A Woman for Mayor: A Novel of To-day

by Helen M. Winslow

The campaign was a furious one after that. The women, instead of leaving the management of things to men, were stirred to wonderful activity. They worked, not only among the men of their own acquaintance, but among the working-people; they held meetings in factories at noon, or in school-rooms or cheap halls at night in the districts where the factory-hands lived. They spoke at mass-meetings and rallies, and if they did not appear in torchlight processions, they saw that many banners were carried in them, bearing the women's motto and legend. It was a hard fight, but a good one, and the cause of womanhood as well as of good government was advanced by it.

When Sam Watts, for instance, with his pockets well-lined, went down into the district where lived the employees of the Roma Ice Company, he did not find it so easy to disburse that money as he had expected.

"No," said one man, "I can't forget that Miss Van Deusen's been good to me and mine."

"O, she is the Roma Ice Company, of course," returned Watts. "That is one of her assets; but you people are being ground down to hard labor every day to keep her in luxury—don't you see that?"

"I see," answered the man, "that she is almost the only employer I know who takes a personal interest in us."

"Yes, when votes are to be counted," sneered Watts.

"Listen," said the man. "Two years ago, when the strike was on, and there was a good deal of hard times around, she came right down among us and helped. She didn't sit down at home and let us take the consequences of the strike (no, I never was in favor of it. I only went out with the rest because I had to.) And she didn't send us a check as if we were just objects of charity. She came right down into the tenements and talked with our women-folks. She found out what they needed and provided it when it was necessary. She sat up all night with the sick baby of one of the strike leaders. My! but he was a shamed man the next day! And my own woman, why, man alive! when she had her baby and we'd no money at all, Gertrude Van Deusen sent a nurse and a doctor and paid for 'em; but more than that, she came down and stood by my wife (who was once a maid of hers), all through it. Do you suppose we are going back on a woman like that? No sirree! The votes of the Roma Ice Company are hers—to a man."

So it was that while the politicians were declaiming against her as a cold-blooded aristocrat, there were poor people all over the city who had some tale to tell of kindness done in secret, either by her or her father.

Towards the last of the campaign, a demand grew for a joint debate. Miss Van Deusen had appeared on the platform many times, and defined her attitude on public issues in Roma quite clearly. John Allingham had done the same, for he had a good following of the business men of the city, while the demagogues made a formidable showing for their candidate, Barnaby Burke. There was a growing feeling that there must be a fusion of the woman's ticket with the Allingham forces, but the former would not withdraw their candidate, and Allingham having put his hand to the municipal plough would not take it away.

Consequently, both sides agreed to a joint debate to be held at a great mass meeting the Monday evening before the election Tuesday. This was not without opposition from within each party, and there were some who hinted darkly that it might not come off.