Catt, Carrie Chapman General Correspondence, Peck Mary Gray 1909-10 2 West 86 St. Nov. 23, 1909 My dear Poet: - I'm glad I didn't answer that letter, for now my sins have brought me a box of flowers, and a poem! I've determined to continue my evil habits, and hereafter I shall always wait a week before replying to invitations - just to see what will happen! To tell my story simply it is this: Mr. Frakins, who for the moment, controls Mrs. -2 Snowden's time absolutely would give no report as to any vacant dates she might have. I do not know yet. She comes in tomorrow (Wednesday) and he promises to have a correct list of her dates ready for her when she arrives. Until then I shall not know whether she will be in New York after Thanksgiving at all, or not. So, you see, 3 dear Laureate, I could not answer because I did not know. I might have acknowledged the note at least, and on my bended knees I now implore you to forgive this breech of decency. But, more, there was another letter which should have had a reply. I took to my bed for five days immediately after its receipt!! I hasten to add that it was a mere coincidence! My dear 4 little Lady, I am so sorry you have been unhappy in our midst. I ought to have done my part better than I have, but I didn't dare! I see I was a coward, and I am ashamed. Will you please accept me for a friend with whom you feel free and whose home may always be considered a haven in times of stress? If you are lonely, come to me at any time, if I cannot cheer you, I'll try. I've tried to make my home a suffrage refuge, and it has given shelter to many a tramp suffragist within 5 2 West 86 St. the past eighteen years, I cannot claim to have given the passers by much comfort except a warm welcome. To you, my latch string is out, the door ajar. Come when you will. I'll promise now, that I shall always be glad to see you. You are a dear! and even tho' you were not, no suffragist can do good work when she is unhappy rhyme. May I say Lovingly, Carrie C Catt 2 West 86th Street, New York City. December 29, ,1909. My dear Miss Peck:- The supply of the International Minutes is in London, and I shall have to order a supply sent to you from there. I will order one dozen copies instead of half a dozen. If there should be a call for a single copy of these Minutes, it is possible that Miss Chafin, at our Headquarters could supply you, but I am not sure that she has any on hand. The price of these Minutes is 35ยข, but when they come, which will be in two or three weeks from now, you need not pay for the dozen. I will take half of them if you do not care to keep so many. You may pay me direct for them, as I usually collect the American money, and forward it to the English Treasurer, in order to save exchange. They need not be paid for until they are sold. Jus Suffragi is an official organ, but it is managed exclusively by Miss Kramers. This is of necessity the case, since no other officer lives in her vicinity. I do not know what subscribers she has in this country, except that each Associate Member is entitled to receive Jus Suffragi. The dues of each member is supposed to expire January first. It is my business to collect these dues, but I never send out my dunns until a little after the new year. I do not know how you know that the subscriptions have run out, unless you refer to those copies which come to Headquarters. I seem to remember that Mrs. Upton did get from Miss Kramers the list of American subscribers with the intention of increasing the list. I will write Miss Kramers about the matter you mention, and will ask her to send me the present list of American subscribers, and if you are willing to aid me, and will permit me to aid you in extending this list, I shall be very grateful. I have no official biography. I think it would be very nice to have you for my biographer. Miss Reynolds wrote one for the New Idea, which I will send you at your home address. I have sometimes thought I should like a brief biography which would do for news papers, and which would mention less conspicuously the date of my birth, and a little more conspicuously some of the services I have been able to render the Cause I serve I am, Yours most cordially, Carrie C Catt It requires much labor and pain to bring forth a *party! but she has come, been christened, wrapped in her "swaddling robes" and is getting an endowment for her education and training. She is healthy, fair to see, and promising. I think she will live and make troubles for the anti-suffrage sinners. I am hoping there will be time and opportunity for elopements and fun and altho' "hope deferred" etc yet I am trusting we shall have a hilarious time, when we do break loose from suffrage fetters. I am expecting Mrs. Devue to spend Sunday with me and have two appointments for speeches, two for Monday etc. Sofie's dollar shall be transmitted to Jus Suffraggii ward soon. I think she is tired of her crazy friends and would like to return to respectable companions. I am wondering if you [?] the daughter in charge while her Mother is away, or could you come over for a family dinner? Also, have you been to the Hippodrome? That's my favorite and I haven't been for two years! 2 West 86th St Lovingly, Pan, New York I subscribe myself Jan. 19. 