1 Catt, Carrie Chapman Diaries 1922-23, Tour of Europe and South America Christmas in the Tropics Dec 28, 1922 To be kept for my diary. My dear Mollie: Christmas day is just closing and it has been a curious one - the second I have spent in the tropics. Christmas is so associated with snow and snappy cold that it doesn't seem quite appropriate when it it occurs in August. Rosa is just made for preparing fun and entertainment for people, even tho Xmas is not a holiday of her race. She began to think about it and plan for it while on the steamer and when Mrs. Van [Lumes?] said she always hung her stocking, it was decided that every one should have a stocking. Everyone in the hotel gets breakfast in his room. Our breakfast this morning came with Papya instead of oranges as usual for fruit. It resembles a melon yet is not a melon at all. We added from our experiment collection some jumbo fruit a queer red turnip like fruit which grows on a large tree. We did not like it. Then we had the fruit of the passion flower which we liked a little. We have a little sitting room. It was decorated with three vases of wonderful orchids - 7 varieties A giant [victina ?igia] is a bouquet occupying a big jug. Another is a group of red & green begonia leaves which are simply undescribable. A big bowl of flowers occupies the [central?] table. The green of sprays of coffee tree loaded with [cheberris?]. Tobacco blossoms and a marvelous red acacia finishes that bunch. Egyptian lotus and magnolias with stephanotes make us smell like a wedding and look like a rare florist's shop. Through our French windows we look out upon the Bay and the mountains beyond upon which the rays of the early sun are glistening like diamonds. A curious setting indeed for Christmas. We had agreed that our ceremonies were to take place at 9:30. The stockings had been filed and hung on as many door knobs. Then came a bell boy with a basket of white roses from Minnie [Schreming?] The explanation was that Joseph Smith one time officeboy at the AG&P is here on some kind of business and Minnie entrusted this mission to him Surprise No 1. Rosa had made the programs which greatly surprised the guests. Enclosed. Mme Corolina sang an original xmas anthem accompanying herself in dramatic manner with a baby hurdy gurdy, a gift from Manus to Van Lennep and which was purloined from the stocking where it belonged. The words are hardly worth preserving, but here they are. We are far from home today Hooray Hooray Hooray Lets enjoy the freedom while we may Hooray hooray hooray We are in Brazil today in Rio Rio Rio We enjoy this Xmas day in Rio Rio Rio Who cares a hang for home today Not me not me not me We're happy as birds I say Are we are we are we. The anthem character was as the singing as Who cares who cares who cares a hang hang hang hang who cares a hang for home home home home who cares a hang for home today. Another noticeable quality was that the time was skillfully changed every line, being improvised as the prima donna proceeded thus it can never be reproduced. Mrs. Van Lennep said it was off the key but I asked her a stumping question how could an anthem be off the key when it had never been on. The dance was the "macici". I have to learn the spelling. It is pronounced ma she she the national Brazilian dance. As the dancers had no costumes, Mrs Van who is tall wore Miss Babcock's dress who is short and Miss B wore Mrs. 3 Van Lenneps and they made a laughable pair and danced their part to the amusement of the audience altho we suspect they did not do it right. Then Rosa retired and soon returned as Miss Hook of Holland in a full dutch costume carrying a basket of packages. She read a poem which was funny and quite amazing. I was truly overcome when in poetry she presented me a box from Mollie Hay containing a pocket box - just the thing for a journey. I noticed that the box was from London and found that Mollie has sent money to Rosa to buy me a present and some to buy her a present, so Mollie was presenting us each with gifts but she didn't know what they were. Directly came another package from Clara and when I saw a little pocketbook labelled keys (which I am always hunting for), I knew that gift came the same way. Rosa had made a work bag for Mrs. Van Lennep and had something for Miss Babcock.* * I had loaned my little bandbox for the occasion and the final verses concerned Mrs. Van Lenneps desire to buy a hat (she had been chasing all over town for one) and the box was presented. A hat made of a pink flower basket turned bottom side up was inside. A huge lavender bow from a bouquet and a frill of corset lace bought in a street market were the main features, but a negro baby reposed in the bow and long dangling yellow earrings bought in the same market hung from the lace. It was a work of genius and the sight of it on Mrs Van Ls head brought side splitting laughter. The stockings were then distributed and [each] turns taken to make a dive after a package, open it, and read any messages. Most of the gifts were fun. I gave Elizabeth a live Brazilian bug which I had caught, but we each received handkerchiefs that being about the only thing we had to give away. Mollie's gift to Rosa, a blue fan from Libertys was in her stocking and pleased her much. We spent just an hour and it was rather astonishing how much fun and laughter we had managed to evoke from laying aside our grown-up-edness At any rate if any of us felt a pull homeward it helped to tide the day over. I then went at my writing of letters and in the afternoon called on Mrs. [Liverman?] who, poor woman was in bed all by her lonesomes with diarrhea - a pretty poor kind of a Christmas. Mrs Van