CATT, Carrie Chapman GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE Addams, Jane December 14,1914 Miss Jane Addams, Hull House, Chicago, Ill. My dear Miss Addams:- I had a call from Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer , who of course is well known to you. Mrs. Spencer keeps herself pretty well informed about all reforms, and she came to inquire whether the suffragists were engaged in any movement looking toward peace demonstrations. I took the occasion to ask her about the standing of various peace organizations. Of course all that I learned you already know, but I, although always intensely interested in the principle of peace, was very badly informed about the organizations which exist to further it. Basing my opinion upon the evidence which Mrs. Spencer gave me, I conclude that these four national bodies, all well endowed, are very masculine in their point of view. It would seem that they have as little use for women and their points of view, as have the militarists. In the discussions which have been numerous here in behalf of proposed demonstrations in the interests of peace, there has always been a question as to whether these demonstrations should be made by men and women together, or by women alone. If I have received the right impression from Mrs. Spencer that the present management of the peace movement in this country is over-masculinized, I think it would be an excellent idea to have the next demonstration conducted by women alone. Mrs. Spencer had the idea that it might be well to have simultaneous demonstrations in Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and perhaps other cities, at which time some manifesto or resolution would be adopted. She was in Boston and went to see Mrs. Mead. Mrs. Spencer was a little chagrined, I think, when Mrs. Mead took over the idea of her own, and has, I believe, Miss Jane Addams, #2 already written the manifesto which she proposes such demonstrations should adopt. Mrs. Mead is the Chairman of the Peace Department in the Council of Women, and in this capacity she has the right to call upon various organizations to assist in any program of this sort she might desire to carry out. Mrs. Mead is without question exceedingly well informed upon the peace question and a woman of very rare ability. On the other hand, for reasons which I have never been able to analyze, she is an extremely unpopular woman. I confess that while I cannot name a single sensible reason for my feeling, I always want to run when I see her coming. The Church Peace Union is to meet in New York tomorrow. Mrs. Mead is coming on for that and Mrs. Spencer tells me that she is coming to see me. She would not think of coming to me in reference to any peace question had it not been that Mrs. Spencer told her of Mrs. Schwimmer's coming, and that there might be a suffrage movement on foot. I am purposely writing to you before I have seen Mrs. Mead. I think it is important that this nation-wide demonstration, if it seems feasible, should not emanate from Mrs. Mead. Not only does her unpopularity operate against the success of such a movement, but the fact that the Meads who are so conspicuous in the peace movement in this country have made no move in the present crisis up to this time, is sufficient reason why others may take up the work. I therefore write in confidence to you and express my opinion that you are the one woman in the nation who ought to call such demonstrations if they are to be held. I believe all you would need to do would be to get one woman in each city to take the initiative. I will agree to do that here. I think it is most advisable that the suffragists should not be the prime mover in this step. When I say that I will undertake it in New York, I do not mean that I will head the movement, but that I will get the right people to do it and will give my assistance to it. At such meetings I think the manifesto should be a protest against the movement to increase our national armament upon the ground that we are in danger of attack. I shall write you after I have seen Mrs. Mead, and I shall tell her, as I did tell Mrs. Spencer, that you had some movement in mind, but that I do not know just what direction it will take. Yours cordially, [signed] CCCatt C.R. [*C C Catt*] [*Catt*] December 30, 1914. My dear Miss Addams: Mrs. Helen Gardner is enroute to Panama and California and has just been in to see me. She had received your letter and knows nothing except quite incidentally about preparations in Washington. She says the person to whom Mrs. White referred must be Mrs. Gilson Gardner who works with Mrs. White and the Congressional Union. She was, however, informed about one thing. Mrs. Stoner, an irresponsible woman with surplus energy, got a meeting together which Mrs. Schwimmer addressed and she announced that there would be - or ought to be - a meeting in Washington to form some national movement, whereupon Mrs. White arose to say that she already had a movement in tow for January 10th. Hers was emanating from Mrs. Lawrence, the other from Mrs. Schwimmer. Whether these are combined in the present Washington management of things, I do not know. Mrs. Gardner says that the Congressional Union as an organization is not managing the arrangements, but that the individual members are and that it is an unfortunate sort of sponsorship. I have not yet had Mrs. White's reply to the letter of which I wrote you. When I get it, I will let you know what she has said. I am inclined to think that in any event we ought to hold a conference, provided a few level-headed women attend it in order that there may not be in the future such working at cross purposes. Mrs. Gardner showed me your letter to her, in which you said that I had requested you to call this meeting. I have already written you that I was much surprised at this idea. I am inclined to think that perhaps Mrs. Schwimmer has been an unfortunate intermediary. Perhaps she told you -2- that I did want you to call such