State

cember 2, 1933 THE STATE Роде El LEGISLATIVE PERSONALITIES No. 8 MADAM К SENATOR McKKE By Wade II. Lucne ★ A club woman of Stale-wide reputa¬ tion, Mrs. Gertrude Dills McKee, who lives in SylvB, Jackson County, was widely known when in 1930 she got herself elected to (he 1931 State Senate to become the first woman in North Carolina to sit as a member of what some people call the State's "I'pper Ilouse.” Madame Senator McKee, a woman of striking personality, sat for Ml days as a member of the 1931 session, longest parliament in the history of the State, and there is but little doubt she felt it a sadder hut wiser woman. For the Madame Senator failed to “convert” the 49 male members of the Senate and she actually found out that some of the Senators would argue with her on questions she obviously thought should be settle! without any argu¬ ment. But just try to settle any ques¬ tion in the North Carolina Stale Senate without some argument. She even found out that the State Senate i.- a pluec where not even a woman can have the last word. The time that Madame Senator Mc¬ Kee, who addressed the Senate about as often as any of its male members, arose and said she liked to think of the Senate as one big happy family and the other 49 members as “my chil¬ dren” it looked as though such Sen¬ ators as Hayden Clement, of Rowan. John Umstead, of Orange, and W. M. Hendren, of Forsyth, needed smelling salts. Senator Hallet Ward, of Beau¬ fort, sputtered and also looked as if the smelling salts would help him. Madame Senator McKee arrayed herself with the group that sought to vote a luxury tax upon the people of the State in 1931 and she never did seem to like it when one of the anti- sales tax Senators would take issue with the argument she would make in behalf of the luxury tax. Of the militant type, the Madame Senator would interrupt the male Sen¬ ators with some statement that tended at times to make them so mad they could seemingly bite ten-penny nails in two, hut they, gallant Southerners, did not engage in debate with her in the manner that they employed when a MRS. McKEE holds the distinction of being the first womon in North Carolina to sit as a member of the senate in the North Carolina Generol Assembly. And she made a good one, too. - ★ - male Senator would take issue with them. I have heard it said that the luxury tax forces “encouraged" Madame Sen¬ ator McKee to sav things that made the anti-sales tax Senators mad in the hope that by keeping them mad they would not be able to fight a winning battle against the forces of the luxury tux. There was the day when the Madame Senator informed the Senate in rather majestic fashion that her mountain constituents were not alto¬ gether dependent upon the great to¬ bacco factories in Durham, Winston- Salem and Reidsville for their cut plug, smoking tobacco or cigarettes. As a matter of fact, said she, the good mountain folk could grow enough tobacco in their backyards to satisfy their cravings for communion with Lady Nicotine and, that being true, such a thing as a luxury tax would ★ not work any hardships upon the poor people iu her district. It was too much for Senator I 'in¬ stead, of Orange, a first termer who did yeoman work against the 'ales tax forces in 1931. “But docs the Lady from Jackson realize that such tobacco is hardly more than rabbit tobacco and lacks the flavor of that prepared for human consumption?” asked the Senator from Orange in effect. That remark made the Madame Senator angry and after the Semite stood adjourned for the day's session she lost no time in giving the rather embarrassed but always militant and gentlemanly Mr. I instead an old- fashioned “bawling out.” Without doubt Mrs. McKee, a hand¬ some woman, had seen the State Sen¬ ate in action before she ever became a member, hut if she came to Raleigh with the determination of making it act with the same decorum as one finds in meetings of the Woman's flub nr the Ladies' Sewing Circle she was sad¬ ly disillusioned. In every legislative session on the so-called moral questions there are two sides. And so on the question of legal¬ izing horse racing with pari-mutuel betting iu Buncombe County, the Madame Senator placed herself in the group opposed to such un-Christian things as horse racing. But Mrs. McKee had found many of her best friends in the Senate un¬ opposed to legalizing the so-called “sport of kings" in Buncombe, whose plea was that it would help the county reduce its rather enormous debt. In much the same manner that it was divided on the luxury tax ques¬ tion, the Senate awoke to discover that the lines on the horse racing bill were about evenly divided. And so, according to one of the Senate's choicest stories, the Lady Senator found it convenient otic night to attend some social affair in Raleigh. Whereupon the Senate forced a vot. on the measure and passed it by a small margin. (Coniinuetl on page Iwenly-lwn)