L & Elizabeth went to the Exposition in the afternoon. Rosa entertained Miss Bertha Lutz to tea. When I returned I found each of the other three had received boxes of candy from Miss Lutz and a Brazilian gourd bowl awaited me. It was lined with the leaves of the cocao tree. In the bottom were fresh Brazilian nuts. Then aligator pears, the fruit of the cocao tree, sapilos and lastly figs on top. It was decorated with magnolias - a unique gift and distinctly Brazilian. We put on our very best duds and dined at eight in the evening. We sat a while on the terrace and watched some very pretty fireworks from the Exposition grounds The Exposition is not far away and at night is so brilliantly lighted that it looks like fairy land. Then [after which] Rosa and I leaving the others to enjoy the dancing retired. [Christmas] Christmas 1922 in the tropics was over. The "oldest inhabitant" said it was the coolest xmas on record. I had a blanket over me for a part of the night. The sun pours into our rooms for a short time in the morning. At 5:30 I put my thermometer on the floor in the suns rays and went back to bed. When I got up at 7 it was 96°. Yet out of the sun when one does not stir around too much, it is agreeable. Night gowns are the most comfortable costumes but fashion decrees these too prudish, so most of the body here is exposed except about the same amount the primitive man covers with a breach cloth and a foxs' tail. I have never been any place where the Parisian fashions are so universally adopted. This is clearly the Paris fashion monger's best market Dec 26 This morning we are full of writing obligations with all the tour to be arranged and I alone can do it. We began breakfast with cacoa fruit. It is a yellow fruit looking like a small Burpee squash. Breaking it open, the thin hard shell gives way and the entire center is filled with large brown beans surrounded by a white gelatinous substance which is edible. There wasn't enough of it to be worthwhile and it was tasteless. The beans furnish the chocolate which perverted appetites enjoy. We then tried sapitos a fruit with a brown potato like skin and an over sweet juicy inside. A little experience with it might make one very fond of it, but at present we do not care to repeat it. The figs are cool and fine. A nice after xmas breakfast! This afternoon we go to the Senate and then to tea to meet the official delegates to the Congress of which there were eight or ten sent by States of Brazil. CCC over Dear Mollie: I liked my pocket book and so will you when you see it. It was a complete surprise and yet Rosa does not enjoy keeping secrets [?] but she did a good job of it. Tomorrow morning, we go to Petropolis where people live to escape the heat of Rio. I am interviewed by the Am. Ambassador! We have meetings here, remain two days and return. We then have a week here and will leave probably on Sunday the 7th for San Paulo where we have more meetings. From there we go to Santos a part where we will take our steamer for Buenos Aires instead of taking it here. Mrs. Litt will take this and other letters and mail them in New York. The Americans do things that way as they do not trust the Brazilean mail service. I think I've told you about all there is to tell except our business here but I am telling that to the Citizen. Miss Roderick will put one article she has in the New Years number and enough others are on the way to give one to each member up to March 26 and she will have Brazil for that. I have told her I expect a quiet and undisturbed summer as a reward. I do hope you are better than you were. Mrs. Shuber said you had had another cold. I am well now - the first time since I left New York. I'll try to keep so. I don't want any more foreign doctors if I can help it. Very lovingly, Carrie. On Board the Andes Jan 11, 1923. My dear Mollie: Please preserve this letter for my diary. We went to Sau Paulo on the 6th saying good bye to Rio. On Sunday the 7th we visited a coffee plantation. On the 8th we had a drive in the morning, organized a suffrage alliance for the State of Sau Paulo, had a tea and a public meeting in the evening. I shall however here tell you particularly about Tuesday the 9th. I had intimidated Rosa into not telling the rest of the party that it was my birthday and I had implored her to make no recognition of it. However she invited the whole party, (Miss Lilly and Mrs Valentine were at the hotel) to dinner and ordered one especially composed mainly of Brazilian dishes and ending with figs and mangoes. In the morning before I was out of bed she stole into my room and gave me a little pin of Brazilian stone just right to fasten my lace. Then came a parasol for the silk of my umbrella is threatening to give way in the near future. She presented me with a neat package which she says is half intended for Mollie and half for me and is to be used when I get home. She has told me what it is, but I'll not reveal it here. Then she showed me bits of Brazilian lace which she intends putting into a bag to carry with white dresses. She presents her gifts so gracefully that one cannot be offended but I scold her all the time for such over generosity At 9:30 quite a large party had gathered in the lobby for an excursion to the Snake farm. Few institutions of this kind exist in the world. The Director said there was one in Philadelphia, one in Australia and one in India. Poison snakes are collected from all parts of Brazil, the institution paying transportation on them. The poison is extracted, and used to inoculate horses, and from their blood a serum is made to antidote snake bites. Two kinds are made. One from rattlesnakes and one a combination