A Passage For India

The name India Edwards is not one that will long be remembered in the history of either the Democratic Party or the women's movement. She held no elective office or Cabinet post; except for her electrifying speeches at the 1952 and 1956 Democratic conventions she graced no national stage.

And yet in the course of 60 years as a journalist and politician her experiences were such that an autobiography of the sort she has produced is far more welcome than those of a dozen better-known male politicians.

Edwards, now in her eighties, deserves a good deal of credit for the increasing involvement of women in politics and government. With the notable exception of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's secretary of labor, Frances Perkins, and a few others, participation by women did not really begin until over 30 years after they received the right to vote.

Having been one of his earliest supporters and one of the few major optimists in the 1948 campaign, Edwards held Harry Truman's ear in the White House. Never one to mince words, she asked him outright to name unprecedented numbers of women to positions in his administration. At her urging, in fact, Truman was on the verge of appointing an Ohio woman judge to the Supreme Court before Chief Justice Fred Vinson nixed the idea because he felt "the boys" wouldn't be able to relax with one another when discussing cases.

The book is a chatty one. It is chock full of anecdotes about the famous, near-famous and, with the passage of time, obscure (read: boring) political figures of this century--all of whom she seemed to know. Edwards name-drops in the style she no doubt refined working as the society page editor fo the Chicago Trbiune for several years. Stories of working side by side with Ring Lardner and Charlie McCarthur are as interesting as the tales of life as a New Deal Democrat in Chicago society (one socialite slapped her for opposing Alf Landon). The experiences of later years take on more significance: discussing with Truman the idea of dismissing General McArthur, urging a reluctant Adlai Stevenson to seek the nomination in 1952.

Interspersed between Edwards' adventures lie general comments about the role of women in politics. Women, she finds, are more honest than their male counterparts who in general enter politics for money and status rather than to fight for causes. Edwards, hardly a modest sort, quotes Eleanor Roosevelt quoting her in the former First Lady's Ladies of Courage: "If I didn't have the crusading spirit I'd get the hell out and go home."

That spirit went only as far as the realities of politics in the Democratic party would allow it. Edwards' contribution was, nonetheless, a formidable one, and she records it faithfully.