Would you want your daughter to be President?

Editor’s Note: This article is from Everywoman’s Magazine, November 1956,В  Vol. 6, No. 11, p. 12. This was found at a garage sale by Mary Jo Smith in Oregon, a friend of Carol van Strum (my environmental law mentor) and typed by Carol. — EFC

The “Everywoman” editor writes:

“We asked Sen. Kennedy…to write this article because we felt he was ideally fitted to do it. Son of Joseph P. Kennedy, former Ambassador to Great Britain, he is young (39), a brilliant writer (his Profiles in Courage is a best seller) and has been in Congress for 10 years, four as a Senator from Massachusetts.”

The question of a woman becoming president is one we’re still concerned with today, 52 years later, and it feels increasingly tangible following the primary roles of Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. We now feel we are that much closer to seeing the day when a woman will take office, and JFK’s article is all the more inspiring as a result.

Many thanks to Mary Jo Smith for recovering the article from the November 1956 issue of Everywoman’s Magazine, and to Carol Van Strum, for faithfully transcribing it into digital format for us to share with you today. –Rachel Asher

Today’s Appointment Schedule for President Lucy R. Jones, as released by the White House Press Secretary, is as follows:

10 a.m. — Review troops at Andrews Air Force Base as Commander-in-Chief of all U.S. Armed Forces.

12 Noon – Address U.S. Chamber of Commerce Convention on her Administration’s Tax, Fiscal and Tariff Policies.

2 p.m. — Press Conference

3 p.m. — Confer with British and French Prime Ministers on current threats to peace.

Ridiculous, some will say; why not? say others. It will never happen, some are saying. It should never happen, say still others. Parents react differently, too. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if my daughter grew up to be President?” some mothers are thinking. “I certainly wouldn’t want any daughter of mine in that job,” say others.

Before becoming too deeply involved in the merits of the question as to whether a woman should ever become President, we ought first to ask ourselves: What are the chances of a woman becoming President? Is the above hypothetical press release on an imaginary woman President of the future a complete fantasy, a fictional dream impossible of realization in the foreseeable future? The answer to this question may throw considerable light on the question of how desirable it would be to have a woman President.

For there is every indication that the chances of someone’s daughter growing up to be President are not impossible or fantastic at all, even in this generation. After all, little more than a generation ago both men and women scoffed at the idea of women generally running for office on any level, or being appointed to any governmental positions of real responsibility. Women might eventually be permitted to vote, it was said, and a few would be given honorary positions here and there in order to attract the “female vote;” but surely it would go no further than that.

These prophecies were proven mistaken in rapid order. Since Jeanette Rankin of Montana was elected to Congress in 1916 – at a time when most women were still not permitted to vote – 51 more have served in the House of Representatives and nine have served in the Senate (including two, Hattie Caraway of Arkansas and my distinguished colleague, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, who were elected to full terms). Few remember that we had our first woman Senator in 1922, Rebecca Felton of Georgia.

Mrs. Felton was the widow of a Congressman who had served 40 years earlier and was a distinguished public servant on the State and local level in her own right. Appointed to fill a short-term vacancy in the Senate until a successor was elected, she was – for two brief days of glory – the first female to walk onto the sacrosanct Senate floor where only a few years before the suggestion of women in politics had brought public jeers and private profanity. Interestingly enough, Mrs. Felton was enabled to set this precedent for women everywhere because of the kindness of a man, the Senator elected to take her place – for he withheld presenting his credentials to the Senate until she had enjoyed her historic two days. To stand back gallantly while the cause of women’s rights was advanced was only the first of many great deeds of statesmanship in the long career of that new Senator from Georgia in 1922 – Walter F. George. But only last summer he recalled it as one of those events in his life which gave him the most satisfaction.

But, some will say, naturally women can be elected to Congress because they possess the one necessary qualification – they can talk. This is, of course, not an accurate picture of the difficult requirements for and obligations of Congressional service today; but further answers to these skeptics (who apparently shudder at the awful possibilities of a female filibuster) is found in the many responsible executive and administrative posts which women have filled in the last generation.