of all the others except the coral snake which belongs to a different group. Most snake bites (75%) are inflicted upon bare footed workers. The early injection of the serum while not an absolute corrective is usually effective. If the nature of the snake is not known both serums are used. The coral snake is poisonous but there is a second coral snake which very closely resembles the first which is not poisonous at all and the poison of the poisonous one has not yet been treated. Not only the laboratory is interesting and the barn of inoculated horses, but the snake reserve. Here on an island surrounded by a run of water about 4 feet wide with a wall on the outside surrounded by an iron grill are many little cement mounds with small holes in the side at the ground. As the snakes are sent in they are thrown into this reserve. There were many boxes waiting and several more opened. The snakes are poured out on the cement floor of a small arbor. Two boys wearing fine wire leggings upon their knees were in attendance and kept their snake ships in order with a stick on the end of which was a sharp curved wire. They rather liked to enrage them and let them strike at the wire leggings 3 A boa constrictor about 2 feet long was in one of the boxes and after being allowed to play around with the boys awhile he was quickly hoisted over the fence into the yard. The boa is not poisonous. He just squeezes things to death. In North Brazil they are kept in the houses like cats to rid houses and barns of rats. I am thinking of taking one home for John and Mother. As fast as they can work the staff extracts the poison and kill the snakes. It seems the poison is necessary to snake digestive and one will die after a time anyway when his poison is gone. They extracted the poison from a rattler for our benefit. We went to the Directors home Dr Krauss (an Austrian) where those who indulge were treated to wine and cake. As the water is unfit to drink in San Paulo, I had to wish the Director good will without a drink. A nice priest who was at the public meeting was with us. Some busy bodies had said the movement was protestant, so he went along to show that he approved of our cause. Success to our cause was also drunk 4 It was a hot excursion. We got back for lunch and hoped we would not dream of snakes. After lunch I went over the work for Brazil with Miss Lutz. Mrs Carter wife of Frank B Carpenter, manager of the Armour plant came to take me to drive She seems to be the leader of the American Colony She proposed a call upon Mrs. Lawton wife of the Consul. As they had gone with us to the Coffee Lageuda and I liked them [and] I was glad to go. We had tea there and we then went to Mrs. Carters new home which was so new she liked to exhibit it. All its furniture was made in Brazil and of Brazilian woods. It was all elegant. Her husband arriving just then joined us and Mrs. Carter returned me to the hotel. There was just time to dress for Rosa's dinner. The table was decorated with blue flowers and each guest received a fan. It was a nice dinner one course being Brazilian vegetables. Rosa tried to have cocoanut cake and we did but it wasn't like any other, yet it was good. Thus ended my 64th birthday. All that was cheerful in it was put there by Rosa who loves doing things to make people happy. The next morning we all confessed to having dreamed of snakes but we are glad the menace of the poison is being overcome. 5 We expect to arrive in Buenos Ayres Saturday night. I hope for papers and magazines and letters We shall make a serious effort on Monday morning to find out how we can leave So. America and will cable whichever it is via New York or otherwise. I am very well. My cough is long gone. The heat leaves me a bit tired in the morning but seems to agree with me. I sleep like a child and am really wonderfully well. There was good water at Rio, but everywhere else we shall boil our water. We have given up lettuce or any foods washed in water so we are taking care. All the party are well. This is for your comfort. Concerning the garden John will be tempted to get things sowed in the greenhouse early but we shall not be on the farm before June 15 and I don't want things wasted. Let all vegetables be planted late in the garden - not before May 15. Peas and pea shells are an exception I think it takes about two months for peas to get big enough but perhaps it is only six weeks. See if the seed books tell you and tell John when to plant. He need not start the green house seeds so early - not before Mch 15 6 See if there are New Zealand daisies in the seed book and get assorted colors if there are. Tell John to sow peas every week up to June 10 - not too many at a time and tell him not to put the pea shells at the same place. We are eating pea shells here but peas do not do well - it is too hot. My how I long to hear how things are going. I am wondering if on this 11th of January you are engulfed in snow. The sun and humidity and rain are death on clothes. You remember the brown dress Miss Van Lennep wore when we went away - brown crepe de chine - very handsome and cost no [?] made $100. It developed big pink patches. She sent it to a dyers and wouldn't accept it. She left it to be sent on to New York. My midnight blue thin dress - my one standby has turned green and Mrs. Grisel's blue hat is now two blues unlike any the world has yet seen. Clothes are one big problem down here. O, I saw our Miss Kelly - Mrs Bowles at San Paulo. She has been there 11 years She wished to be remembered to you. Lovingly, Carrie [If this letter bores you let it go, but save it for me. There is some gossip in it if you wade for it. C.C.C.] Moulivideo