1910 C. C. C. Valentine sent to all N Y State legislators, Feb 14, 1910 Feb 12 1910 My dear Pan : - I surely have the manners of a savage! Firstly, let me at this belated moment thank kind Belva et al for her congratulations and the accompanying token; and secondly, let me thank you for a lovely box of fresias and a wailing letter of rebuke. I deserved the latter but not the former; and lastly will you elope with me to that long deferred Hippodrome on Saturday, the 19th? and will you lunch with me before the elopment? I have had to work this Holiday and so have earned a half day off. The Hip opens at 2 I think, so we must lunch early. When you accept, I'll tell you where. Were it not for the fact that I am positively limited in the number of hours per day in which I can do anything at all, and if I did not lay off entirely about one fourth of the time I should not make so many apologies. Perhaps you know something of my shortcomings and will be a bit forgiving. dI am not worried over that resignation. You ought not to be [there] wrapping up literature anyway; you should be creating it. Did you write the Call for the convention? No one on[e] the Board did it, I am sure. If you are really going to desert the ship, why not throw yourself upon the mercy of fate and try the experiment of making a living with your pen. You will never do it younger; and you say it is your habit to procrastinate. You will never really do it at all, if you do not try now. I believe you are a long sought for genius; and I am truly anxious to know if you have been fooling me. But, I hear you are proposed for Cor. Sec'y with Mrs. Avery for President and Mrs. Potter for Vice P. I do not know whether the proposer has informed you of that fact. I hope Mrs Potter is better and that we shall see her here soon. You do not know how I have regretted not seeing you at all these past few weeks. Now that we are practically settled, our work will be more managable and I hope that I shall have a bit more leisure. The number of women who say they believe in suffrage, and who say they will vote when the time comes is certainly increasing; but there is not a corresponding number of those willing to be sacrificed upon the altar of their sex by hard work. Therefore, no one knows when the pressure will lessen. Under another cover I send our valentine which will be found upon the desks of our Salons at Albany on the morning of the 14th. As no one of them would have been shrewd enough to guess it was a valentine, we sent them in envelopes of harmonious shade containing the word valentine, printed across a corner. A real artist made it but he wouldn't put his name to it. Awaiting my valentines answer to the long delayed proposal, I am Yours to Command, The Hippy tickets are already secured. That duty was mine. Carrie C. Catt Feb, - 1918 Woman Suffrage Party Dear Pan:- Will you meet me at the Manhattan, 43rd St. entrance at 12:30 on Saturday.? Will you see the sights with me in the afternoon and dine at the house afterwards. I am inviting Mrs. Potter for dinner. I shall apologize for my sins of omission, then Repentingly Yours, Carrie C. Catt The newly organized WS Party had hours, in the Tower of the Metropolitan Life Bldg. 212 Madison Sq. N.Y.C. Feb, 1910 Dear Mrs. Potter & Miss Peek: Will you two be my guests on Sunday evening to hear Mrs. Bishop's dramatic reading: High Tariff and the Cost of Living. They say politicians do not like it, others say she is charming. If you say "yes," will you come to my house for a ver light, thin supper at 6pm and go with us (M.G.H. my good looking cousin and C.C.C.) to Carnegie Lysema. I shall let you get home as best you can. Cordially Carrie C Cattt Apr. 26, 1910 My dear Pecky Pan : - I assure you I'd rather receive letters from you than to wade through any novel, no matter what its color, inside or out. I should like to have it definittely decided how many you must receive in return to encourage the continuation. How would 16 to 1 do? No, I have not read Stephenson's (excuse that ph instead of a v) Arabian Nights. Should I do so? To tell the 3 of the period walking through their parts as tho' they were before me; white the savage emotions and lofty dreams of much great ports are utterly beyond me. You are Jus untrained. Mayhap when you two are back in Minneapolis I'll come and take a special course in English. The advice I gave you about forgetting, was only advice I was giving myself. But that lady possesses a soul tormented by suspicions upon which she bases diseased imaginings. That is a condition in the borderland of sanity; and I'm thinking we must 2 truth I never liked him much. But, you must know by this time that my literary tastes are like my tastes in all other things, without "rhyme or reason" Since you did me the honor to say I'm sure you were malicious when you did it, that I am "great", I'll confess that I like Buffalo Bill, and find Shakespeare (since Booth's departure, but not thru) as portrayed by Moderus, a good deal of a bore. I loved Frank Stockton and Mark Fraier; and Homells, and Kipling bore me to extinction, I just revel in certain phases of constructed history, to which I can see the men not allow the microbes to get into our lives, lest we