a meeting. I do think such a meeting will prove beneficial, but I did not wish to be in the leadership in the arrangements. I do not for a moment think Mrs. Schwimmer meant to do any mischief, but in her emotional advocacy of peace just now, she is inclined to overlook the conventions. No harm has been done, I am sure. Yours cordially Miss Jane Addams, Hull House, Chicago, Illinois [*Catt*] January 4, 1915. My dear Miss Addams: -- I find myself in the most embarrassing position of a life time. I'd give a good deal for an honorable retreat from it. I certainly would never have consented to the use of my name had I known at the time I did so what I now know or think I know. You say in your letter to Mrs. Spencer, a copy of which you have kindly sent me, that "Mrs. Schwimmer who had just come from Washington, made me understand quite clearly that Mrs. Catt was in favor of enlarging the Washington meeting to include other women from various parts of the country." The truth is I never knew there was any Washington meeting in preparation except the one you were to call, until a few days ago and then I began to investigate. In "Votes for Women", under date of December 4th, I find a letter from Mrs. Pethick Lawrence dated November 2nd. I enclose a copy. This Washington Conference, it seems, had been planned as early as November 2nd; a mass meeting arranged with Mrs. Lawrence as speaker, and a plan made to organize a national movement to carry out Mrs. Lawrence's program. I like and admire Mrs. Lawrence, but think her proposals quite impractical at this time, and I virtually told her that I could not lend my aid to them. This paper was in my house all the time, but like the whole series remained in its wrapper unread until now. I agree I ought to have read it, but I had not. The next development was that those managing Mrs. Lawrence's organization in Washington are Congressional Union workers, and that that organization holds an annual meeting on January 10th. Mrs. Blatch and Anne Martin, both Congressional Union followers, I happen to know are going to the peace meeting. I learn from Helen Gardner that no other organization in Washington is interested in the proposed peace meeting. [*Catt*] Miss Jane Addams, #2 All this I ought to have known long ago, but didn't. I supposed the conference you proposed to call had a free field and did not dream it was a mere adjunct to one already well under way. It is in the combination of these events that my embarrassment lies. The Congressional Union is exceedingly distasteful to most of us, not on account of its conflict with the National, nor on account of its personnel, but because it committed the stupendous stupidity of making an anti-democratic campaign when the suffrage question was pending in eleven states and depending for success upon Democratic votes. Our politicians have heard of it and the Democrats, never friendly, have since threatened hostility. As Chairman of the New York Campaign Committee, I must not allow myself to be placed where I seem to sanction that policy. Further, people guilty of so untactical a blunder cannot be trusted to lead in so delicate a situation as the peace question in our own country is at this time. More, as President of the International Alliance, I cannot consort with militants who are extremely out of favor in the Alliance just now. The British militants have been harshly anti-German and the public does not distinguish between the Pankhursts and the Lawrences. My prayer has been that I might walk so straight a path that I could help pull that body together again at the end of the war. Especially is it important to keep my skirts clear at this particular moment, for a vote is on its rounds to determine whether or not we shall hold an international peace conference in Holland in April. I should lose my only hope of help in the International situation if I manage to get tangled in a press despatch with Mrs. Lawrence's peace conference. I am sure it was Mrs. Schwimmer who bungled things, although I am equally sure that it was unintentional. I do not know what she told you. I only know that I thought my name was to be one of several to support you in your call for a conference; and that I had no idea that a conference in Washington under the Congressional Union was under way. I know you did not intend to involve me in difficulties, although I cannot see just why you issued so strange a call. I shall form no opinion on that point until I see you. Please understand that I still think a conference is needed and that I see no objection to the Lawrence groups, nor the Congressional Union uniting with others in such a conference. My distress is that a few disconnected organizations and people have been summoned to Washington supposedly to attend an unorganized conference, whereas they will be mere adjuncts of a conference already arranged and with a program already adopted. Miss Jane Addams, #3 I find myself in a dilemma with four horns. 1. I am caught in a Congressional Union and militant trap in which it is uncomfortable to remain and from which it is impossible to escape. For myself I do not care, but this involves two big causes -- the New York campaign and the International Alliance. 2. The peace women are vexed at a call which seems to put the responsibility of it on a suffragist, and they regard me as interfering in their field. (They regard you as one of their own and have no such feelings toward you.) If I explain how my name came to be connected with it so conspicuously, it throws the blame on you or Madame Schwimmer, and this I will not allow to happen. 3. The National suffragists are calling me to task for having joined hands with the Congressional Unionists, and I cannot explain. 