TIME should appeal to every man and woman in America.

WHEN, back in 1922, the founders of TIME set down those words in their initial prospectus, they were obviously placing women high on their list--higher than women ranked in many areas of world affairs in 1922. Over the years, women have graced no fewer than 153 TIME covers--ranging from Actress Eleanora Duse (July 30, 1923) to Pat Nixon (Feb. 29. 1960), from Franklin Roosevelt's secretary. Marguerite Le "Hand (Dec. 17, 1934), to Marilyn Monroe (May 14, 1956). This week. 40 years after the 19th Amendment gave the vote to women, TIME'S cover deals with the broad subject of women in politics, and it embraces two hard-at-work women politicians, Maine's Republican U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith and her Democratic opponent, Lucia Cormier.

Ever since women got into politics they have been getting into political stories in TIME. "What women could be President of the U.S.?" asked TIME in its issue of June 14, 1926, and then reported on the answer from leading suffragettes in a cover story about Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. battle-worn president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Some woman would indeed become President one day, said TIME'S cover subject of April 23, 1928. high-born Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick of Illinois, who that year began her quest for high office by being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, later (1930) ran for the U.S. Senate--and lost. The two women who have come closer to the White House than any of their sisters--by reaching Cabinet level--have adorned TIME covers: the Democratic Secretary of Labor, Miss Frances Perkins (Aug. 14. 1933) and the Republican Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Mrs. Oveta Gulp Hobby (May 4, 1953).

TIME'S editors (married men, largely) admit a deep and abiding interest in women, and a considerable debt to them. The masthead contains the names of 67 women editorial staffers. Despite all this expertise, the editors somehow still find women politicians--and women--an always fascinating, sometimes baffling and ever-changing story.

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