‘The waitress had just brought two juicy filets, flanked by “Texas toast” dripping garlicand butter. Phyllis Schafly—whose Jast meal had been 13 hours, four press conferences, and 17 interviews eatliet— gingerly transferred the toast to another plate, handed it to a busboy, cut a small Piece of steak, and let i lie there as she Continued her elaborate comparison of USS. and Soviet weapon strength. ‘As she warmed tothe subject and our steaks cooled, an elderly woman wearing pink polyester and sprayed hair ap- proached our table. Interrupted again, 1 thought, by yet another fan paying homage to her leader—the sixth since We'd entered the restaurant ofthe Hous- ton Ramada Inn. The hotel was Schlafly’s headquarters last November for what she Filled as the ““pro-family alternative to the lesbian and libber-controlled Intern tional Women’s Year Conference.” Schlafly was sill completing her case for the B-1 bomber when the woman urged in, not waiting to be acknowl. edges “I promised my ftiends,"* she said rriedly, “that if T ran into you in sion, Fd tell you what we think of u. You're & traitor to your sex. When die, the women of this country will pice, And you don’t have long, Phillis, lieve me.” She rushed away, her face pink as her pantsit There wasn't a crack in Schlafly's sure. Smiling, she summoned the ess, who, assumed, would be cted ‘to summon Schlafly’s butly 8s sceretary, oF the armed sentry le her suite, or perhaps the Texas “Please bring me some real milk for coffe, instead of this fake stuff,” she the waitress. Then, without missing t. Louis ti cs Phyllis Schlafly speaking against the ERA 1 beat, she continued her monologue on nilitary budgets of the past five years— the statistics and jargon of weaponry flowing smoothly and unstoppably from this 53-year-old self-styled “happy home maker.” “How do you deal with the fact that so many people hate you?” I blurted. “You know," she replied calmly, “when women say things like that to me, 1 just chalk it up to their frustration over the weakness of their arguments. We've beaten ERA in Illinois for six years straight. Last year, only one state rati- fled. In 1972, before we got organized, 22 states ratified, We're winning because we have the truth on our side. They're Phyllis Schlafly Is One Tough Mother by Carol Greenberg Felsenthal losing, so they're irrational and mad. ‘Schlafly has an arsenal of anecdotes to illustrate her point. Debating Betty Fri: dan in Normal, Illinois, seems to be the encounter that Schlafly relishes most ‘That one ended when Friedan shouted, “You ought to be burned ot the stake! However strong her opponents’ pas: sions, it may be their fates that are sealed. Despite last winter's celebrity studded rallies for ERA and despite some organizations’ refusals to hold meetings in states that haven't ratified ERA, Schlafly recently proclaimed the Equal Rights Amendment in Ilinois “dead as a doornail It’s been six years since ERA breczed through Congress and won the blessings of the likes of Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, and Spiro Agnew. Its also been six years since Phyllis Schlafly left orders with her housekeeper and bade farewell 0 the youngest of her six children. launching a tireless tour of state legisla- tures that, within the year, turned the tide against ERA. Even after a half-dozen years of watch: ing Schlafly, debating Schlafly, and in vestigating Schlafly, ERA proponents continue to lose the important battles—in ‘part because they continue to misunder stand and underestimate their opponent. They dismiss her as an opportunist, a hypocrite—yes, even a traitor—whose op- position to ERA is insincere. They don’t ‘seem to realize that Schlafly's opposition is ingrained in her ruggedly individualis tic, supercompetitive personality. Be- neath the prim exterior that seems to house the headmistress of a girls’ finish. ing school lies an inviolate ego and a temperament that can be best described as all-American macho—a will forged St, Louls/August 1978 81“I think of my marriage and family as my number one career. When I fill out applications, I put down ‘Mother’ as my occupation.” from years of hard work and hard times. ‘most people don’t realize that her carly years were very tough indeed. “Mother ‘didn’t have a store-bought dress until she was 18,” says Schlafly's daughter Liza, a 19-year-old junior at Princeton. A recent letter from Schlafly reads like 1 page from