Our final victory over the women's lib Equal Rights Amendment is within our grasp! It will die in only eleven months -- on March 22, 1979 if it is not ratified by 38 states.

When that happens, you will share in the most remarkable victory of our time because you have been helping to spread the truth about the anti-family nature and the destructive potential of the unisex ERA. You will have proved that the truth is more powerful than the White House, the press, and the left-wing foundations combined!

As a subscriber to the Phyllis Schlafly Report, you have known for years what a lot of people only found out at the Houston Conference of Bella Abzug's Commission on International Women's Year, namely, that ERA is the centerpiece of the women's lib movement for more Federal control over our lives, lesbian privileges to teach in the schools and have child custody, government-funded abortions, and Federal child-care to replace mother-care.

But the battle is far from over. A lot can happen in the next eleven months. Because our margin of victory is so razor-thin in six states, the women's libbers are concentrating on the 1978 election in a last desperate attempt to defeat key State Legislators who voted NO on ERA. The libbers hope to come back into the State Legislatures and ratify ERA in the first couple of months of 1979.

The first campaign hurdle was the Illinois Primary on March 21. Here is what we were up against -

*The women's libbers put $2,000 into each important primary race,
whereas we had only about $200 for each race.

* The libbers bought TV time for pro-ERA candidates -- up to $6,000
for just one candidate!

*They ran quarter-page ads in the Chicago newspapers attacking our
good Legislators at a cost of $5,500 per ad!

* Plenty of money was available to pro-ERAers from anti-family sources.
Example: Shortly before the election, Hugh Hefner's daughter

presented the pro-ERAers with a check for $5,000 from PLAYBOY Magazine!

* Nearly every daily newspaper in Illinois is pro-ERA.

*Television channels broadcast editorials urging the defeat of Legislators who voted NO on ERA because the NOW boycott might hurt Chicago convention business.

please turn page over -

Despite these tremendous odds, I am happy to tell you that we successfully reelected every one of our courageous State Legislators who voted NO on ERA. However, it was mighty close! We barely squeaked through in several races.

But our tremendous efforts in Illinois have drained us financially. used all our resources because we knew that Illinois was a crucial state.

We

Now we face another major crisis--the North Carolina Primary on May 2. I know the libs will pull out all the stops in their desperate attempt to win. When North Carolina defeated ERA last year, it was by a margin of only two votes in the Senate. If the libs can defeat two of our Senators, they feel they can ratify ERA in January 1979.

Please send your most generous donation by return mail. We have fought so hard for six long years. It would be a terrible tragedy if we lost now for the lack of the necessary money to continue our efforts for the remaining eleven months.

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In addition to your own contribution, please ask your friends. I know there are so many people who want to help to defeat ERA but they don't know what to do. Tell them the way they can help is to send money for use in the critical states. The way to keep ERA from ever becoming the law in your state is to get the truth to the people about ERA in the critical states where the battle is still being waged.

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Please schedule fund-raising events to raise money to defeat ERA: sales, bake sales, film showings. Take an envelope with you and ask your friends for their contributions. The cause is so important and the need is so great that you should not be ashamed to ask for the funds necessary to do the job.

We will win this battle if all of us do our part. The lib-lesbian debacle at Houston, the defeat of Bella Abzug in New York, the Kentucky rescission of ERA, and our election victories in Illinois, all prove that the momentum is going against ERA. There is truly a pro-family awakening. Please do your part -- I am counting on you to help now. Make your check to Stop ERA and send it in the enclosed envelope.

March 21, we won
Cone by

three Legislature by a tiny margus

votes

one

by

85 votes,

We will never

and One

e by forgue ourselves if

North Carolina Legislators by The Primary is May 2.

68

94 votes).

we lose three

such small

2- please help

margus.

us now.

[Austin American Statesman, May 7, 1978]

ERA QUEST PUTS WOMEN ON ROAD

One recent Saturday, I found myself riding through the fringes of a tornado on the outskirts of Little Rock and in the company of Erma Bombeck and Judy Carter. We were searching through sheets of blinding rain for a red mailbox, which marked the home of our long-awaited dinner. It was near 9 in the evening and we had been speaking and working since 5:30 to win the "last unratified country music state-Arkansas" for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Starvation had set in and I was ready to stick my head out of the window and try to chew the rain, but Erma warned, "Watch those $2 permanents. They frizz !" It is in these times of extreme discomfort-the times that try women's soulsthat I begin to wonder: Why do we do it? What are we three doing in Little Rock on a rainy weekend?