4. On the other hand the Congressional Union and militants are certain to regard me as an interloper in their conference long since prepared, and I cannot explain that. Now, my dear lady, do you see any loop-hole of escape for me? I am most unhappy. If I go to Washington, I fear I cannot explain my connection with the meeting satisfactorily to the gathering or to myself. If I stay away, I am in a still more unenviable position. I should explain to the list you have sent me that it was through a misunderstanding that my name was given so prominent a position in the call an that after learning the real Washington situation I have decided not to go, but two things deter me. 1. I am inclined to think that you have an unconscious tool. They wanted your support and backing and I am coming down because you may need a rescuing party. 2. It is possible the evidence is not complete and that the situation is not so hopeless as it appears. So I shall be there to help. I have prevailed upon Mrs. Spencer to come with me. Do you know anything of the January 9th meeting? You have not mentioned it. When do you propose to have the business sessions? Who has accepted the invitation? I am sorry it is all so befuddled. I hope it has not entangled you so disastrously as it has me. Cordially, To Miss Jane Addams. November 12, 1915. My dear Miss Addams, I think I must decline to be one of the Committee of Five to represent America on the International Council for Permanent Peace. I want to give you my reasons. As you know the Alliance voted upon the proposition of whether or not to hold a PeaceCongress. The majority voted "no." The minority called the Hague Conference. Some portion of the majority who voted against it have been very much nettled by that fact. There is at this present moment quite an embarrassing discussion going on concerning the policy of JUS SUFFRAGII. The French sent a delegate over to London to protest against so much peace matter being printed in the paper. The French have written me an open letter to protest, etc. Correspondence with these people reveals the illuminating and distressing fact that peace has come to mean the close of the war with dishonor to some of the participants, and they will have none of it. They seem to grow more confused and bigoted every day on the other side. Miss Macmillan recently went to Canada. A new suffrage society asked admission to the Alliance. I asked her to see the representatives of the two societies and to report upon their standing. She went on a peace mission, as you know. It seems this queered her suffrage mission. She made a speech and so nearly as I can learn she did not say anything worse in it than that England was probably as much to blame for the war as Germany, but the papers set upon her like wild beasts. The clippins they have sent me would be unbelievable had I not seen them with my own eyes - - so narrow-minded, so intolerant, so utterly uncomprehending of noble motives. In view of all these facts I think my mission which will come sooner or later of pulling the Alliance into order preparatory to further suffrage activities will be not a little impaired if I ally myself too much with the peace activities. Since my own feeble efforts will not make any Miss Jane Addams, #2 difference with the results my conscience is clear on that score. To my mind the guarantee of permanent peace is the most important question in all the world, but at this moment it seems as though every effort of education was like throwing a violet at a stone wall. I have an idea that when the war is over and matters have calmed down a bit the pendulum will swing clear to the other extreme and it will be possible to do something. It would have been a great inspiration to reformers all the world around had we won in our eastern campaigns, but in this reactionary period when nobody seems to be able to see straight we probably did very well. Most gratefully and appreciatively yours, C C Catt To Miss Jane Addams, Hull House, Chicago, Ill. May 27, 1924. Miss Jane Addams, Hull House, Chicago, Illinois. My dear Miss Addams: I note in the press that a resolution was introduced and I believe passed, although I am not certain on this point, that an investigation should be made into the status of the League for Peace and Freedom on the charge that it may be connected with Soviet Russia. In this connection, I would like to lay some matters before you, all of which you may be familiar with, but if not, they may serve as clues which may prove useful to you. First - You doubtless are familiar with the fact that the Joint Congressional Committee in Washington was accused of, as were all the other women's organizations, of association with Bolshevists and getting evidence. This Committee consists of seventeen organizations which appointed a sub-committee, of which Mrs, Park was Chairman, to carry on in this particular. They finally took a very dignified but very ladylike method of procedure. They called upon Secretary Weeks and gave him the proof that this material had been circulated by the Chemical Warfare Bureau of the Department of War. The Secretary wrote them a letter promising to order destroyed the offending material. Mrs. Park wrote the correspondence at Buffalo without any comment. The press used the headlines "Secretary Weeks apologizes" and he was very indignant about it. Of course he would be. This ought to have been the headlines in all the papers in the United States and he ought to have been downright ashamed. I do not think he was. I think he found himself in a tight place and got out of it as best he could. Now, the defense of the Joint Congressional Committee was partly to show that they had no connection whatever with certain organizations of which the League for Peace and Freedom was one and which were particularly charged with being the agents of Bolshevist Russia. In other words, they refuted the charge made against their own organizations, but they left out in the cold all the organizations that were not connected with them. That was a legitimate procedure under the circumstances. However, it furnishes a precedent and some evidence for you. Second - The material published in Ford's Dearborn Independent which have in full the offending material has