31 6 The Sooner Magazine June "Nationality!" said Margarita Nelken. "Nationality! I was born in Madrid of German parents. They registered me at birth as a Spanish citizen but I had not registered again on attaining my majority, Notes from a Feminist's travel though I had held a government appoint- ment given only to Spanish citizens. But when the voters of Badajoz elected me to diary: Madrid represent them, there was a great cam- paign against permitting me to take my seat." "And BY MUNA how was the matter settled?" LEE, '12 "Oh, very simply!" laughed Margarita Nelken. "The Cortes voted that I be a citizen, and that's how I became the only person who has acquired citizenship by 1 . Clara Campoamor vote!" 3 . Victoria Kent Tall and slender, with dark eyes and "SHE will be busy!" warns the viction reinforced by the bitter experience dark hair, old concierge as he opens a wholly Castilian charm and the elevator door of hard years of struggle. distinction, Victoria Kent has little ob- and pushes the button that sends us jerk- "We cannot hesitate and compromise" vious connection ing upward. She is busy. Clara with her English sur- Campo- she cried. "If the Republic is to endure, name. The remote Britishancestor who be- amor's anteroom and outer office are filled Spain must trust her women!" with waiting queathed it to her, bequeathed nothing clients, men and women. And so votes for women on equal terms apparent to the eye. Spanish From the inner office comes a steady hum of the Span- with men was written into the basic law ish, Victoria Kent sat down beside me of conversation, with a feminine voice, of the new Spain. upon clear, pleasant, and emphatic, the sofa in her office in the ministry audible now of prisons, and talked with me about and again in an energetic phrase. She is 2. Margarita Nelken wo- standing by her Margarita men in her country and mine. desk, not sitting, as one Nelken's apartment looks out "We must have realities!" enters at last, summoned by a pretty sec- over the Paseo de la Castellana, Madrid's was the un- retary with a fashionable derlying theme of her talk. "We have had notebook in her hand. drive, flanked with embassies rhetoric so long!" Clara Campoamor stands during much and great houses, with the shaded prom- She enade down the is director of prisons, this earnest of our talk, moves about, returns. The ef- center where nurses with low-voiced woman, and her work in re- fect is of intensity and force. She is a enormous frilled bonnets like huge white forming the Spanish vivid gillyflowers walk solemnly prison system has person, with dramatic black eye- up and down been news in the headlines of the world. brows above large brown eyes with a level with their small charges. The first gaze. "If I were not sick I woman to be admitted to the Even in repose she gives the im- should not have bar in Spain, Victoria Kent was one of the pression of being on the alert. been here today to see you!" says Mar- lawyers garita Nelken. We who defended the revolutionists Her father was a well known journal- both smile. I have been when they were on trial for their lives. ist, but he died when Clara trying to see her for a week. When not was hardly actually in the She has the popular and official confidence more than a child. She was faced with the Cortes, she is always away to a remarkable degree. necessity of earning a living in a country -lecturing on the purposes and obliga- "You would tions of the Republic to better see what Victoria which made small provision for such ne- voters in the Kent says about it," is a remark one hears cessity then on the part of its women. cities along the coast, in small mountain often. A villages, in the arid upland painful period of struggle ended when towns. "Will Her office is in the ministry of justice, she obtained a position you permit me to finish dictating this let- .as telegrapher and ter first?" a grim building on a noisy cluttered street. journeyed to Saragossa and San Sebastian. she asks. I look at her appre- Her anteroom is filled, ciatively while I wait. Hers is always, with peti- Later she held a position in the ministry an alien, tioners ; old peasant women in dusty of public instruction and fine arts ; later tawny-haired loveliness. Her parents were sandals who have German, I recall. But her room walked from Southern still, as teacher of stenography and type- is wholly Spain with a plea for Victoria Kent to save writing in the State schools. She studied and delightfully Spanish, furnished dis- a son from criminatingly with the prison; women with strained law, was admitted to the bar in 1925, and best of that