A First

Deprived of the distinction that goes with titles of nobility, the inhabitants of republics take avidly to the distinction which comes of establishing records and precedents. We have the man who has eaten the greatest number of peanuts, and the man who has eaten the greatest number of salted peanuts, and the man who has eaten the greatest number of peanuts and salted almonds mixed. Similarly we have a large crop of "first women"--the first woman street car conductor, the first woman iceman, the first woman judge.

Yet it is, perhaps, worthwhile to record the first woman Chairman of a Congressional Committee--Mrs. Mae E. Nolan, Republican, Representative from California, sole female member of the 68th Congress. She was chosen Chairman of one of the House's 60 committees--the Committee on Expenditures of the Post Office Department. She is also a member of the Labor Committee, of which her late husband and predecessor was Chairman. At her own request, she was relieved of her post on the Woman Suffrage Committee, because she did not care to hold more than two committee posts.

With her in Washington is a chubby little daughter who, the newspapers declare, is studying stenography in order to become her mother's secretary.