been reproduced, somewhat abridged and somewhat modified, by the Kentucky Industries Ass'n. I had a letter from Miss Alice Llody, Maysville, Kentucky, telling me about it and enclosing the leaflet. This reprint is shorn of much of the more serious inferences. Miss Lloyd tells me that the Kentucky Industries Ass'n. is an organization of various kinds of manufacturers and that she believes it is only a paper organization. It circulated -2- the women and the men of her village quite generally with this leaflet and now an agent has been there to increase membership and the argument which he presented was to the effect that private property was in danger owing to the spirit of communistic and socialistic ideas. I have a deep lying suspicion that back of this there are two agencies, the chief of which is our old friends, the brewers, and that their attack upon women is designed to intimidate them and make them lose their influence as an independent body and that the other is the real militarists inside of the government in Washington. The material which has been supplied comes chiefly from the Lusk reports -2- the women and the men of her village quite generally with this leaflet and now an agent has been there to increase membership and the argument which he presented was to the effect that private property was in danger of owing to the spirit of communistic and socialistic ideas. I have a deep lying suspicion that back of this there are two agencies, the chief of which is our old friends, the brewers, and that their attack upon women is designed to intimidate them and make them lose their influence as an independent body and that the other is the real militarists inside of the government in Washington. The material which has been supplied comes chiefly from the Lusk report and I believe has been chiefly arranged by one Eichelberger, who has for years been the chief representative of the anti-suffragists. Mrs. Park was here one day last week and I asked her if they were able to locate him in the evidence and she said that when they wrote the Dearborn Independent, that paper wrote Mr. Eichelberger for proof of the facts. Mr. Eichelberger was much distressed over it and wrote some of the women and confessed that he had thus been approached. Somebody is paying him for his effort to connect everything with Bolshevism. This he let out in a burst of confidence at one time, but we cannot get anything definite as yet. I merely mention these things because you doubtless, if the investigation goes on, will be summoned to Washington and if you make any investigation, I believe you will find these hints are fruitful sources. The truth is, as Mr. Roosevelt said "Every movement has a lunatic fringe and the lunitic fringe of the peace movement and the lunatic of the fringe of the war movement have got each other by the throat."- That is my judgment and explanation of the present situation. Personally, I do not know in detail the evidence as I had nothing to do with it. I did have a "set-to" with the Publicity Department of the Republican Committee which had me lined up with Soviet Russia. I hope, some day, the world will return to sanity. Very cordially yours, (C.C Catt) May 26, 1927 Miss Jane Addams, Hull House, Chicago, Illinois. My dear Miss Addams: I interrupt your busy life with a letter for which I apologize. We have all been irritated by the continual vilification of opponents of peace, but now it seems to be a clear case of persecution. You and Mrs. Kelly stand at the top of the list of those most decidedly sat upon. In California, the past winter, I found the D.A.R. were very diligent in passing around literature at their meetings which condemned other women's organizations and I gathered up some of the material which was given me from actual members of the D.A.R. who had received it. Now I am striving to write an open letter to the D.A.R. I do not know what form that letter will finally take, but it has to be completed, passed upon by lawyers, and ready for the printer within the next ten days. We propose to send it to as many D.A.R. addresses as we are able to secure. I am charging them with conduct unbecoming the descendants of the fathers of the Republic and saying that their passing of untruths amounts to persecution. I had thought of selecting women by way of example and I thought it fair to take the two most persecuted - you and Mrs. Kelly. I am, therefore, asking you some questions for I must be fortified in the event there is another come-back. I shall only use what properly fits into my letter and you may reply in perfect confidence, being sure that I shall use only what you wish. I found two pamphlets in circulation in California. One of them was called "The Common Enemy." It was put out by the D.A.R. or for them, since it practically announces this fact in some of the paragraphs. It announces also that there are two hundred organizations through which the world revolutionary movement operates. It divides this into three classes - the non-Communist organization; the best known open Socialist organizations, and the most prominent liberal and pacifist organizations. Your organization is listed in this class. In another place it says that Communism, Socialism, Bolshevism, Liberalism, and ultra-Socialism tend to the same end, and those classes, under the named groups, are part of the world revolutionary movement, etc. I claim there are five distinct charges made against your organization connecting it with Communism. No names, however, are printed in this report Miss Jane Adams, continued. Page 2 as connected with any organization. However, in the same distribution was a reprint of the Congressional Record which contained the material presented by the Anti-Suffrage Association and read into the Record by Senator Bayard July 3, 1926. I am sure you never read it through and there could have been no greater waste of your time had you done so. Further, there is a combination of these two which makes the thing so thoroughly