Uruguay Jan 28, 1923. Dear Mollie: I have been obliged to write you such matter of fact letters that I have never been able to write much of the intimate details of this trip which I know would interest you most and which I very much want to tell you while they are fresh so I am going to indulge myself in such a letter now. We have about completed our work in Brazil Uruguay and Argentine and talked with many persons familiar with the West Coast. I therefore feel somewhat acquainted with general conditions. The first and most important fact for any kind of a missionary to know is that exceedingly little English is spoken in So America. There is usually one portier and one man at the desk who hold their job because they know English, but the English speaking person on the other side of the desk has his doubts about their qualifications. No waiters or maids know English altho some waiters may know a few words. On the other hand all educated people know French, some in a real Parisien perfection of culture some in a S. A. pronunciation but speaking fluently nevertheless. Portiers and desk, waiters and maids all know French, from a few words of the maids up to good speaking ability at the desk. French and Spanish are closely related and it is not difficult for Spanish children to pick up the French. South America produces raw materials 2 largely sold in Europe. Coffee, fine woods, cotton, sugar, etc compose their chief exports and now Armour, Swift Wilson and Morris all have freezing plants here and their meat goes also to Europe. In return S A buys art statuary and house furnishings, and is the best market France has for fashions. Not many books come here altho there are scholars and fine libraries. The common people have no libraries - they are not acquainted with books. The trade therefore is from S. A to Europe and from Europe to S. A. The people rich enough to travel follow the trade and go to Europe often, taking their entire families. French takes them about, so they feel well equipped with that language. England has made large efforts to secure trade here and her capital is certainly drawing dividends from S. America. One spot in Buenos Aires looks like Bond and Regent St so many of the London shops have branches here. The Harrod store is nearly as large as that in London. That is the only one I have been in but Mrs. Van L and Miss Babcock have visited others and the report is that little or no English is spoken. A queer incident happened to me. We were just leaving London for Southampton. I was standing at the door of our compartment talking with the women 3 who had come to see us off. They had been driven from the cars by the officials and we were expecting to move in any second. A woman hurried down the platform with a bundle in her hand. She knew Miss Macmillan and after a hasty handshake asked her who she was seeing off. She told her and the woman asked an introduction. Before I could say scat she thrust her package into my hands telling me it was for her son in Buenos Aires and that it contained shirts. It was directed to him in care of a firm and she expected me to find someone on board the Hwanzira who would deliver it. We were off and I had the package. I did not have the woman's nerve so kept it until we arrived in B. A I think it was a Xmas present. We arrived the middle of January and one day we drove to this place with the poor dear boy's shirts. It was a firm of lawyer financiers and they occupied immense and elegant offices and a "Senorita" who turned out to be a nice English suffrage girl was the only one about who spoke English. That is the point of this story but I will add that Mama's boy had been moved five hundred miles away but Senorita took charge of his shirts and I went home 4 relieved. In every other spot the British have imposed the English language but in S A they surrendered to Spanish. Our letters of credit are all on English banks. (The four of us have quite a variety) and again the language is Spanish. A missionary coming here with a fluent use of French would get on finely. Speeches made in French would draw an audience if the subject and speaker attracted but a bumpkin like me is much handicapped An English owner and editor of a small English paper here said he thought it was an advantage and in one way it is. The women do not spend so much time blackening each other's characters, but to arrive at an understanding of a delicate and intricate subject is next to impossible. I get on best with Rosa interpreting French. She is very fluent and quick and I am confident that she translate with all the accuracy possible. I do not know her quality of French. Mrs Van Lennep is a dead failure as an interpreter and in that fact is a great disappointment. She has so little knowledge of almost anything that she does not grasp the idea and consequently interprets it quite the contrary of the fact at times. I have not dared to give her any important work of translating. She feels more at home with an anti suffragist and has no comprehension of the woman movement. She is rather fond of saying, that she never worked "with these women before and never 5 will again; that she doesn't believe in suffrage at all and is sure So America is not ready for it. This has come back to me from the local women in every town we have visited. So I cannot discuss in her presence the questions most perplexing. My entourage are not altogether congenial with each other. Miss Babcock and Mrs Van Lennep go together but Miss B had a very bad cough and attacks of asthma and Mrs. Van L is a Ch. Scientist whose poise is disturbed by these rude "claims" and Miss B is upset by Mrs Van L's unbalanced mind on the