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To The Lady Delegates

WALL STREET JOURNAL AUG 3, 1956 PG 4 COL 1

Television's impact on politics has caused Miss Bertha Adkins, assistant to Chairman Leonard Hall of the Republican National Committee, to get up a  little list of the do's and don'ts for the lady delegates going to San Francisco.

Don't, by any means, wear large brim hats or veils, or the people from your home towns might not recognize you. A little something off-the-forehead will make it easier for you to recognize each other, too. And it will prevent Democrats from sneaking in unrecognized. None of this means, of course, that delegates have very much chance of recognition from the convention chairman. 

Gold and other shiny jewelry are out, even if it's just costume jewelry. Such accouterments pick up the high-lights from television cameras and dazzle the eyes of TV viewers. Also, prosperity is a very fine thing for the country, but it doesn't do for lady delegates to help spread the Democratic canard that the G.O.P. gets an undue share of it. If the ladies must bedeck themselves, Mr. Hall suggests adding a Nixon button to the Eisenhower one.

Delegates should not wear anything white next to the face. White detracts from the "skin tone" of images picked up by the cameras trained on the delegates. The effect is to make the lady delegates, one and all, look  a bit unhealthy, like people who spend their time in smoke-filled rooms. Delegates should never look that way.

What Miss Adkins had to say seems to us pretty good advice for all lady delegates, whether they are going to San Francisco or to Chicago. But we have a final admonition.

Television does have a strange habit of making people appear a bit different from the way they really look, especially under a wide-angle lens. And the way politics is shaping up these days our advice is: Ladies,  most of all don't forget the girdles.