THE RIGHTS OF MARRIED WOMEN.
A resolution now before Congress proposes that President Rotiver should invite foreign governments to join in an inter- national conference with the object of adopting a convention establishing the right of married women everywhere to retain or;change their nationality on exactly 'the same basis as now applies to men. The question has had striking illustration recently from the -case-of Representative Ruth Bryan Owen; DaUghter of " the Great Commoner," William Jennings Bryan, and of Revolutionary stock, Mrs. Owen found her election to Congresi challenged because' some years ago she married a British subject. She married Major Reginald Owen, an English army officer, in 1910, and, in doing so, auto- matically lost her American citizenship. After the War, Mrs. Owen supported her husband and four children, who came to the United States, by lecturing and \wiling. In 1925, after her husband's death, she applied for and regained her American citizenship. In 1928, she was elected to Congress. Contending that she had not complied with the constitutional requirement that a member of Congress must have been an American citizen for a period of seven years, her defeated opponent contested her election and claimed her seat. Public sympathy is entirely for Mrs. Owen, but, apart from the legal merits of the case, which have to be decided by the House Election Committee, the facts in themselves have served to enlist much support for the resolu- tion now before Congress.
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