woman question. Yet they to outward appearances are good friends and perhaps are. I think Rosa abominates them both. Mrs. Van L has been [downgletmegu?] to her upon a few occasions which caused her wakeful nights and the need of pacification from me. Here the Government is entertaining us at the hotel and all three were put down as my secretaries and all three modestly politely but definitely was much irritated. So I had an interview and explained that I was no where near rich enough to bring a secretary to S. America, that all were friends paying their own way and quite my equals in all things. I said one - "three rich ladies" and I replied "yes". The three were told the story collectively and crestfallen finds rose to normal. I suppose I will have to see the next Pan American Congress through and it will be a big task for me with my handicaps but I shall not come to So A with an entourage. I'll persuade Rosa if possible to be my second and there will be no third or fourth 6 Rosa orders the Swiss waiters around in German, writes the laundry lists in Spanish and orders the meals in a combination of Italian Spanish and French, interprets conversations wonderfully with her French. She translates letters into French and then writes them on her Corona. That is a combination invaluable to S.A. I have never been in any country where so few people speak English except Italy. I had nine separate interviews with newspapers and all were done through Rosa interpreting French. At the request of one I wrote two sentences to be interpreted into Spanish and both photographed for [the] a paper Of course I wrote in English. Rosa translated into French and the reporter translated into Spanish. Whether the Spanish bore any relation to the English is one of the problems that would keep a nervous person awake nights but I just recognize that the outcome of this trip is on the lap of the Gods and so I sleep every night like a pair of twins. I have met men and women whose fathers were English and they speak English but with great difficulty and bad pronunciation. Before there will ever be any Pan Americanisms that will stick we of the North must learn more Spanish and they of the South more English. [5] 7 I was never in a land so daft on photos as this one. The man with the camera lurks behind every bush. If we start forth to see a few institutions we are photographed with the Board of Directors before we leave. Somewhere there are photos of me under a breadfruit tree, a coffee tree, under the neck of a giraffe. standing by a live lose boa constrictor with the President of Uruguay and the Directors of all sorts of institutions, with the half and the blind Where there is a church wedding, the bride and groom halt as they turn from the altar and the entire audience wait while they are photographed. I've been photo'd on every platform and the smell of brimstone is continuous. When Miss Babcock went to a movie (the only time) she saw us all walk out on the street. The papers have printed quantities of "stuff" and the women tell us chat it is complimentary in the main, Rosa attempts to collect and to clip these things. As a sample of the beauties the papers are reproducing I attach one. Here in Uruguay there is a semi socialist party in power. Some years back a white and red party came up in Argentine and spread to Uruguay. The red was not socialistic in the beginning but is now so regarded by the Catholics Mrs. Van L was asked whether we were reds or whites. She had no inkling as to the meaning and did not know the socialists were reds. Just what possessed her I cannot imagine. She did not say she did not know. She said 8 "O, we are all reds!" She is a gem! Handicapped with the language question our next difficulty is the delicate sailing in and out of the reefs of religion. The Argentine Catholic Church and the State are one and the same. The Council of Women is Catholic and all its board. I must say they are the most aristocratic really high born women I've seen in that capacity, but the women who are a little more liberal minded are outside the Council leading small and uninfluential movements. In Uruguay the Council is reputed to be agnostic, followers of Voltaire and anti Catholic[s] and the Catholic women are outside. Yet I came to ask these two existing bodies to be auxiliaries of the Pan American. So nearly as I can ascertain the friction between Catholics and free thinkers is personal and is never out of the mind of many people. Free thinkers do not necessarily mean agnostics, but merely Catholics who do not go to confession To steer through this question and unite the women behind any program will prove a source of perpetual difficulty and require most tactful handling. Yet whether the women of the North of the world can pass over to the women to the South of the world the spirit and energy which alone can bring success, demands that no mistakes be made on this line. The movement for "feminism" in Spanish countries will always be different from our own. In most of the countries the laws which existed with us 75 years ago are still in operation. Every influence teaches the girl that her sole mission is to grow up to marry, have a home and children. She is kept away from boys until she is approaching eligibility. Then they "bring her out". Every city seems to have the same [7] 9 custom. At a comfortable hour of the day the eliet motor to the spot. There they draw up together. The ladies walk up and down for a short distance or as in Moulendeo they sit in chairs and benches while the young men and boys ogle the young women and girls. I call these the sparking grounds. It is an interesting survival of Spanish custom. When