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That didn't mean just ladylike women, but their husbands, brothers and fathers. That is, they brought in the kind of man who held aloof from politics as being dirty business for the muckers. He voted all right, but except for Mr. William Church Osborn and the Gerards hardly any gentlemen soiled their hands with it. They may have said things privately and may have been consulted privately, but at least they didn't stand right up in public and say that they wanted to vote for this, that and the other. They were very polite.
I really think the success of the woman's suffrage movement and the entrance into political life of these women - and they were quite superior women who had been effective in the suffrage movement - had the effect of making the men of their same level much more personally involved in political situations. For instance, the citizens' committees began to appear for the first time - the Citizens' Committee for Smith. Whoever heard of anything like that before? That was the brainchild of some of these women.
I also want to call attention to the fact that the near genius of Mrs. Moskowitz had been at work on this matter of developing a movement for Smith. She was very close to this suffrage group. I'm not sure that she didn't assist in the idea of a development of a Citizens' Committee for Smith. Certainly it sprang out of the women's ideas
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