back to the Secret Order of the Illuminati, which was organized in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt of Bavaria, and which caused the fomenting of revolutions in Europe." From Adam Weishaupt it was only a step to Karl Marx, and from Karl Marx Mrs. Brosseau proceeded to the New Deal. Imploring her audience to "work together to keep the Constitution on the upper level and the American flag floating," she continued: "I wonder how many who draw dividends and love them have written to their Congressmen their views on the present tax law under consideration. . . . Echoing through the rosy dawn of each new day is the still small voice of admonition: 'Work for the night is coming.' Women, the night is here."

All the while the assembled Investors kept mouse quiet, took copious notes. The children, whom some had brought along, dozed quietly.

At the Congress' banquet there were further alarms. President S. Wells Utley of Detroit Steel Casting Co. prophesied: "This coming campaign ... is one of the great decisive battles of the human race, and upon it hangs the future of our civilization. . . ." President Alex Dow of Detroit Edison Co. rambled through the question of the relations of women with business. The program closed on a foreboding note. Mme Alexandrine Cantacuzene, granddaughter of Ulysses S. Grant, talked on "Property Confiscation under a Revolutionary Government."

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