the girl utterly untrained for anything but ornamental work, - music dancing embroidery fancy cooking, sewing, is married she goes either to live with her mother in law or the husband goes to live with his mother in law. She has babies and nurses are provided. Soon the husband is able to have another establishment. The wife is helpless. She may have been rich but the property is in her husband's hands and she can command none of it. She couldn't work, partly because she doesn't know how and partly because he would lose caste, so she bears the offense with such composure as she can command and unites on others in throwing mud at those who would change these conditions, not in the least comprehending what it is all about. To persuade this timid woman to break away from the conventions is the sole business of the feminist in So America Her husband possessed of full authority over her by the law and the church both fearful of results should she be otherwise than the unthinking obedient creature she is, are pulling the other way. Again tact is the word. Breaking windows and even any kind of agitation won't do it yet. It would be slow work were there no precedents but such free women in most [8 9] 10 lands there will be a reflection in S A. which will serve to hurry matters. Peculiar customs exist here. Men in legislatures do not rise to speak. Sitting in the galleries it is amusing to hear a voice and then see hands gesticulating and head bobbing but no word distinguished. Sometimes not even the sound of the voice [does not] reaches the gallery and the sitting speaker [merely] is only recognized by the wild movement of hands as a symptom. In Argentine the speaker commands a fire alarm. Two men diverged from the debate when we were present to indulge in a personal discussion (we were told) The speaker stood it as long as he wished and then turned on the alarm. It was startling. Not another sound could be heard. When the bell stopped, the men began again and when the men began so did the bell In about 20 minutes the trial of strength was decided for the bell through the apparent cooling of tempers and the men subsided. It seemed an improvement over an hour or so of points of order. I think every chairman should be provided with a fire alarm to shut off the speakers who run over time. This sitting down speechmaking honor is imitated by women and they have not learned how to discuss a matter collectively. Let a suggestion be made and the meeting breaks into little groups each discussing it and perhaps they talk across the room many speaking at once. A babel is soon in charge and the chairman sits quietly by, or perhaps joins the discussion with 11 some group speaking excitedly and gesticulating like the rest. The commotion appears to subside in time and without a vote, they agree by some subtle process incomprehensible to the Anglo Saxon who cannot understand the language that it is decided so and so. One advantage of this method is that it doesn't stay settled if anyone wishes to change it later! When those in charge of a thing do not want to be bound by the "conferencia" they forget it which is another advantage! Yet democratic meetings and decisions either have to conquer this chaotic way of doing things, and thus the Anglo Saxon needed control; or the Anglo Saxon must submit to the Spanish way - there seems no compromise and it is this difference which has prevented for a hundred years the men of North and South from working together understandingly. Can the women do it? Each attempt gives me fits, but still I sleep. We of the North are wont to charge all these things to inferiority of the South but in truth it is merely a difference of temperament and training. I am convinced that nothing on Gods Earth will prevent a war between the Spanish Republics and the U. S except careful foreign policy by our government and Pan Americanism of the right sort. We have sometimes predicted war with Mexico and feel calm because Mexico is so small and we so big. If that clash comes Mexico will have all or almost all the Spanish Republics on her side and Brazil will come with us. Canada will be kept neutral by Gt Britain in order to gobble up the pieces when the [two] hemisphere is through with its emotion. I would not 12 say these things publicly nor generally, but I am profoundly convinced that my prediction is right. It won't come in my day, but I now feel desperately anxious to push pan Americanism among the women and to see the work go fast. A problem or situation here is perhaps more perplexing than any I have stated. The Government in Argentine is Catholic as I have said and united with the church. The Council is Catholic and liberal women outside. Here in Uruguay the disunion took place 4 years ago. The wrench is new and the feeling better. The Council is anti Catholic and the Catholic women are outside. Here the Government took over some cemeteries from the church and took down the crosses thus making it a public cemetery. All crosses were [taken down] removed from institutions taken over by the Government and of course the church no long gets money from the State. All this has made the Catholics very sore and quite naturally they do not think the thing through as a movement; to them it is a local fight. It would now be impossible to unite the strict Catholic women in any country visited with those who are protestant, Free thinkers or moderate Catholics and this is our real obstacle which must be surmounted with the greatest possible tact. The climate and the inherited racial tendencies make the people languorous and willing to put things off until tomorrow. They eat too much. In all hotels two full dinners