shall not be free human souls either, but "tormented souls" too, and we have a right to be free. I state that "tormented souls", from Gertrude Atherton, the [ind???] of the [cont???ls] of the red cover, I think it applies, don't you? I'm hunting for disinfectants to keep the horrid microbes off. Its bad enough for a lady of half a century of [?] to get a menopaus (without the pause) and she cannot afford a "tormented soul" If you two come to dinner we'll have a prayer meetings and pray for our own salvation! Lovingly, Carrie C. Catt 2. You are right, it is the tail that is making the mischief. Those who have seen the comet say its tail isn't there at all, altho its fame was always located chiefly in its [???ther], I've had a letter from Sweden and the women are all pulling hair, which is the fifth country to tell me a similar tale, Now the King's dead and they do say, that he was sickened because of the scalping potential situation, which threatened to reduce the Princes to Paupers, and elevate the Paupers with the Peerage. More, was not the great Taft hissed and that two by the sex which should be seen and not heard. All of which testimony should convince a scientist that the missing tail is responsible for the many tales which are making life miserable for the world. Now that we have discovered that it is the cyanogen gas of Halley's comet and not the "peasant strain" which has caused the aberrations of mind and morals of SHE, I hope you will prayerfully repent and love her ever after as an enlightened Christian should. I once killed a big tom cat with cyanogen gas, when I was doing science and he was a very dead cat, and I assure you with a lost tail composed of such deadly stuff right in our midst, it behooves all sinners to seek salvation. What do you think about the after death possibilities. No one ever had a death come near, without thinking about it. I have thought a great deal, and I am glad some people know all about it. But the more I have thought, the less I know. The only thing I feel sure of is that I shall never see again those who have gone on before. The orthodox faith must be rather a consolation, but I'm afraid Pan has wandered from the fold too, and if so I'm sure her speculative fancy is turned upward these days and she is wondering much. If I do not stop, I'll get caught and then I'll get an awful scolding. I've heard that it is a sign of sure enough insanity when one writes up hill, but I hope it doesnt apply when the writer is flat on her back. On Monday I'm to be packed in pink cotton and shipped to the Fed. There is a good crematory there so I may not come back. I think I will tho. Pan's letters are worth living for and besides your Frances is coming. What is her address-- just Elmira? Lovingly, Pan's Pandora. 2 West 86 St. New York May 7,1910 Glossary-- Step = M.G. Hay [Stepmother] Elizabeth = E.J. Hauser Rachel = Rachel Foster Avery Mrs H = Ida Husted Harper Mrs. Potter = Frances Squire Potter Miss Miller = Anne Miller, daughter Eliz. Smith Miller of Geneva 2 W. 86th St. New York July 12, 1910 My dear Pan:- On Saturday, there came some lovely carnations with a characteristic note from Pan. Altho' she disobeyed the order about flowers, I'll forgive her since she will never do it again, and tell her that [the] embargo is lifted concerning letters. I am more than anxious to hear from R. D 2. But, there are stacks of letters here, I haven't read! They came when I was not in condition detion to read them, and now they wait. My Step is dictatorial as ever and scolds when I come to my desk to write one wee note, but says I can dictate all the letters I want to! but Contrary Catt doesn't want to dictate any! I am enjoying immunity from obligations just now. It is not yet six weeks since I was born again, and I hold that not too much is to be expected of me. When I am able to wear clothes we are going to a cool place if there is one to be found. the caucus down here didn't come to much. Elizabeth didn't get here, but I was so glad to see Rachel We talked things over, but my talks are not worth much now for I have purposely avoided getting my mind on suffrage matters, and it seems as if I had been out of things for a year. Mrs. H came to see me for two reasons. (1) To ask me to be State President. (2) To ask my opinion about a proposed procession here. She reported me falsely in both cases, and I've had to get busy to correct the impression. I think she merely puts her own desire into things, I do not believe she means to misrepresent. Please tell me about Pan. What is she doing and what will she do. Is she going to write a "best seller", or what. I hear Mrs. Potter is to be in this vicinity. I shall try to prevail upon her to look in upon us, provided we are not sojourning in the yet-to-be-located cool spot. Except a letter to Miss Miller, this is the congest. I have written. Lovingly, Carrie C. Catt HEALTH BY RIGHT LIVING The Jackson Health Resort Dansville, New York. DIRECTORS JAMES H. JACKSON, M.D. PRESIDENT WALTER E. GREGORY, M.D. JAMES ARTHUR JACKSON, M.D. SECY. TREAS. & MGR. Aug 30, 1910 My dear: A letter and the enclosed have arrived and I hasten them on. Thanks for the hidden note. Be brave and remember that what other women have done, you can