Anti-labor racket bill gets approval
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Half-‘n-half tax wins House favor as a Ruml blend
Total withholding levy of 20% urged with forgiveness operative from June 30, 1942 to July 1943
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Virginian leads U.S. fliers in downing Nazis in Africa
Lieutenant who landed Christmas Eve has five German planes in his bag
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WMC suggests Negro draft rule change
Call them by order number, McNutt asks Army, Navy
By Dick Thornburg, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Knox describes sub picture as pretty stable
Estimates Germans have 400 U-boats available in Atlantic Ocean
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Background of news –
Equal rights for women
By editorial research reports
Half the women members of Congress have now announced their support of the proposed “equal rights” amendment to the Constitution – for the first time since the amendment was first introduced 20 years ago. Four of the eight women legislators have definitely come out for the amendment since the opening of the present Congress, and a fifth has made a statement which seems to indicate that it will have her support if and when it reaches a vote in the House. Chairman Mary Norton of the House Labor Committee opposes the amendment; two other women members – Frances P. Bolton of Ohio and Jessie Sumner of Illinois – have not committed themselves.
Latest of the women legislators to come out for the amendment is Mrs. Clare Boothe Luce (R-CT). Margaret Case Smith of Maine and Winifred Stanley of New York announced their support a few days earlier. Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts, dean of the women members, said in a speech on the birthday of Susan B. Anthony, Feb. 15:
With women in every phase of war work, from the WAACs and WAVES to welders, it is only justice that they should have equal rights with men.
Senator Hattie Caraway of Arkansas was one of 23 co-sponsors when the amendment was offered in the Senate, Jan. 21, by Senator Gillette of Iowa. When the amendment was offered in the House by Rep. Ludlow of Indiana, Jan. 6, there were 42 co-sponsors but none of the women members was among them.
As favorably reported to the Senate Judiciary Committee by a subcommittee on Feb. 17, the amendment reads:
Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.
Opposition to the amendment lines up about as it did in 1923 when it was first offered in the Senate by Charles Curtis, later Vice President, but then the senior Senator from Kansas. Women’s trade union organizations oppose it on the ground that women in industry need special protection, and the National League of Women Voters says the business of remedying discriminatory laws should be left to the states. Its chief support is the National Woman’s Party.
Florida is pointed out by the Woman’s Party as the state whose laws best illustrate the discriminations against women which the Equal Rights Amendment is designed to correct. Florida, says the Woman’s Party, classifies married women as “financially and legally irresponsible to conduct transactions in business;” there:
The moment a woman marries, she is classed with lunatics… Property owned by a wife before marriage and property acquired after marriage is her separate estate, but her husband retains the control and management. Usually, she cannot sue without the joinder of her husband. As a rule, she is incompetent to make a legal contract.
This statement refers to Florida procedure derived from the Common Law and usually designated as the “femme sole” law. In Florida, a married woman, by action of a district court, may have herself declared a “free dealer,” and thus control her own estate. California and Nevada also require wives to obtain court orders in order to engage in business separately from their husbands.
Certain limitations on the making of contracts by wives in Louisiana, Michigan and Nebraska are also complained of by the Woman’s Party. In the State of Washington, a married woman cannot sue for injuries unless her husband joins her in the duty. Another discrimination pointed out is that in Idaho, Virginia and Texas, the support of illegitimate children rests with the mothers. Earnings of minor children belong to the father in Massachusetts, Michigan and New York; and in Alabama and Georgia, the father is preferred as a guardian over a minor child’s property and person.