an act of persecution. Will you, therefore, allow me to ask you the questions on another sheet? Please understand that I do not want to bother you with long statements. I only want a "yes" or "no" wherever you can give it. I shall understand. I should feel that I knew enough about the League to make statements on its behalf and on yours, but I would rather have your word. I wish to say "Miss Adams is not a Communist; she is not a Bolshevist and she is not a Socialist" - provided these things are true. I am very sorry to bother you with all this nonsense. I hope your health is comfortable and that you are getting some enjoyment out of life despite the activities of your enemies. The World honors you just the same and it will build a monument to your some day when the names of the others have been forgotten. Very cordially yours, QUESTIONS 1. On Page 17 of the Congressional Record, reprint of July 3, 1926, it is stated "The Women's International League has also led the pacifist campaign to 'disarm America first' as a 'example' to the rest of the world; has urged women to take slacker oaths and pledges against all service to their country in time of war (see official W.I.L. report, Second International Congress of Women, at Zurich, 1919, pp. 156, 160, 161, 162, and official W.I.L. report, Third International Congress of Women, at Vienna, 1921, pp. 195, 196, 262." These references make the statements appear to be correct. I am sure you told me that in both the National and International meetings a motion had been made on behalf of the "slacker oath and pledges against all service to their country in time of war", but it had been voted down in both cases. WILL YOU HAVE SOMEONE REFER TO THESE TWO REPORTS AND NOTE WHAT IS SAID ON THOSE TWO PAGES, LETTING ME KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE, OR HAS THE NATIONAL OR INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE EVER ACCEPTED ANYTHING THAT CAN BE CONSTRUED INTO A SLACKER OATH? HAS IT EVER TAKEN ANY RESOLUTION TO "DISARM AMERICA FIRST AS AN EXAMPLE"? I SUSPECT THAT THIS HAS BEEN SOMEBODY'S SUGGESTION AND VOTED DOWN LIKE THE OTHER, BUT I SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW. In the event these two reports could be given or loaned me, I would see that they are safely returned. If that is not feasible, let me have the information. 2. "The Women's International League has also gone on record for the 'gradual abolition of property privileges', another name for the gradual estab- lishment of Communism, ( see W.I.L. official report, Third International Congress of Women, Vienna, 1921, pp. 101, 261, and Outline History of Women's International League, issued by same." WHAT IS THERE IN THIS? 3. It is further stated that the W.I.L. adopted at the last Congress in Washington a proposal that the World's labor, raw materials, and food supply, shall be governed by an International, representing trades and occupations in each country - a straight Soviet system, although the W.I.L. avoids calling it by its right name. WHAT IS THERE IN THIS? QUESTIONS, continued 4. A personal charge is made against you because of your book Peace and Bread in Time of War. "Miss Addams shows conclusively that she desired the aftermath of the war to be International Communism." I have not read this book and will not have time to do so. IN YOUR JUDGMENT, IS SUCH A CONCLUSION JUSTIFIED BY READERS OF THE BOOK AND WAS IT YOUR HOPE THAT THERE MIGHT BE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM? Nowhere is it said "Miss Addams is a Communist", but the whole combination is designed to show that all these people attacked are either ignorant dupes who do not know they are being used as tools, or they are secretly working to help the Communists. They would not print this mess if they could not convey to others the idea that this is true. The effect of their writings is found in the influence they have had upon other people. I find other people, reading their literature, say definitely that you are a Communist. I THEREFORE ASK YOU ARE YOU A COMMUNIST? ARE YOU A BOLSHEVIST? ARE YOU A SOCIALIST? 5. IS ANNA LOUISE STRONG A COMMUNIST? Probably she is. It is stated in one place that she is a "Friend". In some literature, put out in Boston, there is a question from a man who is a Congregational clergyman and who is announced as her father. Please do not bother to give me her biography, but it is stated in this comment that Miss Abbott was announced as one advisory member for the League from this country and it is further stated that, probably, the other is Miss Strong, who is a Communist in Moscow. IS IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO TELL ME WHO THE TWO ADVISORY MEMBERS IN THIS COUNTRY ARE? IS MISS ABBOT ONE OR WAS SHE EVER ONE? June 11, 1927. Miss Jane Addams, Hull House, Chicago, Ill. Mydear Miss Addams: I cannot thank you sufficiently for your kind cooperation in the matter of the open letter to the D.A.R. I have little faith in a real conservative understanding a liberal or a radical, but liberals understand each other and do have faith in the right of individuals to have their own opinions. I hope that within the D.A.R. the liberal element will arise and suppress the pamphlets I am attacking. If one organization had the legal right to sue another organization for libel, you would certainly have that right in connection with the pamphlet called "The Common Enemy". I believe there is no basis for such action and those who have prepared the pamphlet have known the law. With your consent, I shall keep the reports you have sent me until it is quite certain that there will be no need of them for reference in case of a comeback. I shall preserve them carefully and return them later. I should like to keep them for about two and a half months if there is no objection. I am now handing in the completed article to Miss Roderick, the editor of The Woman Citizen, who will submit it to a lawyer to ascertain if there is any libel in it. I enclose herewith