Free Free Woman by Marion Meade Page B

left the brokerage office and decided to eat dinner at a restaurant. They chose Delmonico's, New York's most popular French restaurant. No strangers to the place, they had lavishly entertained customers there on many occasions.
    Settling at a table, Vicky ordered their first course. "Tomato soup for two, please," she said.
    The waiter coughed nervously but didn't move.
    "Why don't you get the soup?" she asked.
    Looking uncomfortable, the waiter shuffled his feet. "Beg pardon, madam, but it's after six and there is no gentleman with you."
    Tennie was getting hungry and angry. "You go and send Charlie Delmonico to us," she instructed the waiter.
    A few moments later, the apologetic owner appeared at their table. Charles Delmonico admired the sisters. He also valued their patronage. But rules were rules. And custom was custom.
    "I can't let you eat here without a man," he said lamely.
    Vicky surveyed him coolly. "Why not?" She knew perfectly well that women couldn't be served after six without an escort.
    "It would start an awful precedent," said Delmonico. "All kinds of women would come in here alone. It would cause all sorts of embarrassment."
    "We certainly don't want to embarrass you," said Tennie, barely keeping the sarcasm from her voice.
    Giving Vicky a mischievous wink, she rose and marched to the door. Outside she waved to the driver who was waiting for them atop their carriage.
    "Get down off your box and come in here," she yelled.
    By this time, everyone in the restaurant was standing up, watching.
    Tennie paraded the red-faced man down the aisle and pulled out a chair. After he had been seated, Vicky again summoned the waiter.
    "Tomato soup for three," she said.
    This incident, and others, added to her legend. Tales about her circulated all over the country. No matter how bizarre the stories, people believed them.
    Shortly after the opening of her brokerage house, she had asked a newspaper reporter not to flatter her. "I am a businesswoman," she had declared heatedly. "Treat me as fairly as you do men. That is all I ask." She didn't want favors because of her sex.
    Now she demanded no special treatment as a candidate. As she knew quite well, every politician was open to criticism, sometimes nasty criticism. She would just have to live with it.
    Sometimes Vicky was asked why she wanted to be President. That question utterly mystified Victorians, who believed all women were content at home. They couldn't understand why a woman should want to subject herself to the spittoons and cigar smoke of all-male politics. In this instance, Vicky did not answer with her customary honesty.
    "I want to draw the public's attention to women's claims that we are the political equals of men," she usually said. This sounded good, and it even may have been partly true. She did believe that women should participate in the serious affairs of the nation. But there was another reason that made her run: she wanted to be President.
    These days, Vicky was feeling elated. She found herself humming, something she rarely did. Somehow she knew that Demosthenes could not be wrong. One afternoon a reporter from the New York Sun came to interview her at home. Sitting decorously in the drawing room, she answered questions with her usual seriousness. The reporter, however, seemed to be more interested in her wardrobe than in her political views.
    Suddenly Vicky jumped up. "Let me show you a dress I intend to wear someday," she said.
    Ten minutes later, she reappeared.
    The reporter blinked. Vicky was wearing navy knee-length pants, buckled at the knees. Under them she had powder-blue stockings which revealed her shapely legs. On top, she wore a dark-blue blousy tunic which ended above the knees and a white shirt with a tie.
    For a moment, there was silence from the embarrassed newspaperman.
    "Mrs. Woodhull," he finally blurted out, "if you appear on the street in that dress, the police will arrest you."
    Vicky drew herself up angrily. "No, they won't,"