Show A SENATORS HELPFUL WIFE senator reagans s wife has been extensively veay discussed in the newspapers on account of her occupying the me position of private secretary to ner her husband she is reported by the sunday herald today as saying in the he course of an interview my personal feeling is that it were a happy thing if our young women generally could 1 be trained so as to have one accomplishment 80 thoroughly learned as to make it a 9 dependence in case of ses fur for the we wheel of fortune turns round south as well as north I 1 think it degrading ue grading when a young woman is so situated that she has to look to marriage as a resource or succor rather than a free choice for twenty years mrs reagan beagan continued after a pause 11 1 1 nave have been acting as aa the senators private secretary I 1 did it simply because he did noi not like to confide all his uia purely personal correspondence to lo ale he eyes of a comparative stranger and little by little I 1 got to doing more until once the idea occurred to me that 1 I like others would get on faster if I 1 learned shorthand the senator generally keeps to male secretaries to attend to public business and atone at one time he had a good stenographer who lecat me books and as aa I 1 had bad not much to do just then I 1 looked into them and thought it not too difficult for even me to learn but on confiding my view to a lady friend she declared I 1 never could do it well I 1 did and it took me just three mouths months of hard painstaking work to be able to write at ai dictation I 1 never had a teacher I 1 dug it out myself I 1 have no idea of my speed nor do I 1 ever expect to report but I 1 find it very useful the stenographer afterwards left the senators employ and as aa a temporary expedient I 1 offered my services not for the money but to be of use to my husband but neither delther he nor I 1 can see why if I 1 do the work as well as another I 1 should not have the pay I 1 have no idea how long this arrangement will last the way we manage is this right after breakfast the senator dictates a dozen or so letters to me I 1 take them down and he goes off about his business I 1 then write them out aud and mail them at once at least twenty four hours earlier than they would be maidt d under the old way when ll 11 he dictated to me for long hand it seems to me that the dear public have manifested an unnecessary amount of interest in me as being my husbands secretary why there are several everal rs ladies in congressional circles who are doing as much for their husbands as I 1 am doing for mine and the only difference is that I 1 choose to do what they might do if they wished to draw a small salary as compensation due for services rendered I 1 rather like politics it I 1 did not I 1 should not enjoy this kind of thing so much I 1 think southern women are all pretty well acquainted with politics I 1 was but twelve years old when the senator was postmaster general of the confederacy I 1 am his second wi wife fe but even the little girls heard so much political talk then that we could not help imbibing the sentiments of our elders A york world |