the part which concerns the League for Peace and Freedom and you. If there is anything in it which you think is not consistent with the facts, I shall be pleased to have you let me know at once. I want to be as well defended against counter attack as is possible. I would like to say to you personally that nothing has interested me in the post-war peace movement more than the philosophy of the situation. I am certain that the world will sometime get civilized enough so that when a crisis arises (as I suppose such things will continually happen), wise heads will get together and say "We wish to change this situation - what will be the best process, least shocking to the public, most disarming, and most likely to bring in quick returns." They will thrash it out together and evolve some form of conclusion, whereupon all will go out and advocate that conclusion. If that had been the way at the time of the American Revolution or the Civil War, I am sure neither war would have happened. At present all the people who wanted to see war abolished and peace come went out and thrashed their views with the public. The result is that the peace people have been very disconnected and some have been rather radical and hysterical, and, of course, the worse things that have been said have been charged [to all] Page 2 to all. As it is, however, I can see the entire movement, left and right, converging on centers here and there of agreement, and I believe the peace movement at this time is so promising, so encouraging, so certain of triumph in reasonable time that the opponents are justified in having spasms. Very cordially yours, Womens International League For Peace & Freedom I learned after considerable investigation and examination of the printed proceedings of this body that while some of its pronouncements may justly be called radical and others aggressive, and still others unusual, there is nothing I can find anywhere in its discussions nor its resolutions which can honorably be interpreted as a connection with Moscow or sympathy with Communism. Let us understand the situation and let us understand the mooted point. The D.A.R. does not agree with the aims of the W.I.L. Neither do I. To disagree with that organization is our citizen's right and privilege. It is the extreme of the women's peace manifestations. I do not go so far to the left and you do not go at all in the direction of the peace movement. While it is right to disagree with that organization and to debate the points of disagreement, it is not our privilege to declare it to be Communistic if it is not. It is not within our privilege to declare it unconstitutional when, as a matter of fact, all that it has done is well within the constitutional rights the Fathers died to establish. Nowhere can a Communistic act be found in its deliberations. Why should one group lay aside "a decent respect for the opinion of others" and slander another group because its opinion is different? - 7 - I learn, upon inquiry and examination of the printed proceedings of this body that any interpretation which connects the resolutions and findings of this body with Communism are outright misstatements. Some of its pronouncements are of rather an aggressive variety, but that does not make them Communistic. The proposal of the Slacker Oath was made in the International meeting in Vienna in 1921 and later in the Washington Convention, but no such proposal was adopted by either Convention. The only resolutions which bear upon the abolition of property privileges and a strike against war are found in the foot notes. A careful reading shows that the intention in the resolution on property rights was to secure the passage in Eastern Europe of laws which already existed in Western Europe and which modifies the privileges of property owners. Nowhere is there the suggestion of confiscation of private property. It is quite possible for an intelligent reader to fail to understand the aims of these resolutions, but no intelligent person can honestly interpret them as any tenet of Communism. Let us understand the situation. The D.A.R. does not agree with the aims of the W.I.L. Neither do I. It is the extreme of the women's peace manifestations and I do not go so far to the left; nevertheless, this organization has adopted no program nor performed any act that in unconstitutional or outside the rights your Fathers died to establish. Why should one group lay aside a decent respect for the opinion of others and slander another group because its opinion is different? The interesting point is that if the charges against the Society furthest to the left are so unfounded, what becomes of the charges against more conservative bodies? They fade away like dew before the morning sun! COPY November 7th, 1930 My dear Miss Addams, At the time of President Thomas's retirement from Bryn Mawr a sum of money was given by the Alumnae of the college to establish the M. Carey Thomas Foundation, the interest from this foundation to be given at intervals as prizes to American women in recognition of eminent achievement and the award to be called the M. Carey Thomas Prize. The first award of $5000 was made to Miss Thomas herself. The time has now come for the making of the second award and I am charged with the pleasant duty of telling you that the Committee has voted unanimously to make this award to you. In making the first award Mrs. Caroline McCormick Slade amplified the original definition of the purpose of the prize into "a prize to be held by a woman who has achieved eminently, not only in the lines of education but in the lines of life, who has opened up the way for a fuller life for all women", and the Committee believes that to no American woman do these words apply so accurately and so completely as to you. We trust that you will do the Committee the honour of accepting the award and that you will take as much pleasure in accepting it as the Committee has felt in choosing you. We should like to make the giving of