do. This is a busy day, and I am due at a treatment this minute, so here's my love in a hurry. Lovingly, C C. Catt She reported me falsely in both cases, and I've had to get busy to correct the impression. I think she merely puts her own desire into things, I do not believe she means to misrepresent. Please tell me about Pan. What is she doing and what will she do. Is she going to write a "best seller" or what. I hear Mrs. Potter is to be in this vicinity. I shall try to prevail upon her to look in upon us, provided we are not sojourning in the yet-to-be-located cool spot. Except a letter to Miss Miller, this is the longest I have written. Lovingly, Carrie C. Catt HEALTH BY RIGHT LIVING The Jackson Health Resort Dansville, New York. DIRECTORS JAMES H. JACKSON, M.D. PRESIDENT WALTER E. GREGORY, M.D. JAMES ARTHUR JACKSON, M.D. SECY. TREAS. & MGR. Aug 30, 1910 My dear: A letter and the enclosed have arrived and I hasten them on. Thanks for the hidden note. Be brave and remember that what other women have done, you can do. This is a busy day, and I am due at a treatment this minute; so here's my love in a hurry. Lovingly, C C. Catt Sept 27, 1910 Dear Pan:- Your letter just this moment came, and I confess to some others unacknowledged. But I warned you it would be so. Four hundred letters availed my attention. Some were polite congratulations, but many demanded more detailed replies. I am making a big effort to compass the correspondence coming in each day and to make an inroad on the old ones. Elizabeth Hauser is a brick! worth more than a million other girls and she is a mighty relief to me. She is the Editor of the Voter word. That is why it has improved. We are making New York hum. Keep your eye on the Voter and you will learn about it. [?] is not scarce either. Her Nibs Belva has joined the Party. We couldn't keep it! Mollie is at Saratoga with Teddy and some other New York women to get a plank in the platform. We are hoping of some word from each Party. There is trouble ahead from them if they don't do it. Now comes your appeal to go slow. Very well, I will just stop writing you until the rush is over. That will save some! Last Saturday I borrowed a friend's motor car and took Elizabeth and Mollie and went to the Hamilton where I have some miserable truth. some property which needed inspection. It was a fine, easy riding machine and the roads were good, but I was utterly exhausted after it and altho that was four days ago, I have not yet recovered from the efforts. That was a timely warning to which I will give heed and it will also warn you that when you think you are right, you may not be. Now for a little business. The books you returned and for which you sent an express receipt never arrived. I wrote the Adams Express and they informed me that they had no office at Geneva and that it must be the American. Meanwhile, I lost the receipt. What Express Co was it? I will write the office at Geneva (if it was sent from there) and let them trace it. It was stupid of me to lose the receipt, but then I am stupid and have a right to be! Don't hold up any big job at leading suffrage to me. I tried to lead it when it was a forlorn hope. Now it is getting popular enough to command others. Did you read Miss Shaw's letter in the journal? Verily she is taking notice! and perhaps there will be a stir of life yet. Meanwhile I am trying to get out of my New York City job -- not to get ready to take a bigger one but to take a trip around the world like a retired [hys?] on a vacation. But, I cannot get out. I do not see how people manage to shake off their duties upon [their?] shoulders so readily. Tell me how I can do it and I will. ( Sept. 27 1910) I do hope you will tell me how things are in Chicago. I supposed that was one spot where all was joy, harmony and repose. Isn't it? ---------------- I am delighted at your progress toward health, but all along I thought it would be so. People tell me I look better than I have for some years. There is still room for improvement before I shall look an Amazon. When I am at my best, I shall have a photo and send you one. Meanwhile I enclose a snapshot taken before I came home. I am now making a program for the Congress of the International Alliance. I wish you were here to work with us. I think our side of things would work splendidly together. I also wish you could go around the world with me. I am thinking of going Westward to Stockholm! That is a dream only. Would you and Frances like to come? We should have a wonderful time! I am not yet quite sure that I could be able to start by Jan. 1. I want to rent my apartment, too, which is not so easy. I should then have something to go on. It is ordinarily considered that a trip around the world is an expensive luxury, but it doesn't cost as much as paying rent in New York, nor as much as an operation. If the same is true in Chicago, maybe you both better join me for economy. I am thinking of spending the rest of my life going round and round the world as a good way to save money! Lovingly Carrie C. Catt #2 West 86th St. New York, October 15, 19I0. My dear Frances and Pan:- I am going to ask you to permit me to write you a joint letter for it it isn't that kind it will not be any at all. The difficulties