After all, here was Judy Carter, poised, beautiful, potential policy-maker who could be sitting in the yellow Oval Room of the White House with her famous father-in-law sipping Amaretto and cream. He might even say something like, "Judy, we're having a little problem in the Middle East. Any ideas?

And Judy, wife of Jack and mother of 2-year-old Jason, might wittily reply, "How about making Ham Jordan ambassador to Egypt? He's got a thing about pyramids!"

I looked at Erma. She could be playing tennis in Arizona all weekend-sex symbol of the Scottsdale tennis courts. But instead, here she was working for ERA through the laundermats of Tulsa, the septic tanks of Little Rock. To borrow her phrase, "If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?"

As for me, I had left my typewriter and bubbling, heated spa in sunny Austin that morning to fly to Arkansas through threatening skies. That's the way the whole month had been. Last week I had seen the sun rise in Georgia, spoken to 500 deans of women in Michigan, and been home to attend a christening party at 8:30 that evening in Texas. If God had meant our bodies to do all that in one day-cover 12 states from 30,000 feet-he would have given us an automatic pilot instead of a heart.

By now, the red mailbox had loomed and we took off our shoes and sloshed through the rain to the house, headed for the buffet table, and plomped down in more comfortable surroundings to ponder the question I had put to them: why are we here?

"Because," said Erma, "when my grandchildren ask, 'In the battle of the sexes, what did you do, grandma?' I don't want to have to reply, 'I gave at the office.' "Because," she continued, "I'm tired of all the stereotypes being applied to those who are for the Equal Rights Amendment. I don't want to be 'just' anything... 'justa' housewife, or 'justa' writer."

What about Judy? It would be easy enough to assume she was there because the president sent her. But that's under-estimating Judy who has been out on the speaking circuit for ERA, alone, and co-starred with Maureen Reagan, daughter of Ronald, who is a Republican and doesn't even agree with her.

"Women have reached the desperation level about ERA," Judy said. "In New York last week, there were three fundraisers in great restaurants and stars from the broadway stage were eager to perform free. Everyone wanted to know what they could do. Coming here, making appearances to rally women is what I can do, and I'm going to continue doing it for my children and their children and myself."

And me? What was a shy, retiring homebody who doesn't relish flying doing bouncing around between the 15 unratified states? I do it because I can't not do it. We are so close to victory after 200 years and now is the time-the countdown on ERA-before March 22, 1979, when we must have three more states for

ratification.

I do it because of indignation: that women were left out in the first place and have always fought other people's battles in lieu of their own. I do it because I figure life has been good to me and I have the chance to say thanks in this one area of human progress. The Lord won't like me very well if I don't. And I won't like myself very well either.

When you get down to it, I think the answer for all three of us-Erma, Judy and me is the same. We believe that justice and equality belong to all of us, that women should be able to go as far as our aspirations and abilities can take us, and we think that in some small way our efforts may make a difference.

Florida......

Georgia.....

Illinois.....
Louisiana.....

Mississippi..
Missouri...
Nevada.....

North Carolina...
Oklahoma...

Convenes on Jan. 8, 1979, for un-
limited time.

do.

Legislative action to date in 1978

Defeated in Senate 24 to 8.

None.

Half of Senate all of House... No session.

Convenes on Apr. 3, 1979, for 60 .....do..
days.1

Convenes Jan. 8, 1979 for 12 days to All..
organize and receive Governor's
budget; reconvenes on Feb. 12,
1979, for not more than 33 days.
Convenes on Jan. 10, 1979, for un-
limited time.

Convenes on Apr. 16, 1979, for 60
legislative days during a period of
85 calendar days.1

Convenes on Jan. 2, 1979 for 90 days
Convenes on Jan. 3, 1979; must
adjourn by June 30, 1979.
Convenes on Jan. 8, 1979, for 60 days.

Convenes on Jan. 10, 1979, for un-
limited time.

Convenes on Jan. 2, 1979, for 90
legislative days.

South Carolina.... Convenes on Jan. 9, 1979, for un-
limited time.
Virginia.... Convenes on Jan. 10, 1979, for 30
days.

None.

Defeated in Senate Committee unanimously.

All of House; 3% of Senate... Currently pending considera

None.....

do.

All of House; half of Senate...
Half of Senate; all of House;
possible non-binding ERA
referendum on the ballot in
November.

All..

1 Session convenes after Mar. 22, 1979, deadline for ERA ratification has passed.

Defeated in House committee 12 to 18.

January plus Indef.2... March and November.... Part Senators; all Repre