the prize an occasion worthy of you and I am writing to ask whether at some time in the late winter or spring you can come to Bryn Mawr and let us make a formal presentation. I should like to ask one or two speakers who would express briefly something of your place among American women, and I hope you may be willing to say a few words. We shall try to make the presentation a memorable occasion for all of us who are permitted to be present, but not in the least a fatiguing one for you. I need not add how pleased I am personally over the designation of this, the greatest honour in our hands. Please believe me, Sincerely yours, Marion Edwards Park Miss Jane Addams COPY HULL-HOUSE 800 South Halsted Street Chicago November 13, 1930 My dear Miss Park: Your letter aroused a sentiment similar to one I once heard Mr. Carnegie express when he had been decorated with a French medal, - "No one knows so well as I do how undeserved this is." I am sure you know that your letter gave me great pleasure, that I am happy to accept the award and that I shall want to comply with any arrangements you suggest. I shall be in Philadelphia January 15th and 16th for two appointments with Quaker organizations but I infer that would be too early for your purpose. I am planning to be in Arizona and California in February and March, but April and May are quite clear save for a few scattered engagements. I could change almost anything in April except one with the University of Illinois on Sunday, April 26th. With sincere appreciation of the honor and with regret that my scholarly acquirements do not measure up a little better, I am, Faithfully yours, (Signed) JANE ADDAMS Miss Marion Edwards Park President, Bryn Mawr College March 2, 1932. Miss Jane Addams, Winter Park, Florida. My dear Miss Addams: I have been restraining my desire to write you all winter, lest you should have one letter more to add to the oppressing pile which I feel sure has been coming in your daily mail. I want to go back and congratulate you most sincerely upon having secured the Nobel prize. I have had experience enough with one or two incidents of this nature to realize that what seems to the world a great honor, always carries with it an enormous number of letters, telegrams, requests, and what not, which add much to life's burdens. It is for that reason that I did not send my telegrams and letters when they were due. You had told me that you were going to Johns Hopkins and so I did not like to write you there. I knew you should have the quiet and rest that was your due. If, by chance, this letter reaches you, as I hope it will, I want to join you in our congratulation in the appointment of Miss Woolley. Her interviews have been so optimistic and helpful in spirit, so different from the timid expressions of men, that I feel she has actually stimulated the optimism and helpfulness in this country of something good at Geneva. There was an intention on the part of some of the men at Geneva not to allow the petitions to be presented. They finally appointed a Committee to look after them and Miss Woolley was on the Committee. In letters from many persons, I learned that if it had not been for her, there probably would have been no ceremonial at all about the petitions. As it is, the presentations of the petitions is being shown just now in all the movie news reels. The newspapers were very generous in their accounts of the presentation and many correspondents have spoken about it and, in every case, the report has been dignified and impressive. We may not get much from this Conference, but we -2- are going to get a great deal more than we feared, I believe. There would certainly have been a terrific war and a seizure of territory in China had it not been for the continual bellowing from all over the world to Japan that she was breaking her treaty promises. After all, the world is moving onward. It would not be where it is were it not for the noble service you have given and I want to tell you how thoroughly I appreciate all you have done. I hope you will stay long enough in that quiet haven to enable you to regain your strength. May you remain many years to watch the progress of the human race in its upward flight toward a higher goal than it has yet known. I have long been wanting to say these things to you, but no acknowledgment is expected. I do not want to burden you with having to write another letter. Blessings on you, dea Miss Addams. Very sincerely, CCC:HW. CCC:HW. September 12, 1933. Miss Jane Addams, Hull House, Chicago, Illinois. Dear Miss Addams : I note that the address of Miss Breckenbridge is only in care of the University of Chicago, and I am a little alarmed lest the manuscript of Dr. AIletta Jacobs' autobiography, which I am returning, might not reach its destination. I am taking the liberty, therefore, of returning it direct to you. I have written a letter to Miss Breckenbridge telling her I have sent the manuscript to you and made some comments upon it. I enclose a copy of that letter. It is not necessary that you do anything about it, or even read it, in the event it does not interest you. If her letter gets lost in the mails, this copy might find its way to her desk. At this time, when the publishers are so very much troubled as to what the people will read, I know that several small manuscripts of comments upon the lives of persons who lived some time ago are being published. It is very important that the lives and accomplishments of women who did as much as Dr. Jacobs did for several causes should be known to the world. I am very much interested in the publication of many similar books, in order that our own women's history as told by ourselves may be passed on to other generations. I want to tell you just for amusement that the work done in connection with the protest against the persecution of Jews in Germany has met with quite unexpected returns. It got into Germany, and I had letters from Jews there, and also from several Germans who did not at all