are supplied every day. Altho this is probably not true in the family life, yet they do have big long course dinners chiefly of meat and heavy food. The waste of food is shocking. In after dinner coffee cups people drink from 3 to 5 lumps of sugar and in Brazil 13 where the sugar was served soft I have seen them fill their cups 2/3 full of sugar. Sweets are plentiful and deserts are very sweet. The women are therefore fat and probably less easy to move. When you take into consideration all these things together, you will perceive that organization which will stick and include us vampants of the USA and the really dear and elegant Council ladies of Buenos Aires must be conservative and tactful. Thinking and thinking and thinking this is what I come to. There are three Councils of Women in S.A. The two I have seen bear no relation to each other, but both include pretty much all the really strong organized groups, therefore no other Association could be organized without setting up a rival which would mean civil war. I have asked both to be the auxiliary of the Pan American. Uruguay accepts and as the suffrage Alliance is a member it is regular. Argentine cannot accept because I said it must take in the suffrage association. However upon investigation I found the three suffrage groups so hostile to each other and to the Council that they wouldn't go in if the Council would have them. I am therefore hoping that the Council will invite the Pan American and permit me to organize the suffrage part. I think a year's smoldering might "head things up" as Horace used to say. Our next effort is Chili and I feel confident we can get the Council in altho' it will be without the suffragist probably. Now if we 14 have the three Councils of So America as Auxiliaries of the Pan American, it is a logic we cannot evade that the Councils of the United States and Canada must also be the auxiliaries. There is no other way out of it. So I think that when we organize the Pan American permanently that we must have a section [of the Pan American] for suffrage that will have as members the League of Women Voters and the suffrage movements of the Southern countries. Thus the radical movement will go on within the Pan American but the conservatives will manage the big thing. That is the only way. I want a suffrage evening at the Congress and I want Maud to speak and tell what the vote has done for women in the USA and I want a nice pretty lady from Canada to tell the story there and one speech from S.A. to tell what the chief objection is here. Then I want a conference to talk about methods. They are about a half century from processions and street meetings and all the things we did the last ten years. I hope your Mrs. Winter will take the presidency of the Council. She would be just about right for the job of Pan American President. She could come as a delegate from the USA Council and I'll run the first part, get her elected and then she can run it and I can vanish. I wonder if she knows French. If she doesn't, she better begin in Spanish. She's foreordained and predestined for this job. However it is a costly one. She should visit all her Pan American children and take care of the next Congress after 1924. She could then go to the poor house 15 along with me. How this movement started with the League and I want the League's opinion about this procedure. I hear that Mrs. Slade is now State Chairman of N Y. and Mrs. Vanderlip regional chairman (it got here quick didn't it? Well Miss Babcock's aunt cabled it) Yet I would like you to talk it over with Mrs. Slade and if dear Maud is able to read this letter I wish you would send it to her (to be returned) and she can Accept or Decline the idea of letting the Council into the control. To tell the truth I never did a piece of work which has so interested and stimulated my desires to help as this. I would need to read a few tons more of So American history and to learn Spanish before I should be really equipped for the task. The YMCA and the YWCA are both established in these three countries. The WCTU is here and in Argentine and in all three cases they sent workers here who first learned Spanish, then worked slowly up to their organization. If we had the right women it would be a clever trick to follow their example. They would have to be really big women - no little organizer would do. Jan 31 The Council Committee have just been here. The Council will be auxiliary to the P.A and will probably write the [the] next Congress. Tomorrow about the time this letter begins its journey to you, I am to be taken to call upon the wife of the President of the Republic and we are to ask her to get an interview with her husband for the Council ladies while I am here. Then they will ask him for cooperation and if he gives it, here we will come. At any rate it will be here or Rio and takes place in May 1924. I mean to be here a month before and see it through and Mrs. Winter (?) inaugurated. It will be a proud thing to do and any woman might well feel gratified at so noble a task coming her way. Note what I said to Maud about it. Lovingly, Carrie C Catt Jan 28, 1923 Monteviedo En route Dec 5, 1922 Dear Mollie: Will you kindly keep this letter for my diary. I will not in that case write the material again. You can also tell John what ever you think will interest him As I was unable to get to the steamship office in London there were a good many questions that didn't get asked. I did not know that we were to stop in Portugal until we were on the way, but when I did know I prepared to "do Portugal. I found an article on Lisbon in the Geographic which you sent and which became my guide and the pictures (after I had seen them in reality) I carefully clipped for illustrations We arrived at 7 a m but the first boat off went at 9.30. All three of us were on it. It was a beautiful calm but chilly day. The boat was running over with guides and agents of excursions We chose one who spoke excellent English and time proved that he knew little more than nothing. What we knew about Portugal when we went ashore we still knew when we came away but not much more. We decided to go to Cintra which is 15 miles out and is a beautiful residence section. We went in a Studebaker and baring the cold and the very bad road we were comfortable. Cintra is located on a 3 hill and away up on top of a half mountain looking quite impregnable is a wonderful old feudal castle. The guide didn't know anything about it. Neither do I. On a lower hill is the palace occupied by Portuguese kings for 900 years. The revolution of 1910 made an end of kings and none too soon. They would have died soon of colds. This palace was good to see as it made one rejoice that he had not been been borne a king (or any of his family) Yet there were attractions On broad high porticos on the four sides a complete view of the surroundings could be had and it was a beautiful sight 4 cultivated fields and orchards, villas and in one spot a fine view of the ocean which was not far away. The sun or sun warmed air poured in from all sides and added the only cheer there was. Furniture in the public state rooms and the queens suite was there. Had I been one of those queens I would have sent it all to a museum and ordered a fresh equipment from Grand Rapids That would have been some solace for having to live in a palace of stone. A modern bathroom is shown with great pride. It had a tub and a bowl - none 5 too modern. The palace having became altogether too antiquated for health or comfort, there was nothing to do but to have a revolution and get rid of the kings which the enterprising kings did. Across the street we all poured into a hotel and had an international lunch. Then we returned to Lisbon by another route passing about 20 towns going and coming. It must have been fearfully cold inside the stone houses and after lunch all the women and girls were huddled up outdoors getting warm in the sun Thus I saw a few hundreds. Tell John 6 that I didn't see anybody I like as well as I do him and I didn't see any better looking girl than the one he got, but I think she ought to have a little donkey to ride in the way girls do in Portugal. When we got back to Lisbon we went to see the most famous architectural thing in the city - the Church of Santa Maria, or the Jeronymos. On this spot Vasco de Gama prayed on the eve of his departure for India by way of the Cape of Good Hope Upon his return from a successful voyage he became the great hero of Portugal 7 The first stone was laid by King Manuel I in 1500 Vasco da Gama has a beautiful tomb in this church but whether his dust lies beneath or they just say so I know not. The church is a good type of the "cathedral age" but the most beautiful thing was the adjoining cloisters Since 1834 when the convent was suppressed a boys orphanage has been housed in them and there are 500 boys here now bright clean and healthy looking. When we had gone 8 so far it was time to catch the boat back to the ship The trip had cost about $8 - not much for seeing a country. The pictures in the Geographic are real altho' the women were not dressed in their Sunday best and probably in Lisbon do not wear their native costumes. They do however in other parts of the country. By comparison with Italy Lisbon is a clean city. The people seemed clean and healthy and I liked the Portuguese in Portugal as well a I do in Westchester Co. We were in Portugal just six hours! We took on 9 Board a good many immigrants for Brazil. The entrance to Lisbon is called The Friendly Bay and is like this [*Sketch*] Lisbon Villas and Villages Light house Tagus River Ꚛ Light house + All along here villas and villages I think John lived about where the cross is+. In the background are mountains. Our ship anchored here Ꚛ. We watched the 10 sun set a red sun in an opalescent sky and then watched the ship through the "narrows" before going to dress for dinner It had been a fine day and I was a good healthy tired after my outing. Altho it was really cold and I wore my heavy coat over my suit coat there were roses in blossom - not in profusion as in the season but enough to be noticable. I saw Japonicas covered with blossoms and a good many other flowers. The gardens were finely cultivated and Portugal 11 resembles Juniper Ledges I think if we got a little donkey and work a few years more it will be as nice as Portugal. Tell John I had a Portuguese apple for my lunch and it was good but no better than ours. One thing I noticed and that was that I didn't see a priest while there - very different from Italy. Portugal is now in a bad way. It has a bad government and its money is very bad. We used English money but a bottle of mineral drinking water cost 3,800 pesetas I shall mail this at Madeira and I think it will reach you 12 about the time we reach Rio We spend a day in Madeira an we shall go ashore seeking adventure and tell about it at the next stop. I hope we shall stop at the Cape Verde Islands but I haven't learned that we will. I expect we will now cross the ocean to Pernambuco which will be our first Brazilian stop. There may be quite a lapse between this letter and the next. All is well with us. I am still wearing my flannels and it is getting warmer and I see that I shall be shedding them soon. Lovingly. C.C.C. Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.