Horatio Alger’s Struggling Upward: “The best thing my parents ever gave me was a desire for a college ‘education but no money to pay for it.” So, during the Second World War, she worked a 48-hour week—often the night shift—testing ammunition in the St. Louis Ordnance Plant. Between firing rifles and machine guns, she carried a full course load at Washington University, graduat: ing in three years with a Phi Beta Kappa key and a full scholarship to Radclife. A year later, she earned her master's ‘degree in government. Tn fact, it was poverty--and that brutal undergraduate schedule--that sparked Schlafly's passion for politics. Because she didn't get home from the ammunition plant until well after midnight, she had to take courses that met late in the morning. She registered for her first political- science course only because it met at fe Schlafly comes by her perseverance naturally. She was born in 1924 in St Louis—the older of two daughters—to @ socially prominent Catholic family. Her father was an engineer and frustrated inventor who was never able to sell his rotary gasoline engine. When the De- pression wiped out the family fortunes it was Schlafly's mother who went to work “We had to eat," Schlafly explains. Following stints as a department-store saleswoman, her mother worked for 25 years as the librarian of the City Att Museum, using one of the two degrees she got before marrying. ; Phyllis’ early schooling was a mix of public and parochial (when her mother could scrape together the tuition). Mov ing from school to school, Schlafly grade Between engagements, Schlafly works on her Washington U. law courses uated in 1941 from the Academy of the iN eae Sacred Heart as valedictorian Mite Greenberg 462 St, Louls/August 1978,Her early struggles appear to have addicted her to challenge, particularly to making it in a man’s world. Although these days Schlafly dwells more on the joys of cooking than of competing, her pre-1972 articles and speeches are full of statements such as ‘'I don't think there are more than a half-dozen women in the country who have been a delegate as many times as T have" (to a reporter covering the 1968 Republican National Convention) and ''I was the only woman invited to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on U.S. Nuclear Strategy"’ (from a campaign Jetter circulated during her 1970 race for Congress). point out that the class that graduates in 1978 from Washington University Law School—where Schlafly is now in her last year—is 50 percent women, but that the class of ’48 probably had only one or two. suggest that, back then, being a woman might have kept her from getting in. “My professors at Harvard urged me to go to law school," she tells me. “I didn’t because I couldn't afford to” —implying that not only would she have gotten into Jaw school, but that she also would have gotten into Harvard, Schlafly rarely mentions that she was named one of the most influential and watchable women in America in two national polls taken in 1977, What she does advertise isan Associated Press poll taken last summer that named her ono of the ten most powerful people in Ilinois— and the only woman. Like many who have scratched their ‘vay up from a poor childhood, Schlafly hhas no patience with those who depend on a ‘government handout”—or a cons- stitutional amendment—to make it. If a woman blames discrimination for her failures, Schlafly blames her for not trying harder. As she puts it, “I’ve achieved my goals in life and i did it Without sex-neutral laws.” Staring at a pair of disheveled TWY delegates, she Assures me, “ERA supporters aren't Seeking a more just society, they're Seeking a constitutional cure for their ‘laziness and personal problems.” Given her background and values, Schlefly's solutions to social problems are Predictable. She tells housewives that Marriage, not ERA, is their best security this staunch Catholic wife of a staunch tholic, the probability that neatly half Women married today will wind up Worced or deserted simply doesn't "Believe me,” says a neighbor, she’s smart enough to know that ERA has nothing to do with abortion and homosexu- ality, but she's also smart enough to link them so she can attack them all...” apply. When she founded her Eagle Forum in 1975, she explained that she adopted the eagle as the organization's emblem because “it is almost the only creature in the animal world that keeps ‘one mate for