"That's the way they all feel," said Gertrude Van Deusen. "I wish I were a man. I'd run for mayor! I wouldn't let the figure of Defeat worry me. I'd make a fight, I would, and we'd see if the demagogues had everything their own way."
"Why not run, then?" asked Mrs. Bateman, smiling across the table.
"I'd get every decent man roused up, for once," said Gertrude, enthusiastically, "I'd go into every ward and organize—as they do. I'd work among the poor, the illiterate, the unfortunate; and I'd rouse the rich and educated, too. That's the class that need awakening in this town."
"Then you're the right candidate," said Mrs. Bateman. "Why don't you take it? Really, now, why not?"
"O, Mrs. Bateman, I was only imagining a case." Miss Van Deusen was blushing and confused now. "Of course I couldn't run for office, not really."
"Why not?" asked the elder woman in the calm, judicial way which made her a leader among women. "Why not? The town is going to the dogs—or rather, to the demagogues. We need a complete revolution in Roma. We women have the vote in this state; why not take matters into our own hands? Why not have a woman for mayor?"
"O-o-oh!" gasped several of her hearers in the slight pause.
"Think of the field of activities that would open up before a good woman," she went on. "The condition of our paupers, of our children's institutions, of our schools. Think of the intemperance and the vagrancy and the immorality that flourish under our very noses. Yes, and the machine-politics that keep them flourishing. Oh, there is so much to be done, and our good men too busy, or—as they claim—too high-minded to meddle with it."
"Then what would, what could a decent woman do with it?" demanded Mrs. Jewett.
"Walk through it like an angel of light," answered Mrs. Bateman. "Ladies, we as the 'Progressive Workers' have labored ten years to effect reforms in this town, to further the interests of the schools, the poor, the dependent. What have we accomplished?"