Soon after Woodrow Wilson appointed women to Federal Commissions and a sub-Cabinet position, women served as governors, mayors and in other state and local offices all over the country. Frances Perkins, the first Cabinet member, became Secretary of Labor at a time when that post required unusual ability to negotiate with key labor and management representatives (all men). Since then, women have been appointed to the Federal appellate courts, to quasi-judicial boards, to represent us as “ambassadresses:” in diplomatice negotiations abroad, to speak for us in the United Nations and to be Treasurer of the United States. (This last appointment, when first sent to the Senate for confirmation, was received with considerable suspicion by Senators whose wives had difficulty balancing a bank account.) Another woman (Mrs. Anna Rosenberg) was even appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense in charge of manpower!

In short, the past generation has seen a revolution in the old concepts of the woman’s role in public life. Increasing thousands of women – whose mothers or grandmothers were not even permitted to vote – have served, and served well, in every kind of elective as well as appointive office – except the Presidency. But succession to that office as well is the logical extension of a trend that in a comparatively short period of time has brought women from political serfdom to be accepted without question in the highest councils of our state and Federal governments. Unlikely as the possibilities of there being a female President seem today, it would be a foolhardy prophet indeed who would predict that that event would never occur, once he had reviewed the changes wrought in the last three decades.

Public opinion, to the surprise of many, has kept pace with this trend. In 1937, the Gallup Poll first asked a cross-section of the American public: “Would you vote for a woman for President?” Only 23% said “yes,” while 63 % said “no,” with 4% having no opinion. But in 1955, less than 20 years later, 52% said “yes,” and those replying in the negative had declined to 44%, with 4% still having no opinion. In short, during that brief period opinion changed from nearly 2-1 against to roughly 5-4 in favor of a woman President. “On few issues,” Dr. Gallup has noted, “has the public turned about so completely.” Interestingly enough, according to the polls, women are about as prejudiced against sending a member of their sex to the White House as men are. On this I have no comment.

This gradual decline in the prejudice against women in politics and the Presidency is, I believe, part of a general decline in the perpetuation of unfounded political barriers and prejudices. Catholics, Jews and [African Americans] are among those elected today to high offices in states and cities where such occurrences would have been considered unbelievable only a few years ago. Members of minority groups are being increasingly considered on their merits alone – and women, despite the fact that they represent a majority of the eligible voters, are too often treated as a political minority group. Politicians make appeals to the “women’s vote” just as they direct special appeals to attract the so-called Catholic vote, [Black] vote, veterans’ vote, and so forth. Fortunately, this splinterization of our political life has been declining in recent years, particularly in the selection of well-qualified candidates – and this has benefited women as well as other “minority” groups.

But even further cause for the rise of women in high office is their status as “majority” group. Approximately two million more women than men are eligible to vote this year – and this year, for the first time since passage of the 17th Amendment giving them the right to vote in 1920, women are likely to outnumber men at the polls on Nov. 6. When a Gallup survey asked respondents whether they would like to be volunteer workers in this year’s campaign, the results showed that 8,570,000 women would like to do actual campaign work – a potent political force, and exceeding the number of potential men workers. I know from personal experience how women can be the key to political victory. They hold the teas, mail the literature, ring the doorbells, register the voters and make speeches, raise money and plan campaign strategy.

This rapid growth of women as a powerful political force is reflected in the National Conventions that someday will nominate a woman for President or Vice-President. Since Elizabeth Cohen of Utah, the first woman delegate to a Democratic National Convention, seconded the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1900 (two women were alternates at the Republican Convention of 1892), their participation has rapidly increased. In recent years several hundred women delegates and alternates have attended each convention, serving on key committees, making major addresses and being placed in nomination for Vice-President. The steadily increasing strength of women voters, campaign workers and delegates makes it likely that our major parties will someday nominate and elect women for the Vice-Presidency, then the Presidency itself.

As a matter of fact, women have been nominated for the Presidency in the past, but by minority parties. Their example and experience, I am afraid, do not provide a very worth-while guide to parents interested in steering their daughters into the White House. One of the latest candidates was Astrologist Ella Linea Jensen, who in 1952 sought the Presidency as the candidate of the “Washington Peace Party.” Washington in this case referred not to our nation’s Capitol but to the first President; for Mrs. Jensen declared that she was in communication with George Washington “on the other side.” This was not extraordinary for her, she pointed out, inasmuch as she was a “Himalayan Master” who had been reincarnated. Since the stars were favorable, Mrs. Jensen predicted victory at the polls for George Washington and herself, and promised to root out communism within nine minutes of her inauguration. Apparently through some error in her horoscope, she failed to nose out President Eisenhower.