a lifetime."” She responded to horror stories in the Chicago news: papers about the black-market sale of babies by saying over CBS network radio, “What's so wrong about that? IFT hadn't been blessed with babies of my own, I would have been happy to have paid thousands of dollars for a baby"’—pretty strong evidence of her belief that adop- tion—legal or not—is the family’s busi- ness, not the government's, It was just after six a.m. one day last November in Texas when the guard ‘admitted me to Schlafly's suite. Already flawlessly groomed and coordi nated, she greeted me exuberantly, put- ting aside what appeared to be a long list of things she had to do that day. Gazing cout the window at the Houston panorama of skyscrapers rising beside hot-dog stands, she ignored my first question and “The beauty of the American way of is that no matter how lowly born, @ ‘man can sethis sights as high as he wants and work until he reaches them.” Schlafly has the sort of passion for work that most people save for extracurricular activities like travel or beer-can collect: ing. Ask about her hobbies, and she says she likes to concoct fancy desserts and swim (although last summer she had time for only one dip in the family poo). Ask if she reads novels, and she replies, “Life is ‘more fun than a novel."" Ask Liza and she says, “My mother ranks in the top fen percent of her law-school class. She certainly doesn’t like to knit or anything like that.” Liza laughs as she recalls a story that her aunt tells. “When my father was life packing for his honeymoon, he tossed in some math books—his hobby then."” His sister was horrified. “Phyllis will be so insulted,” she scolded. “So,” says Liza, the didn’t take them, but Mother took along a stack of books on politics! ‘The dean of Schlafly’s law school (who, ironically, is the son-in-law of former senator J. William Fulbright, one of the villains in Schlafly's book (The Gravedig- gers) describes her as ‘highly organized, highly programmed—so programmed that know of no one here who's really close to her.” Third-year student Jean Schanen says of her classmate, “I don’t think I've ever seen her conversing with anyone. She's strictly a businesswoman. Every day at ten she's in a phone booth getting messages. “Y'm successful,"* Schlafly explained in Texas, “*because I'm willing to work harder than my opponents."" The next morning she capped five nonstop days with a perky performance on the Good Morning, America broadcast from Hous- ton. The morning after thet, she led her troops to Springfield, Illinois, for a demonstration against ERA. Last April, just before the start of her law-school exams, Schlafly sabotaged an Ilinois League of Women Voters Lobby- ing Day in Springfield by staging a counter-rally, starring a Methodist minis- terin a monkey suit handing out bananas covered with DON'T MONKEY WITH THE CONSTITUTION stickers. Accord- ing to State Representative Susan Ca- tania of Chicago, an ERA backer, the Teague’s carefully planned day deterio- rated into a three-ring circus."” Schlafly is away from her Alton home part of every week, traveling her college- ‘campus/talk-show/state-legislature cir- cuit. She writes a twice-weekly syndi- cated newspaper column, works on her tenth book, attends law school, heads two national organizations (Fagle Forum and STOP ERA), and serves as publisher, editor, and sole contributor to the Eagle Forum newsletter and The Phyllis Schlaf- y Report. How does she manage it all? “I make a list of everything I have to do each day and I just don’t go to sleep until I do it, she says, ‘On Pearl Harbor Day, 1977, Schlafly went to Chicago to announce that she'd Gecided not to challenge Senator Charles Percy in the Republican primary. After- ward, we lunched at the Bismarck Hotel. She looked tired, bright-blue eyeshadow clashing with bloodshot eyes. ‘Most ‘St, Louis! August 1971ae people want other things more than a career ike mine,” she said wearily Sandwiching Sunday-morning Mass between an appearance on Meet the Press and a press conference back at the Ramada Inn was the only time-out Schlaf- ly took in Houston, Although her critics often accuse her of worshiping only one god —Success— Schlafly is in fact a zealous Catholic, so zealous that she often sounds as if she ‘opposes total separation of church and state, Inher latest book, The Power of the Positive Woman, she writes that public schools should incorporate prayer into the classroom routine and the theory that ‘man was directly created by God" into the science curriculum. All public schools, she writes, should be required to teach the “4h (right and wrong): “It is more important for our schools and colleges..to teach and train students to ‘obey the laws of God and country than it is to impart any other knowledge.’ Schlatly’s opposition to ERA seems more moral than legal. To her, ERA— along with Communism, abortion, and hhomosexuality-ts just another step down the road to America’s ruin “Phyllis truly believes that ERA is immoral," says a neighbor. ‘It really scares her that every git! who graduates from college these days thinks she's going tobe the next Kate Graham. Who's going to raise the kids? Believe me, she’s smart enough to know that ERA has nothing to do with abortion and. homo- sexuality, but she's also smart enough to Tink them so she can attack them all with a religious fervor. In a way, I guess, she really believes they're connected. “They're all end products of godlessness.” This technique isn’t new for Schlafly. ‘When her prime target was Communism, her attacks almost always had moral overtones. Only a society “caught in the clutches of atheistic Communism,” she wrote ten years ago, ‘‘could create pornogeaphy like Candy, « sequence of sex and incest, sandwiched with the straight Communist Party line.”” Under the title “Communist Agents in the State Department and the CIA," she charged, “There are 94 perverts in the State Department.” ‘The highlight of Schlafly"s Houston agenda was a ‘Pro-family Rally” that ‘drew 15,000 from all over the country. Featuring speakers from Schlafly (on the evils of ERA) to a “reformed homo- sexual" (on the evils of his once “filthy, 14 St. Lovie/ August 1978 The dean of Schlafly’s law school describes her as “Highly organized--so programmed that I know of no one here who's really close to her.” perverted, godless life-style"), the rally was essentially a pulsating prayer mest ing. Clara Collins, one of a large contin- ‘gent from Illinois, carred a sign proclaim- ing ERA WON'T PLAY IN PEORIA and told me, “'My minister convinced me to come to Houston by showing me how, if ERA passes, it means the end of mar- riage, and (it means) textbooks showing women having sex with each other.” Although Schlafly is fond of saying that her supporters are “professional women as well as housewives, Jews as well as Christians, blacks as well as whites, MoGovernites as well as Goldwaterites,”” her Houston foot soldiers, almost to’ a woman, were white, conservative Chris- tian housewives. These are mostly women accustomed to being in the background, women who aren't in. the ERA fray for personal glory—tireless letter writers, envelope lickers, pet Mike Greenberg circulators. When they get the word from her network of Heutenants in every Illinois legislative district, these women will board a bus for Springfield at a day's notice. Or they'll flood the Governor's office with telephone calls, as they did when an Alton Telegraph reporter, Bill Lambrecht, broke the story that a vocal ERA supporter from East Alton, Carol Fredericks, was about to be appointed the state women's advocate. Calls poured in and, according to Lambrecht, the Gover- nor “caved in to Schlafly's' pressure,” eventually appointing a woman “who ha been deliberately quiet on the subject. While Schlafly and I ate dinner i Houston, we were constantly interrupted bby women meekly approaching € say, “T wanted to thank you for what you're doing for us” or just “Bless your heart.” At lunch in a packed Walnut Room at the Bismarck, « group of her Chicago girls” several tables away suddenly rose and offered a heartfelt toast to “Phyllis Power!" “What's the attraction?” 1 asked “All the polls will tell you,”” she responded, “that women don't like working for other women. I'm sure Ihave 4 Jot of faults, but I'm not petty, 1 don't gossip, I don't fir with men oF anyone else’s husband. Most important, they've seen over a period of years that when I tell them something's so, they see that it ‘What exactly does Schlafly tell them? ‘That, if ERA passes, “ordinances that require women to have their breasts covered at public beaches will be thrown out,"" that ERA backers “hate men, ‘martiage, and children,"* and, of course, that “ERA is an attack on the Tegal and financial rights of the homemak: Schlafly leaves little to thei i tions. One issue