Springtime

The effect of sprouting season on the younger male specimens of the species is age old and well known. It would seem, however, that to females, both old and young, the full enjoyment of Spring has been denied until re cent years. For when the young male turns to love to satisfy the cosmic urge, the female instinctively turns to meeting and conference. Whatever may be her mission or purpose in life, it is a rare Spring nowadays which fails to provide a conference or a convention on a suitable theme. Last week* provided:

P: The Fifth Annual Convention of the National League of Women Voters, in Buffalo. Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania, Governor Ritchie of Maryland, William Allen White of Kansas and prominent characters ad dressed the meeting. Afterwards followed passage of resolutions. Entrance into the World Court, another disarmament conference, uniform State marriage and divorce laws, shorter working hours for women, passage of a child labor Amendment to the Constitution, sterilization of the unfit, law enforcement, were among measures recommended. Birth control failed of endorsement by an adverse vote of two to one, but was recommended for study by state organizations. Miss Belle Sherwin ('daughter of the late H. A. Sherwin, paint) was elected President of the League, succeeded Mrs. Maud Wood Park who held the office for years.

P: The Eighth Biennial Conference of the Young Women's Christian Association, in Manhattan. This was a truly international affair, in which women from all over the world--white, saffron, cafe-au-lait--took part. Curtis D. Wilbur, Secretary of the Navy, came unexpectedly from Washington to deliver an address, at the instance of Mrs. Frederick Paist, his sister and President of the national organization. Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., celebrated the convention by giving an international house-party for a number of delegates--including Countess Elsa Bernadotte, niece of the King of Denmark, and Mrs. H. C. Mei, head of the Chinese delegation. The organization, now in its 18th year, has 520,000 American members and an annual budget of $23,500,000.

P: The Fourth International Congress of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, in Washington. Twenty-two nationalities were represented. Miss Jane Addams, President of the organization, opened the meeting with the declaration: "In churches, in colleges, in cities and on farms, there is at last arising an overwhelming demand that war shall cease. . . ." Miss Jeannette Rankin, the first woman in Congress, spoke, asserting: "There is a simple and understandable plan for political action-- to proclaim war the crime that it is!"

* In the three weeks previous there also met: the Daughters of the American Revolution (TIME, April 28); the Women's National Law Enforcement Committee (TIME, April 14, 21).