society with which she comes most in contact is hinted at in her adaptation of the philanthropist's, the cheery social worker's, vocabulary. Mrs. Wells never resorts to the threadbare term of "uplift," but puts in its place that rather more welcome "upbuilding."
Returning to California from social work in the East Mrs. Wells entered upon a scientific study of crime. She became impressed with the importance of the police department in its capacity to prevent crime as well as to punish it, and was convinced of the need of women workers on the inside of the police department to strengthen the emphasis on the side of prevention. She set to work to obtain signatures to a petition for a woman police officer, which resulted very promptly in her appointment to the police force of Los Angeles, where she has been at work for the last three years.
In addition to her regular police duties, Mrs. Wells conducts a bureau of information to which clubs and civic organizations which are working to obtain women on the police force of their home cities may apply. She is now on a six months' leave of absence, not only to investigate conditions throughout the country, but to carry on her "campaign" for women police. She is speaking before city clubs and organizations of every sort, and is visiting the mayor and chief of police in every city.
"I have spoken all the way across the continent and I shall speak all the way back. I realize that I am in a way doing propaganda work. When I applied for my appointment in Los Angeles I thought chiefly of the immediate work to be done right there by a woman. But when I was appointed, then came this—this terrifying publicity—and I realized what it meant.
"I realized that I should have to stand behind a sort of 'movement' for women in the police departments of other cities, just because I was the first in the field."
Effective presentation of the life and the character
of a man who has "done things" is illustrated by the
following "personality sketch" by Mr. Brand Whitlock,
published in the American Magazine, but equally well
adapted for newspaper publication:
Those citizens of Ohio who a dozen years ago used to
throng the big circus-tent in which Tom L. Johnson was then
