LIST OF CHAPTERS

CHAPTER PAGE

I An Unprecedented Proposal 11

II A Perplexed Reformer 23

III Learning the Ropes 35

IV Practical Politics 55

V The Opposition Candidate 65

VI A Political Trick 77

VII An Unusual Ride 90

VIII Modern Journalism 102

IX Election Day 112

X The New Mayor's Policy 125

XI At Work 140

XII Skirmishing 152

XIII An Important Appointment 166

XIV Graft 177

XV Setting the Trap 191

XVI Divided Interests 207

XVII A Dumbfounded Populace 220

XVIII A Futile Search 230

XIX The Boodlers Score 240

XX An Enforced Vacation 247

XXI Word From the Missing 261

XXII A Daring Escape 273

XXIII The Hearts of the People 284

XXIV An Honest Confession 295

XXV The Old, Old Story 310

XXVI Retrospect and Prophecy 326

XXVII A Heart's Awakening 338

FOREWORD

"Chimerical!" the average man will exclaim when he reads the title of this book.

"But why not?" his wife will answer.

"Worth trying," the reformers and philanthropists will add.

"One of us," the suffragette will conclude.

And there may be a grain of truth in every answer. But the idea is not absolutely new. At this writing, there is a woman-mayor in one of the smaller cities of the middle states in America; while over in England there are, I believe, two women doing good work in the municipal chair.

And again, "Why not?" Housekeeping is a woman's business. It is the primeval instinct at the bottom of every woman's heart. The average American and English home is a clean, sweet, sanitary and well-governed institution,—made and kept so by some woman. God made women to be wives, mothers and home-makers; and if our modern conditions have sent some of us out into the world to earn our own living and perhaps to support somebody else, the instinct remains—as witness the thousands of tiny flats or cottages where these women dwell and maintain a home, "be it ever so humble." And so, if we are the natural housekeepers, the conservators of health and morals and civic pride, why not a woman at the head of municipal affairs?

The suffragette, the reformer, the philanthropist, the average wife are right, too. As for the average man—let him read the story of Roma's woman-mayor and think it over. And if he does not decide to vote for a woman as mayor, perhaps he will come to see that woman's housekeeping instinct and newly awakened civic sense, added to a revival of public honesty among men, might well combine to make a model city.

If "it is not good for man to live alone," perhaps it is not well for him to manage his City Hall alone. After all, is it "chimerical?"

H. M. W.

Cambridge, Mass. May, 1909.