satis- faces, in fashionable street suits; men of opened her law office in Madrid. fying Spanish folk-art which is so simple all in outline and so rich classes. It is a tense atmosphere, that of Feminist and Revolutionist, she was and subtle in color- Victoria Kent's antechamber; but the ten- working to ing. A hanging in magenta, violet, and build the Republic while she electric blue is the sion relaxes unconsciously when Victoria worked to build her own life. The background for a Kent herself appears for a moment Re- carved oak chest. Charming pottery ani- in the public once established, she has organized mals door, a pale, grave woman with a smile an association of women walk across the mantel. A dark oak of great sweetness, of all parties who table with iron braces and with a quiet word are united for safeguarding "its liberal and gleams with two makes them welcome and promises to see democratic principles centuries of wax. each one ." Margarita Nelken in turn. She is famed for finishes her letter One may disagree with Victoria Kent her eloquence. When and is swiftly the gracious charming host- the Constitution of the Republic was being ess. She on questions of policy; one could never drawn asks about the woman in North doubt her sincerity up, Clara Campoamor and Vic- America ; in South America. and intellectual in- toria Kent clashed on the And what tegrity. She has the practicality of the floor of the are women doing in the Antilles? With Cortes. Both believed in suffrage, but Vic- difficulty Spaniard, that realistic race so romanti- toria I focus our conversation on her- cized and falsified Kent believed that the women of self. Will she tell me why her by most foreign com- Spain were not ready for election to mentators. Her first act as director of the vote ; that the Cortes was contested and how she education for republican life should pre- won her seat? prisons was to revise the diet of the pris- cede it. Clara Campoamor answered her oners and see that it was balanced and She makes an expressive gesture with adequate. with all the eloquence of passionate con-, the long slender hand of Her second was to cut down an artist. TURN TO PAGE 326, PLEASE 326 The Sooner Magazine June who had been privileged to live near this Rev Thomas Cassidy, bishop of the Okla- theless made valuable beautiful contributions to character . I know of no one homa Episcopal churches, and Mr Lind- our civilization and that he is now en- whose ideals of Christian womanhood loff for the new St. John's Episcopal tering a period in which, if given the were higher, more sincere or more help- church which will be ready for occupa- chance, he will accomplish ful . The dignity incomprehen- of her life was con- tion when school opens in September . sibly worthwhile things. I have learned, tagious; unhurried, always poised, she J. H. Fredrickson, Oklahoma City, is the in brief, that the Negro is time for every a gift-bearer had plea, every demand. contractor. rather than a gift-receiver, as we have The community has never been able to The junior church composed of chil- too long considered him. find a substitute for her gentle minis- dren from about four to fourteen years trations." In light of almost insurmountable so- old has increased fifty percent, since cial, political, and industrial handicaps, Miss Ruth Moore, instructor in piano, Lindloff has been here. They shall con- recalled the tremendous progress made by the her student days in King Hall . tinue to meet in the little chapel. The Negro in industry, "I lived there in 1917-'18 and '19," in education, in art Student Forum, a group of university and creative literature, in social and cul- Miss Moore said. "During the war students, which Mr Lindloff introduced they had the tural life, in ethical and moral stand- Students' Army Training this year shall have a meeting place pro- ards, in the past Corps here. The 'war-line' over which few years will always vided them and it is hoped that a student remain for me an inspiring thing. In the boys were not allowed to cross with- center might be added to the church. in out permission literature, I have read the works of such from the military heads the near future. Negro writers as ran along Duffy in front of King Hall. King Countee Cullen, Langs- Hall memories of student life re- ton Hughes, Rudolph Fisher, Burghardt "We had two dances a year then and main although the building itself has the boys DuBois, Alain Locke, James Weldon would have to get permission given place to a greater need that the Johnson, and I from the military heads to cross have developed a great the work might move forward.