Mrs. A. J. Goode

The above image and following story was published in The Crisis Magazine, November 1913 issue.

The News Leader a "white" afternoon paper of Richmond, Virginia, is "opposed" to woman suffrage and also to Negroes. Recently it offered $10 for the best argument against woman suffrage. The contest was very successful. The Leader says:

"The contest editor, a man of some experience in this line of well, we will call it work, for short is frank to confess that no more interesting reading ever came under his observation, no keener competition for first honors was ever waged in a similar event in his knowledge, and no more difficult contest problem ever confronted him than of selecting what he thought the best answer in the six hundred and twenty-five received."

Then the managing editor wrote a right gallant epistle:

"Dear Mrs. Goode,

"Herewith the News Leader wishes to hand you a check for Ten Dollars ($10), for your very excellent answer submitted in the contest, it having been declared the best received. We congratulate you on your winning the first prize, and hope that when other contests are arranged we will see one or more answers from you.

"The Contest Editor would like to publish a photograph of you. Will you be kind enough to oblige us by sending the picture, which will be returned to you after an etching is made of it?

"Yours very truly,
(Signed) "Louis A. Macmahon,
"Managing Editor"

November 1, 1913.

Mrs. Goode responded with her photograph. It was not published in the Leader for lack of space and so The Crisis is kindly releasing the Leader of its natural embarrassment.

"My Dear Mrs. Goode" has also received a most cordial appeal from the Virginia ladies "Opposed," etc. Mrs. Goode was formerly an assistant in the Congressional Library but went to Virginia to mother nine children whose own mother was dead.

"The latter work is not productive of as many luxuries as I enjoyed at Washington, but the privilege of shaping so many young lives after my ideas of the beautiful, gives me a sense of happiness which words cannot express."

We are sorry that Mrs. Goode is opposed to votes for women and we are also sorry for the News Leader, but we think it quite permissible to chuckle quietly over the whole affair.