ost conservative members, had prevented
the Union Club from officially endorsing her, but he could not keep the
several members from exercising their prerogative to work for whom they
chose. And so while the Municipal League was holding a meeting at one
end of the town to see if there were not some available candidate to
defeat her, the new City Reform Club was being started at the other, to
further the cause of Gertrude Van Deusen.

Judge Bateman opened the meeting and was made moderator, and later,
elected president of the new organization, with Bailey Armstrong as
secretary.

"You announce yourself here, Miss Van Deusen," asked the Judge after
these preliminaries, "as candidate for mayor?"

"I do," was the answer.

"Then it becomes our affair to endorse you and to prepare our definite
plan of work. That it is a most unusual, perhaps unheard-of thing to
offer a young woman as candidate for the mayor's chair, we all know,
goes without saying. But it seems to some of us sufficient reason for
going down on our knees with thankfulness that a good and an able woman
will consent to serve her city in such capacity. And we owe it to her,
to ourselves as men, and to our city as voters and citizens, that we
shall go out and work for her. Has anyone a definite plan of action?"

Nearly every man in the room spoke in the same strain and before ten
o'clock their campaign was planned. Then the newspapers were called up
and reporters began to appear. The next morning Roma had its second
sensation. A leading editorial ran thus:

"Last night at the residence of the late Senator Van Deusen, a
number of the most prominent men and women of this town met and
organized the City Reform Club, and incidentally endorsed the
candidacy of Miss Gertrude Van Deusen for mayor. If this
organization, which welcomes representatives from all political
parties, accomplishes half of what it has set itself to do, last
night will have been a historical date for Roma. It has begun
with a few aristocratic leaders, but we are inclined to believe
the membership will soon embrace all grades of social as well as
political voters; for careless as we have been in the past, the
citizens of Roma desire to stand for the best things--to have the
best schools, the best citizens, the best government in the
state. The chief reason, perhaps, why we have them not, is that
the people have not been in touch with t