of going slow exceed any I have ever met. Yesterday I was involved in hard wearing tasks the whole day from early hours till six p.m. This morning I have a head ache and while I am waiting for a man to finish putting up the curtains before I go to market to buy the things for a dinner which Philip and Ethel Snowden are to eat, I'll dash off this note to you, for when I return headache or no headache I must get to work. It is dreadful to be a [Hys?] and yet to have all the responsibilities of less spititual persons. Concerning Stockholm: I am delighted at the prospect of seeing you there. I thought that the National Board would gather females from the highways and hedges and make delegates from them, rather than appoint either of you, but when I asked Elizabeth about it she thought that Miss Clay might persuade them to appoint Miss Peck a real delegate. The reason she put it that way was because I prefaced my question by saying that Mrs. Potter could surely get herself made a fraternal delegate from the National Trade Union League, but I did not see how a place could be found for Miss Peck. Fraternal delegates are received from national associations only and while we do receive more than one from a society if they are sent, the delegation has to select one from the number who is given the privilege of free discussion upon all themes and who is at liberty to get a regular delegate to make any motion for her which she wants made. She has almost as much power as a real delegate in the meeting altho she cannot vote. She has an additional advantage, she is given a bit of time in which to express 2 the greeting of the Association she represents. When there are not too many fraternal delegates they come in for all the social privileges such as free tickets for the banquets etc. So I think Mrs. Potter is easily arranged for and that she will receive as much attention as though she were a regular delegate. Now if that pleases you let me report Mary Peck's name in the list of those who are likely to go and see what comes of it. Or, perhaps there is some National body unknown to me which could and would make her a delegate. Now as to the trip. I have had a pipe dream of going to that convention Westward via the TransSiberian Railway, and if I did it I intended to leave here about Jan. 1. I found that to be an utterly impossible plan. Then I turned my eyes Eastward where there is also some work for me to do and I still thought I should get away about that date. I wished to accomplish certain international things and at the same time I wished to gently remove myself from the confusion of New York as I believed I should recover my strength faster in that case. But the cholera is a little too prevalent in that part of the world to make travelling for a person not in robust health safe and comfortable so it looks as tho Andromedes (was that the fellow) would be chained to his rock until the suffrage vultures picked his bones. (A teacher of higher English told me recently that she possessed the license to mix three metaphors. I commend the above as an example of superfine English) I now think I shall not get away before March and that I shall go to England and from thence to the continent via Copenhagen. I must be in Stockholm by May 1st. After the meeting is over I had to work at the minutes while other people are sightseeing and when they are ready I thinkItshall take them to London for (the minutes please) 3 printing. When that is over my next pipe dream is to go to S. Afr ica with Dr. Jacobs and later to Australia, Japan and then homeward. I think Step will get to Stockholm but she will then return to the U.S. So you see my plans are quite in the air and altho the un- certainty is not disturbing my composure, my Step is in a terrible way over my behavior and declares that she would never treat me in such fashion as to threaten to go away and stay a whole year. She suspects that I am a bit demented. When the atmosphere clears and I know what I am going to do and what Step will do I shall tell you I suppose you do not want to join a caravan around the world do you? Pan's description of the unification meeting is rich and decid edly amusing. The parties to the agreement have little idea how that demure and placid looking little Pan is looking right through every motive as tho she were an X ray and after finding the flawa is holding them up to ridicule. Naughty, delicious, wicked little Pan! Let me give one bit of sober advice. Do not let any one pro- pose to name the new thing Woman Suffrage Party. The birds will fly to cover at once if they do. Let the name be postponed till all else is finished. Then, the delegates will discover that there is no other name. We have worked out a scheme for the union of the Party with the State Association and have sent it to the Convention but as our best will not be there to talk it through I presume it will not go this year but it will do so eventually. (At this point the man finished his curtains, another came and has mended a chair and still another has regulated the clock and I have been to market and found upon my arrival home a great basket of pears from Miss Miller) No wonder I have lost the connection I must however tell you that I gave myself