A Woman for Mayor | Page 9

Reform Club, at Bailey
Armstrong's suggestion, and he had enlisted a few of the leading
members of the Union Club.
Miss Van Deusen's candidacy had been talked over at the clubhouse as
elsewhere, and most of the members being old friends of her father or
herself had agreed, more or less cautiously, to support her. John
Allingham, with a few of the most conservative members, had
prevented the Union Club from officially endorsing her, but he could
not keep the several members from exercising their prerogative to work
for whom they chose. And so while the Municipal League was holding
a meeting at one end of the town to see if there were not some available
candidate to defeat her, the new City Reform Club was being started at
the other, to further the cause of Gertrude Van Deusen.
Judge Bateman opened the meeting and was made moderator, and later,
elected president of the new organization, with Bailey Armstrong as
secretary.
"You announce yourself here, Miss Van Deusen," asked the Judge after
these preliminaries, "as candidate for mayor?"
"I do," was the answer.
"Then it becomes our affair to endorse you and to prepare our definite
plan of work. That it is a most unusual, perhaps unheard-of thing to
offer a young woman as candidate for the mayor's chair, we all know,
goes without saying. But it seems to some of us sufficient reason for
going down on our knees with thankfulness that a good and an able
woman will consent to serve her city in such capacity. And we owe it
to her, to ourselves as men, and to our city as voters and citizens, that
we shall go out and work for her. Has anyone a definite plan of
action?"
Nearly every man in the room spoke in the same strain and before ten
o'clock their campaign was planned. Then the newspapers were called
up and reporters began to appear. The next morning Roma had its
second sensation. A leading editorial ran thus:

"Last night at the residence of the late Senator Van Deusen, a number
of the most prominent men and women of this town met and organized
the City Reform Club, and incidentally endorsed the candidacy of Miss
Gertrude Van Deusen for mayor. If this organization, which welcomes
representatives from all political parties, accomplishes half of what it
has set itself to do, last night will have been a historical date for Roma.
It has begun with a few aristocratic leaders, but we are inclined to
believe the membership will soon embrace all grades of social as well
as political voters; for careless as we have been in the past, the citizens
of Roma desire to stand for the best things--to have the best schools,
the best citizens, the best government in the state. The chief reason,
perhaps, why we have them not, is that the people have not been in
touch with the executive department. The people have known nothing
of what was going on at City Hall. Now and then, we have attempted to
lift the veil, but we all have been lax and easily turned aside. We
confess it with shame; but we promise, as for this newspaper, to do
better; and we publicly declare ourselves this morning as in sympathy
with the new Reform Club. From now on The Atlas will champion the
candidacy of Miss Gertrude Van Deusen as mayor of Roma, just as, for
many years, we were proud to hold aloft the banner of her father, the
late Senator Van Deusen."
When Gertrude read this she sat half-dazed for a moment, and then
clapped her hands with gleeful surprise.
"What is it?" asked her cousin.
"The Atlas has come out for me. It endorses the Reform Club--and me.
That's some of Bailey's work."
"Yes. I hope you appreciate what Bailey is doing for you," said Miss
Craig. "He would make a good mayor, himself."
"There are a dozen men in Roma who would be good mayors,"
answered Gertrude, "if they would. But they will not. Hence--well, I'm
going to a caucus tonight. Are you going with me?"
"Oh, no, I think not. I'll go when and where it is necessary to cast my

vote for you, Gertie," said Miss Craig. "But for the rest--excuse me."
Mrs. Bateman and the Judge accompanied Miss Van Deusen, however,
to the nearly empty room where the first primary was being held. It was
in an outlying ward, and the few men who stood about were
wonder-stricken at the presence of women,--although they had seen the
sex out on election days in plenty.
"Now you are seeing just how politics in Roma has been managed for a
decade past. Right there in that corner," said the Judge, "you find a
door with a slit in it