WOMEN: As Maine Goes ...

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On a summer's day in 1848, a plump, hoopskirted housewife stood up in Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y. and read the eighth of eleven resolutions to the delegates at the first U.S. women's rights convention. With her blonde sausage curls bobbing in emphasis, Elizabeth Cady Stanton read: "It is the duty of the women of the country to secure for themselves the sacred right of the elective franchise." The delegates were aghast at such a daring notion. "Why Lizzie," cried Quakeress Lucretia Mott, "thee will make us ridiculous!"

In the campaign summer of 1960, a century after Lizzie Stanton's declamation and 40 years after the 19th Amendment guaranteed the right to vote regardless of sex, the emancipated women of the U.S. are far from ridiculous. They form the largest single element in the American electorate (56.1 million women of voting age v. 52.7 million eligible men). Next Nov. 8 will very likely go down in history as Ladies' Day, with women voters outnumbering men for the first time in any peacetime presidential election. Both presidential candidates and their wives are coolly judged for their sex appeal (consensus: Kennedy has the edge for male honors, Pat Nixon for the distaff); both are keenly aware of female interest in heavyweight issues (Kennedy, economic security; Nixon stressing peace) ; both have staffed party organizations with more women officials and workers than ever before.

In many areas, a feminine candidate is a required entry on any well-balanced ticket, and across the land more bonnets than ever before are in the political ring. Three women are running for the U.S. Senate, 26 for the House of Representatives, more than a hundred for legislatures and other statewide offices, thousands for county and local political jobs that range from board of education to justice of the peace. The nation's biggest, most eyecatching feminine contest is building up in Maine, where two women are matched, for the first time ever, in a race for the U.S. Senate.

Without Catcalls. The two candidates offer the Down East voters a remarkable choice. As the senior Senator from Maine. Margaret Chase Smith, 62, is the U.S.'s ranking female office holder. A cool, silver-haired, sometimes tart-tongued Republican, she has won the esteem of her colleagues and the nation for her diligence, independence and courage. In 23 years on Capitol Hill, as her late husband's secretary, as his successor in the House of Representatives, and as the second woman ever elected to the Senate, Maggie Smith has served her sex, her state and the U.S. with distinction.

Her opponent, Lucia Marie Cormier, 48, is a stocky, even-tempered spinster, an ex-schoolteacher and the proprietress of a Rumford gift shop, a Roman Catholic of French Canadian descent, effective minority leader of the state legislature and the darling of Maine's resurgent Democrats. Lucia Cormier was chosen to oppose Margaret Smith for her sex—but before she could claim the senatorial-race plum she proved in the rough-and-tumble school of state politics that she could outshine the men around her.

Separately, the ladies from Maine will fight their political battle without catcalls. Together, they are the symbols and the harvesters of the long, bittersweet struggle for women's rights.