a test in practical Christianity and enforced the test upon others. I persuaded the City Committee to vote to tender a lunch to the Board of State Assn. Now my dear blessed girls I must work for my sex. I pro- posed at the breakfast table this morning that I might take a place down in the slums and make a suffrage settlement of it, in which case I might save enough in rent to give more to the suffrage work. This was another Christian dream. Step looked as tho she had found further legal evidence of my incapacity but Elizabeth said she would come and live with me. I am a good democrat in theory but my faith weakens when it meets bad air, dirt, b.b.t.s and horrid smells. I rather enjoy onions for instance when the odor pervades a clean home and is diluted with good air. To my nostrils it becomes a real, aristocratic perfume, but when it is a democratic odor diluted with perfumes of beer and uncleanliness, the blood of my royal ancestors boils in protests. Of course I do not know positively that I had any royal ancestors but if I had not why this shrinking from my fellow beings because of smells? With love and rejoicing that we may have a festal time in Stockholm, I am Your, Carrie C. Catt New York, #2 West 86th St. Nov. 8, 1910 My dear Miss Peck: Your very cogent yet witty accounts of the progress of affairs upon the road toward the organization of a Chicago Woman Suffrage Party have been read to the members of the household and interested parties with much satisfaction. Yesterday the City Committee met at my house all day and during lunch I [relayed?] the story of the incorporation and asked who first suggested the [?] here. There was a difference of opinion and no one seems to know. We all [remembered?] a long discussion over it, and that a few( [possible?] [?] half dozen) [intended?] strongly for the name and an equal number fought valiantly against it, and that all other names possible [were?] eliminated one by one because they were already taken by some other organization, not necessarily suffrage organizations but those with which there would be a confusion, and when nothing remained but the Woman Suffrage Party, that was adopted amid the cool indifference of the mahority, the positive disgus of the few and the satisfaction of a half dozen. For a month the name was much discussed and the controversy had its pros and cons and many of us felt that the work might be handicapped by the prejudice the name created. After that, little was said of it and now I think I may truly say that the members are all very loyal to the name and that it is positively popular. Yet slow New York is only now getting the organization incorporated and modestly is doing it under the title of Woman Suffrage Party of New York City. We are all very glad to have a twin in Chicago and if the great West can furnish the needful requirements for incorporating in all the States in the Union and the Nation at large, there will be no protest from New York. Here in this State there have been various efforts to organize Parties in some of the counties but we would lend no assistance beyond advice, and I do not know how they stand but I do know these little "mushrooms" have named themselves the Woman Suffrage Party I have felt that the State should take up the work and that there would be nothing gained to build two organizations when there were not enough of us to make one respectable one. But it would be a different thing if these was a band of consecrated devoted souls with trained senses concerning the situation and some command of funds. A half dozen such women with the necessary initiative and cash could make this old county hum as it never has. Under such conditions a National Woman Suffrage Party would prove a blessing and do no harm. [?] under any other conditions its organization would mean only the introduction of more [friction?] and disturbance and no great thing would [come?] out of it. [?] [know?] we [have?] not the women for such a movement here. [Now?] if Chicago [?], I say let it go ahead, simply minding where and how it steps. What I think would be a good thing and a helpful would [?] a National Conferene on new Methods, and Chicago would be a good place for such a conference I do not think many would go, but it might be we could get a respectable number. I think the meetings should be private and that the conference should be one for the purpose of securing real help and not a play to the gallery. An evening meeting for the public could be given in connection with a Chicago City convention if you should get ready in time. Such a conference might well be held in the early winter in order to have some effect upon Legislative work in various 2 States. I think such a conference would have the effect of securing more aggressive methods in our States and in our National. There are people who want such a conference held for New York State, but the idea might be applicable to the Nation. I think this should not be planned unless there is some certainty of response to the call. As I have never spoken of this plan to any one I do not know how it might be taken, but it is worth consideration. Would Mrs. Hartshorn be nation chairman and could she do it? I have not the [pleasure?] of knowing her as