Chair Ladies

One of the least active House Committees is that on the Election of President, Vice President and Representatives in Congress. Its most significant chore this century was steering the Norris Lame Duck Amendment in 1932. One of the most active House Committees is that on Labor. Last fortnight a widow of 62, New Jersey's Mary Teresa Norton, succeeded to the chair of the Labor Committee and last week another widow of 62, New York's Caroline Goodwin O'Day, succeeded to the chair of the Election Committee.

New Jersey's Norton is a large, brown-eyed Roman Catholic, a onetime social worker and since 1920 a wheelmare for New Jersey's Democratic Boss Frank Hague. In Congress since 1925, she has got along well with her party because "I always take the recommendation of county leaders as to the fitness of a man or woman for a job." Her formula for getting along with male colleagues is: "Don't disagree with men unless it's necessary. You can have your own way without antagonizing them." Prior to succeeding the late Labor Chairman, Massachusetts' Congressman William Patrick Connery Jr., Mrs. Norton was chairwoman of the House's District of Columbia Committee, the unofficial "Mayor of Washington."

New York's O'Day is a tall, blue-eyed Episcopal socialite. Daughter of a wealthy Georgia planter, she studied art eight years in Europe, there met the Irishman she subsequently married, the late Daniel O'Day, an official of Standard Oil of New Jersey. After his death in 1916 Mrs. O'Day took up social work and politics and, with her close friend Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, helped organize New York women for the Democracy. She participates in many of Mrs. Roosevelt's pet projects, is a co-vice president of her Val-Kill Furniture shop. When Caroline O'Day ran for Congress in 1934, Mrs. Roosevelt broke precedent to campaign for her. She was re-elected last autumn. No rabid feminist, she smooths ruffled Congressmen by such disarming state ments as: "But I don't know a thing about economics!" This is her new post as chairwomen of the Committee on Election of the President she may suddenly get something to do before long was suggested last week by Columbia University's President Nicholas Murray Butler who prophesied in London that in 1940 there will be four Presidential candidates deadlocked, possibly throwing the vote for President into the House.

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