680 State Papers and Addresses

NATIONAL ORDER OF WOMEN LEGISLATORS—CONVENTION

STATE HOUSE

May 13, 1942

Annapolis

NOW, as possibly never before since women first entered the realm of
politics and Government, is it necessary that there be at hand, a medium
of expression for the views of the women of our Country on all the great
questions facing us now or looming before us.

Certainly it would seem that no medium could be more effective for such
expression than is afforded through the discussions and deliberations of women
who have had experience of serving as legislators, and of helping to shape the
laws of our local, State and Federal Governments.

With all the great changes that have occurred affecting women, there is
continuing need for revisions of laws, and for changed National thinking with
regard to woman's part in public activities of today. It is hardly to be disputed
that the changes in our National life with regard to woman's part in the scheme
of things, great as they admittedly have been, are nothing compared to the
changes that impend in the months and years immediately ahead.

Gone for the emergency, and probably forever, is the time when women
were limited to a very definite pattern in the life of their community and
Country. You know how many women are engaged in vocations where
they are, to all intents and purposes, on an absolutely equal economic basis
with their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons. You, of course, noted the
recent statement by Chairman Paul V. McNutt of the War Manpower Board,
in which he declared the necessity of an additional 1, 000, 000 women in industry
during the coming year. What effect this will have on our National and indi-
vidual way of life can only be conjectured!

Furthermore, in one, two, three or more years, when the emergency shall
have ended, and the need for women in productive fields consequently lessened
or eliminated, are we to suppose that women will be satisfied to resume the
relatively lesser part in American National life that has been theirs up to
recent years?

The answer undoubtedly is, that they will not be so content! This war,
it is safe to predict, not only will inject women into every field of endeavor
much more vigorously than ever before, but its aftermath will find many of
them holding on tenaciously to their newly won place, and ready to defend by
every possible means, their increased participation in industry and in Govern-
ment. As a consequence, all thinking and planning for the post-war period
will be predicated on recognition of this major new factor in the National pic-
ture.