I hope to some day. The only office I could hold would be that of banner holder. So no one is to think that [?] any mortgage [?] the idea, the name, the work or anything else in [c???tion] with it. I am growing to the point when I am in a desperate [?y] to see something done, and I prefer to see it while I am here than from the Heavenly Home above. If anyone will do anything I am to [?] glad to do aught than bless them. The only thing I hate is to see the women wasting their strength and time in scrapping over personal differences. If ever there is a Woman Suffrage Party for the nation, I for one hope its first plank will be one to arrange to behead the first woman who makes trouble. Boiling in hot lard may be sufficient for those who talk about their fellow workers to their undoing. The Blue Laws should be brought out again for the sins of the modern suffragist and applied with ancient vigor. How much of your account has been truly historical and how much has been due to the humorist's license I do not know, but if anything I have said in this letter applies to anything or anybody, you are at liberty to read it to whomever you please, explaining that it is my own typing and that I am far from arriving at the expert's efficiency. I received the clippings and as there seemed to be recorded the opposition of the State I have written a little note to Mrs. Stewart and asked her version of the thing. I want to know from her own pen if she is opposed. I cannot think she is unless it is because she may think the State organization itself is threatened with destruction. In that case she naturally would defend her own. Her honor as an officer would be at stake, for she would be criticised if she allowed the organization to go under without a protest. I think at heart Mrs. Stewart must be favorable to new and better methods. She is by nature a progressive, I am sure. Most Cordially, Carrie Chapman Catt. 2 W 86th St. New York. Nov. 18, 1910. Dear Pan:- I am too tired to read and too tired to rest--so I'll write you. This has been a hard week. Step has been away getting herself elected to high office, Mrs. Sweet has been here on a visit, and Miss Chafen has been closing up her office affairs and we have been initiating a new office secretary so that Miss Chafen can go to Wisconsin to attend a sick sister. I have been at the office every day and practically all day. Last night in addition to a days work, I attempted a dinner. It was not far away and the enticing bait was not the dinner but the discussion which was advertised to follow: Man's view of Woman Suffrage. It was rather lively and a table full of Antis and one of suffragists glaring at each other and applauding and groaning at their respective sentiments added to the chorus of the occasion. The speakers were all men, but I was called for and had an inning at the enemy. We did not get home until 12:30, and as I get into my little bed nightly at 8:30, you will understand why I am tired to-night. Your history of the Rise and------of the Chicago Woman Suffrage Party has been read to an appreciative and sympathetic audience and stored away in the archives of 2 W 86th. with the label, "Valuable data, set forth by a genius." For that you are. Each letter is a gem treated from any point of view. It is a pity such choice display of talent must of necessity to confined to so small a circle. I might send it to 505 but there alas the genius manifested by the writer might be forgotten or overlooked because of the startling contents of the letters. I think your Dr. DeBey must be a bit mephistophelian herself! I should like to see her, but I should want to know that I had some self-loading rapid action defenders handy in case she should desire to address me. The comment on the minority report is to my liking however, but that [was] is because I was not the object of it. Truly, I think the State were justified in criticising and I only know your version of it. The hot haste to incorporate and the hotter haste to bring things off before the convention didn't have a right look, but after all the whole thing will stand or fall, survive or perish on its leadership and not its construction. The leaders should be healthy, well-mannered, sweet tempered, always on their job, never discouraged, always pushing on, on, on, 2 never allowing the campaign to flag or falter. If Chicago can find such, the rest will come. The difficulty here and everywhere is to find women who are executive, and women who will give themselves. So it will be in Chicago. Concerning the conference: The New York delegation talked of one in Buffalo for the State. Now that may or may not take place. If it does, it may include the near by States---and Chicago. If Chicago wants it, let her speak. I think a call for such a conference should go forth signed by names known, so as to give confidence to the movement. By names, I mean Chicago names. Jane Addams (?) Morgan Haley, Mrs. Robbins &c and if you could find a woman of wealth of the Mackay type to put her name to it too, the magic touch would be upon it, and from North and South, East and West, the seekers after a new and better way toward the suffrage goal, would turn their noses Chicagoward. January is a very good time. Legislatures