approve of what was done. It reached the League of Nations and I have had two or three replies from there. I have had many applications for aid, and one Rabbi here tells me that they have decided to bring over young German Jewish children who they hope will be adopted in Jewish homes here. They want the 9000 women who signed the petition to help. I think that what they want is money to bring the children over and to get the Government to let them in. Then, Mr. Untermyer and others are after those 9000 women to unite with them in the business of boycotting German goods. Any sort of spanking which could be given to the Hitlerites seems agreeable, but I cannot think that boycotting first one Nation and then another is a policy that in the long run will prove useful. I hope, my dear Miss Addams, that you are well after this very heated summer. Sincerely yours CCC: HW December 21, 1934. Miss Jane Addams, Hull House, Chicago, Ill. Dear Miss Addams: If any material comes to us for you I shall forward it. I return the copy sent you from Holland. I do not think it very valuable but I did not wish to destroy it. My dear Miss Addams you may be sick but you are certainly not fussy, or if you are you are not more so than I. I shall be 76 in a few weeks and I do not know enough yet to quit. It has been a continual chide to my conscience that we have been pressing you to do your chapter when you did not feel well enough to do it mentally or physically. I think the chapter need never distress you. It might have been stronger if you had been in more vigorous health, but it is quite as strong as most of the chapters and fits in with them very well indeed. I think the book as a whole, and that includes your chapter, is very creditable to women. We have spoken out in a way that will make some people think. If our little book leads someone else to write a bigger and better one we will not have done the work in vain. Mrs. Fisher's conclusion took up the question of what we might have said had the subject been "Why Wars Had Not Ceased". Our book is affirmative. I am hoping another book will be written on the subject Mrs. Fisher proposes - the words to be carefully thought out. I would like to have men do that book and do it on the plan that we have followed - one writer Miss Jane Addams -2- 12/21/34 to a chapter, the subject would be in better words, something like "Why wars have not already been abolished". I am going to try to stir some man to take up that subject. I can see that we might have done better had we had more time for research and for the exchange of the chapters. If every woman, after she had finished her own chapter, had been able to receive all the other chapters, she might have adjusted her own to the total and thus we might have made a better book. I am quite content with it, and I am so very grateful to you my dear Miss Addams for your patient helpfulness. Very sincerely, November 6, 1930. Miss Jane Addams, President International League for Peace and Freedom, Hull House, Chicago, Ill. My dear Miss Addams: I have never contributed to your organization, I believe. There are so many groups at work for peace and so little money to give that I have not found it possible to be so generous as I would like. I have received the "Achievement Award" annually conferred upon some woman by the Pictorial Review. When I was summoned by the Manager to his office, I was the most astounded person you ever saw for I had had no inkling whatever that such a prospect was possible. I am at this moment the possessor of $5,000 I never expected to receive and this afternoon I am giving it all away. This money was given, so the manager of the Pictorial Review said, because of my work for woman suffrage and for peace. I conclude that if there was any award due in the suffrage victory, it was a collective one, and if there is any achievement in peace, it is yet to come and must be the achievement of those who are now at work. Therefore, I have selected from the lists of suffragists ten who are old, frail and who worked not less than thirty years, and usually more, for woman suffrage and to each of these I have given $100. I have distributed $1,000 among Departments of International Relatio of the eleven cooperating organizations which compose the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War. The fourth thousand is going to organizations that work directly for some form of peace or have active departments of that character and to each of these I am giving $100. Therefore, you will find enclosed a check of $100 for the International League for Peace and Freedom. It is not a big one, but you will never get another just like it, so it is this much unearned increment. I think the fifth thousand will be divided between old suffragists and organizations. I have given myself a present and that is an Encyclopedia Britannica in one of those little tables they advertise and I have added a reading lamp to stand on top of it. That is my share of the award and all the rest I am giving away. Is that not a nice occupation for an old lady on a November afternoon? Very cordially, CCC:HW. Hull-House 800 South Halsted Street Chicago November 13 1930 My dear Mrs Catt: May I thank you for your delightful letter as well as for theW.I.L. check? I sent the latter to Mme. Ramondt, our International Treasurer, and I am sure it will cause much rejoicing in our ranks. With congratulations to the judges of the award upon their discriminating choice, and to you upon method of expenditure, I am Faithfully yours, Jane Addams. Telegram sent May 23, 1935 Hull House, Chicago. The entire world is poorer because of the passing of that great and noble soul, Jane Addams. She strengthened, encouraged, and cheered the right side of every question Just, logical, and unafraid, she has changed the thinking of the world on many questions. Instead of grieving for her passing, let us rejoice that she has lived. Carrie Chapman Catt Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.