of The Phyllis Schlafly Report contains “pictures that the press failed to print,” taken at a 1976 ERA rally in Springfield. ‘See for yourself the unkempt, the lesbians, the radicals, the Socialists.” Pictured are T-shirted, p- parently braless women carrying signs proclaiming LESBIANS LOVE THE ERA AND WOMEN'S LIBERATION ‘THROUGH SOCIALIST REVOLUTION. Schlafly denies talking down to het supporters. "My writing," she says. “is designed to make people act. My power is the power ofthe truth, plus fhe fact that ‘can put it out in a way that's understand- able to anybody.’” (That power can prove potentially profitable. In two recentnay Although Schlafly’ tries for political office have all ended in defeat, the anti-ERA campaign has given her the sweet—and consistent—taste of vietory. But the ultimate victory would be t0 become the first woman to man the Oval Office. issues of her Eagle Forum newsletter, Schlafly, teferring to herself in the thied person, instructs her readers to insist that their local libraries buy The Power of the Positive Woman. She even provides detailed instructions on how to put Pressure on theit local librarians.) Liza has a less lofty view of her ‘mother's writing: “"You have to realize that my mother addresses herself to a ‘mass audience. You can't use the ap- proach of acollege professor when you're organizing thousands and thousands of midale-cluss housewives. Schlafly’s critics, of course, have a ably less lofty view. “She's an expert propagandist,” says Carol Fred. ericks. “Hitler knew well that if you're going to tell ale, tell a big lie.” ‘Once she gets going,” says Alton Telegraph reporter Dog Thompson, “she doesn’t let facts stand in the way of "her arguments," He recalls hearing her {ell local audience recently that if ERA asses, pregnant teenagers will be draft- 4 into combat, Typical of Schlafly’s technique is a Tecent Sehlafly Report in which she uotes one of SO women on board the Sanciuary as saying, ‘I'd really like 10 be a Playboy bunny.” She concludes, is incredibly unfair to the wives of the sailors to tempt their husbands by putting them on board ship in close quarters with about fifty single girls of the type who yearn to be Playboy bunnies. Last year, Schlafly told Newsweek “Women find their greatest fulfillment at home with the family"—a statement her critics attack on the ground that while she roves the country, her housekeeper, secretary, and cook keep her home fires burning. Schlafly probably really means ‘‘most women,"” but she’s well aware that what, makes her such ahit with state legislators is not her expertise in forcign policy. And so she carefully—and successfully—cult- vates the image of “just-your-average- ‘American-housewife” who may be forced out of the cozy kitchen and into the clammy coal mine if ERA passes. ‘When talking to reporters, Schlafly injects her family into the conversation at regular intervals. We were discussing Governor Thompson's legislative record when she suddenly volunteered the in- formation that she had breast-fed all six of her “babies” (for at least six months each) and that she had kept them all out, of parochial school until the second grade so that she could personally teach them to read. Last year, Newsweek dubbed her the “Kitchen Crusader." In 1975, People reported her saying that nothing makes hher happier than fixing a buckwheat cake breakfast for her family. ‘I think of ‘my marriage and family as my number one career. When I fill out applications, 1 put down ‘Mother’ as my occupation." I called several of Schlafly's neighbors, hoping for homey tidbits about car pooling or coffee kiatching. Instead they told tales of the Schlafly children stranded at the ice rink, forced to brave blizzards because Mom didn't show up to drive them home. Schlafly's next-door ‘ghbor Gladys Levis told me that her children and Liza Schlafly took piano lessons from the same teacher and that at annual recitals Liza was always the only performer whose parents weren't in the audience. Schlafly vigorously denies such stories. She called me at home to say, “I spent a good part of one summer taking my Roger to learn ice hockey at a rink in St Louis County. Now he's captain of the team at Berkeley.” Liza confirms Levis's recollection of the piano recitals. “That's correct. They had better things to do... To me there's nothing more boring than listening to a Continued on page 110, St, Loula! Auguet 1976 05