The first woman to run for President had created quite a stir fifty years earlier. Victoria Chaflin Woodhull was noted for her success as a Wall Street financier, for the scandalous newspaper she widely sold, and for the packed lecture halls which heard her famous speech on behalf of “free love.” When Susan B. Anthony refused to permit Victoria to turn the National Suffrage Association into a political party (to promote Victoria’s candidacy), Victoria called a rival meeting to organize the “Equal Rights” party. Once she was nominated, “Victoria Leagues” were established throughout the country. But as Mrs. Woodhull might have expected from her archenemies, the men – and only these archenemies were permitted to vote in those days – she failed to get on the ballot or capture a single electoral vote.

Throughout the years, women sought Presidential honors under the name of one group or another – not all of them eccentrics by any means, nor all of their efforts futile if we measure their impact in terms of eventual acceptance of woman suffrage. For, as Mrs. Belva Lockwood, an outstanding attorney and public servant who sought the Presidency in 1884 and 1888, later told her daughter: “The fact that a woman actually ran for President will give men something to think about for years to come.”

There is no question about the fact that men – and women – have been thinking about it. The novelty of women in high office is beginning to wear off. The traditional maxim that a woman’s place is in the home, darning socks and raising children, is being increasingly recognized as a preference that permits individual variations in accordance with personalities and circumstances. And the ability of women to direct rugged political campaigns, administer vast executive departments, display brilliant legislative leadership and handle difficult foreign, military and domestic problems has shattered the old concepts of political inferiority and executive weakness.

The possibilities of there being a woman in the White House should thus be considered neither unlikely nor disastrous. The more important question is when this will occurr, and how and under what conditions it might be brought about. And no doubt some parents will ask what steps they should take to prepare their daughters for the Presidency.

In answer to these questions, it seems to me that it is important first of all to stress that a woman will enter the White House only when she is not looked upon as a woman. By that, I do not mean that her sex would be concealed or ignored; but it would have to be considered as irrelevant to her qualifications for the office as her religion, maiden name, or shoe size. Women who are nominated as “women” to advance the cause of women’s rights, or to demonstrate the recognition of women by the party to which they belong, are almost surely doomed to failure. For the Presidency, above all, requires broad representation of, and outstanding leadership for, all elements in our society. It requires an outlook which does not emphasize only the traditional “women’s issues “ — equal rights, world peace, education and child health and welfare – but is equally at home with foreign and military affairs, labor relations, the needs of agriculture, governmental administration and other issues.

There is every indication that more and more American daughters are acquiring this kind of broad political outlook and interest. Women now turn out at the polls in practically equal proportion to men – an increase from an estimated 26% in 1920 to about 60% in 1952. (It has been suggested that women were reluctant to register at first because it required a disclosure of their age – and in Kansas in 1920 the “21-Plus Club” successfully backed legislation to allow women of voting age to keep their age a secret by simply declaring that they were “Age 21 – Plus.”) Recent surveys, moreover, have indicated that women are concerned about the same important issues as men.

I can testify on the basis of the mail I receive in my office how many women today are politically alert and able to analyze keenly all of the fundamental problems facing the Congress. Members of the League of Women Voters, in particular, have frequently written me perceptive and well-considered letters on some measure before the Senate which has been discussed by their local group. (I get other kinds of letters from women, too – crackpot, abusive, demanding and frivolous – but these number no more than I get from members of the male sex.)

Finally, I would remind young women aspiring to the Presidency – or their parents who aspire for them – that the first woman President, because of the fact that she is a woman, will have to be an extraordinarily capable chief executive. She will require the charm and wisdom of an Eleanor Roosevelt, the leadership and military prowess of a Joan of Arc, the stately compassion of a Queen Victoria, the political sagacity of a Clare Boothe Luce, the courageous determination of a Sister Kenny, the pluck – to keep going under almost overwhelming odds – of a Helen Keller and, in addition, all of the best qualifications and skills of the Republican and Democratic lady officials mentioned earlier in this article. No doubt beauty and grace will also be important to her nomination and her election.

Is there such a woman, or is there a chance that there ever will be? Of course there is – and if the Democrats nominate her, she will receive my vote!

THE END