MANY MOTHERS WERE WORKING SUNDAY

There was something of a tempest in a teapot last weekend in Jefferson City. Pressing business (see the editorial above) required the Missouri Senate to schedule an extra session Sunday evening starting at 6 o'clock.

But wait a minute. Sunday was Mother's Day. Three of the 34 senators are women. And the three women are all Republicans. They protested the meeting on the day set aside to honor mothers. They said it was a deliberate insult by the leaders of the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Not so, said the Democratic leadership. The extra meeting was fueled by a heavy schedule of important issues (again, see the editorial above), and no reflection on mothers was intended.

In this case, we have to agree. Most legislators are well aware that meetings last longer and are often called on the weekends as the business of the session comes to an end because of constitutional deadlines.

Besides, surely three state senators don't believe they were the only women working on Mother's Day. After all, most of the restaurant workers who waited on mothers being treated to a special dinner were women, weren't they?

There was no need to turn the Sunday-night session into a partisan political rhubarb. It was the sort of display that most mothers would teach their children to avoid. Bad manners, that sort of thing.