CATT, Carrie Chapman GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE Labor, US Dept. of

U.S. Department of Labor
Children's Bureau
Washington

June 5, 1927.

Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt,
171 Madison Avenue,
New York, N.Y.

My dear Mrs. Catt:

The paragraph that you enclosed is correct with the slight change that I have indicated. I was enormously interested in your article in the last number of The Woman Citizen. I will look forward to seeing the open letter to the D.A.R. I think both will be extremely useful. I wish we could arrange for some editorial comment by other journals and papers on them. Do you think that would be possible?
Yours very truly,
Grace Abbott, Chief.

GA.ml
Encl.

P.S. As for Anna Louise Strong - she worked for the Children's Bureau as an exhibit expert and was employed from August 25, 1914 to December 31, 1915 at $1600 per annum. She has not been employed by the Bureau for any other purpose. The employment terminated before the United States entered the war and before the Russian Revolution. We are, of course, not responsible for anything she does or says.

To show the character of this document turn to page 30. There you will read that one Mme. Kollontay, Russian Bolshevik, is strong on doing away with the family and nationalizing the children; then follows the statement that "she was endorsed by the Children's Bureau as the author of the most comprehensive work on maternity doles." All the way through this interesting Congressional Record reprint of 36 pages and again in your "The Common Enemy" Kollontay occurs again and again, but the only spot where she is connected with anything or anybody in this country is in this allusion which is repeated over and over, again and again in other literature. Upon inquiry I find so respectable a personage as a member of the Congressional Library Staff - one Henry J. Harris, compiled for the Children's Bureau a pamphlet on Maternity Benefit Systems in Foreign Countries. Reports from fourteen countries were included. The report from Russia had to be compiled by the Library's Russian language specialist, and between them, the specialists and compiler, it was said that "the most comprehensive study of maternity benefits and insurance which has yet appeared in any language is the volume of Mme. Kollontay." This book appeared in Petrograd in 1916 - when Nicholas was Czar!! Further, Miss Lethrop in a foot note states that changes in Russia (1917) have made the Russian report of historical interest only!!! If any of you have a husband who is a lawyer, submit this to him and get his 


June 4, 1927.

Miss Grace Abbott,
Chief Children's Bureau,
Washington, D.C.

My dear Miss Abbott:

In an open letter to the D.A.R. occurs the paragraph a proof of which I enclose.

I am using Jane Addams, Florence Kelley and Rose Schneiderman as examples of their attacks and to show that they are attacking organizations rather than individuals.

I have not attempted to defend the Children's Bureau at this time. I threw in this paragraph because, as I get it, the history is rather a powerful proof of the mendaciousness of the literature.

Will you be kind enough as to confirm or criticise this paragraph and return it at the earliest possible moment.

Cordially yours,

Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.