CATT, CArrie ChApMAN  GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE  Lockwood, George

Copy
January 26, 1924.

Mr. George Lockwood,
Secretary, Republican National Committee,
Munsey Building,
Washington, D. C.

Dear Sir:

Owing to an absence from New York for a few days, I have
delayed acknowledging your letter of January 17th.

If, as you say, my meeting in Topeka was advertised as
arranged by the Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission, the advertisement
was, nevertheless, untrue.  The Leslie Commission had no more to do
with that tour than did the Republican Party. I was invited in every
instance to speak on International Cooperation.  Neither I nor anyone
else solicited the invitations.  The expenses were borne by fees
paid at each town.

I insist that the circulation of an untruth with implies
dishonesty is malignant and designedly so.  It does not lessen your
responsibility that you have repeated someone else's statement.

You say you only defend the Republican Party from attack.
I have made no attack upon the Republican Party nor the Administration.
I have been very careful not to do that.  To be sure, oversensitive
partisans often imagine their party to be attacked whenever national
issues are discussed and their party is in power at the time.   You
refer to an example when you tell me that the Women's Republican paper
in Kansas compares me to Emma Goldman and suggests deportation.  That
is a reflection upon Republican women, not on me, since I, a citizen
of this country with an American ancestry since 1635, have merely pled
that courts and assemblies should be substituted for battlefields!
I dare say people left the hall in Topeka because they found my speech 
"too violent", but you seem to have no record of the people who left
because it was too mild.  The good people of Kansas have always taken
their politics feverishly.

I have not knowingly advocated or opposed any defined 
Republican or Democratic policies.  I advocate World Peace and adhere
to all the methods yet proposed that can lead us nearer to it, that
is, the League of Nations, the World Court, not excluding the promised
Republican Association of Nations.   I deny that the League is 
Democratic or the Court Republican.

You seem not to realize that a great and righteous cause is
before the people of this country and that your faction of the 
Republican Party is trying to make its views the opinion of the
whole party.

-2-

May I remind you that in the great Republican ranks there 
are some millions who do not agree with the policy of your publicity
bureau in its effort to make the Democratic Party a peace party and
the Republican a war party.

I still insist that if the Republicans stand for a square
deal, you will publish the letter I sent  you in your clip sheet.

My plea is for a decent respect for free speech and free
discussion of any and all public problems.

Very truly yours,


(Signed)  Carrie Chapman Catt


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