"Althena had an advantage over us." Sissy Farenthold. Chair of the Woman's National Political Caucus (NWPC), sucked the convention members into her words like a pagan priestess mesmerizing a pack of willing iconoclasts. "She sprang full grown from the forehead of Zeus. Our movement is not ordained from on high and we hardly sprang full-grown. Our growth will come with painstaking effort".

She paused, eyes closed, as though she were pacing the convention's pulse. "The political resistance to ERA reflects a deeply embedded caste system in this country and it is time we recognized it for what it is. If there is no effort to put women out of sight, there clearly is a message to put them out of mind. Not only have we left foreign policy to the province of a class elite, we have left it to a sexual elite".

A shudder of agreement rippled down the caucus from Alabama to Wyoming. "Foreign Policy is vital to out survival and women must intrude on those decisions. That is our failure-that we do not have women senators to address us or women judges whose opinions we can read." Farenthold swooped down in a final damnation. "And we have no presidential candidate".

The presidential hopefuls were jittering around Boston City Hall, making nice to the caucus delegates and observers who had laid out fifteen dollars to drink a little wine and listen to the candidates make their bids. Fred Harris, a Democrat from Oklahoma, stood in a corner greeting strangers like long-lost friends.

"Mr.Haris, what do you think of Sissy Farenthold's statement this afternoon at the convention that the National Women's Political Caucus has no presidential candidate?"

"What do you mean? A woman?"

"No, I think she meant a candidate the caucus could strongly support".

Harris waved a hand at the women's electric rock band that had started jamming a minute before, clipped, "I can't hear you". and walked away.

The photographers at the press conference flashed shots of Sissy Farenthold's face in quick succession, making a stage of the Sheraton ballroom look like the setting of silent movie. "I must say I'm not particularly entranced with any candidate for president in this country. Many senators who have said they would support the Equal Right Amendment have note voted for it and I've seen this happen many times. It's a simple thing. We just want to be part of the U.S. Constitution.

Liz Carpenter former press secretary to Lady Bird Johnson and a founding member of the NWPC beamed down at the caucus wine-drinkers from the inter steps of Boston City Hall. "Welcome to the Boston lea Party. Women know what it is like to have taxation without representation".

Carpenter continued a gracious patter like a hostess casing a giant dinner party. "Someone once asked a friend of nine. How can you be the mother of two small children and a congresswoman at the same time", She replied. "Because I have a bratin and a uterus and I use both".

With a few due compliments, she yielded the floor to Terry Sanford, a lanky grey-haired Democrat from North Carolina Sanford posed stiffly at the podium. Pushing honesty from his rail splitting brows to his log cabin tweeds. "I would like to quote from Abigail Adams. Do not put unlimited power in the hands of the husbands or we will be prompted to foment revolution. Well I hope that ERA passes. I'm not just offering you empty promises because throughout my political life what I've promised I've always kept. I would like to include in the Democratic platform political equality, equal educational opportunity, equal work opportunities and equal pay and access for women into the economic power structure".

A lot of caucus members were really impressed by the presidential candidates appearances at their national convention at the Boston Sheraton the last weekend in June. Some see it as a sign that the two-year-old caucus is beginning to be recognized by the political status quo. They figure that the candidates must think the caucus has some political punch if they took the trouble to show up at the convention. Others wonder whether the speeches were just a lot of empty words and political manipulation.

One delegate said she doubted the sincerity of any presidents, present or future. "If Ford doesn't listen to his wife, why should he listen to us?" Another suggested that the candidates appearance at this year's convention did not necessarily prove they are concerned about women's issues because their campaign schedule is pretty light now. "The acid test would be if they come next year at this time when there will be more competition for their time".

The fact remains that the women's caucus has stopped patting itself on the back for existing as it did at its founding convention in Houston two years ago and begun to get down to the business of practical politics, which, in the opinion of most members, means dealing with men.