The process of wooing the woman voter is a
little different, in one respect, from that of winning the support of
the recalcitrant and suspicious male—words are sometimes not enough.
Having made Georgia Neese Clark Treasurer of the U.S. and having sent
diamond-studded Mrs. Perle Mesta off as minister to Luxembourg, the
Democrats last week offered U.S. females further evidence of trust and
affection. Mrs. Eugenie Anderson of Red Wing, Minn, was named
Ambassador to Denmark.Mrs. Anderson, who was virtually unknown outside her native state, was
billed as a Minnesota farm wife, and photographed beside a rural
telephone in kitchen apron and pulled-back hair. The moral was plain:
any woman who could milk a cow could make her mark in Democratic
politics. But the build-up did not quite fit the facts.Mrs. Anderson, a quiet, intelligent and pleasant woman of 40, lives on
the good earth of Minnesota — the 400-acre estate left by her
father-in-law, the late Alexander Pierce Anderson, inventor of Puffed
Wheat and Puffed Rice. But she and her husband—Abstract Artist John
Pierce Anderson—are hardly horny-handed tillers of the soil. Eugenie
Anderson has traveled in Europe, studied music in Manhattan's Juilliard
School. She has an intellectual's taste in art, books and music.
Nevertheless, the appointment, which made her the first U.S. woman to
become an ambassador, seemed like a pleasant bit of business for all
concerned.Mrs. Anderson, mother of two children, has long had a passionate, if
amateur, interest in world affairs. Five years ago, in an effort to do
her bit in molding the world, she got into Democratic politics in
Minnesota. She worked diplomatically and well, became a national
committeewoman, helped to swing the state to the Democrats.Her reward was a salute to Minnesota Democrats and to millions of
women.. It was expected to sit well with the Danes; the new Ambassador
had manners, dignity, quiet but expensive clothes and, best of all, a
Scandinavian name. It got India Edwards, chief of Democratic women's
activities, out of Harry Truman's hair, at least temporarily. And it
made Mrs. Anderson happy, too.