are in sessions and some news of this character would be good for them to hear. I should like Mrs. Stewart's name there too, for the fact that one is a State President out not to preclude her from taking part in progressive action. By the way, so far as I know no National convention is yet called nor place of meeting found. So a conference would get in first and its conclusions would be ready to carry to that convention if desired. As to the preparations for the conference, I think a place of meeting where there might be a two days sessions of delegates only would be the only thing needful. If a place for an informal social evening of delegates could be arranged, so that they could talk freely and not be balked by a lot of outsiders, that would be helpful and a public meeting could be held if thought desirable by Chicago. Has the W.S.P. of Chicago any officers yet? I am anxious to know who will be chair for much depends upon that at the beginning. So you are thinking of going home; well just wait till that conference is off or on. You are the historian you know and you must be there. I suppose I shall not get away before March. There is much to do before I go. Mrs. Snowden is here now and Mr Philip is leaving in haste tomorrow on account of the expected dissolution of Parliament. Ethel stays to complete the tour arranged. What a trinity--Shaw, Potter, Gordon. It was a brave program committee which could mobilize it. I know our Frances covered herself with honor. Bless her heart. Some of her stars got mixed up or eclipsed for a time but they will straighten out and she will be at peace. Its coming to her. Lovingly, C.C. Catt Dec 15, 1910. Dear [Pan?]: I have an accumulation of queries, comments demanding counter comments, history deserving acknowledgement. I'll begin with the last and let the rest go. A. The definite work which resulted in the W.S.P. began in Sept. 1908. I do not think California has ever organized a W.S.P. I was surprised when Frances said it had and I asked some suffragists about it and they knew nothing about it, and in different connections do not speak in complimentary terms of Mrs Coffin. I do not think I know her. B. There was never such organization among women anywhere before this one in New York but the foundation of it is the precinct or election district. In the Cala campaign precinct organization was attempted and was successful in many parts of the State. It was organized by Miss Hay (that is that form of organization was put in by her) Previously I as chair of organization Committee had, through our first workers; organized that way in Idaho. Now, Mrs. Coffin may have had something of the kind in mind from the old campaign, but it has not developed into anything comprehensive yet. Since the basis of all political work is the precinct, an organization of suffrage along those lines cannot lay claim to much originality and doubtless the idea has occurred to many people. I do not think any one should be praised for the invention. It was the obvious thing to do, when there were workers enough. C. Miss Anthony certainly did not invent the WSP nor any other kind of an organization. As we did precinct work in Idaho and Cala she very likely was of the opinion as we all were that it was the ultimate organization to be hoped for. D If a conference should be held in Chicago, I think the invitation should be publicly made through the journal and other papers and that personal invitations should be sent also. It is too late now to have it in January I hear (I have not read my journal) that the National Convention will be held in Louisville in April. I think the Conference , if held should precede it, and a plan of work developed which should be presented to that Convention. If the convention fails to take up the work, a national W.S.P. could then be talked of with reason. I shall not be here for the National Convention. I am expecting to go to Stockholm about March 1. I do not know that I could even go to Chicago now. My time is limited, my strength also, and my duties seem to make her acquaintance some day. She is certainly a novel character - one of her kind. I wish all suffragists could stay alive and stay well until we get our job done. Did we not agree to the ratio of sixteen to one in our correspondence? That is you write sixteen and I one letter? I think so. Last week I was at the office the whole of three days and had a stenographer at home the other three days. Sunday I had a suffrage Party, Monday a Committee meeting and a day at the office, Tuesday a headache all day and the Men's League dinner in the evening. Wednesday I went to Pachogue and spoke there last night. Pan I'm tired!! I do love your letters, and incidentally the writing of them, but I cannot keep up with you while all these things are burdening me. I wish I could come up and make butter for you and you could come down here and do my tasks awhile. It would do me good. I am not sure about you. Lovingly Yours, C. C. C. unlimited. If I could only find a woman to take my place, I should breathe more easily and could find a moment to attend to the thousand things to be done. I must raise money for the Party, rent my apartment, get my clothes made over, close my husband's estate &c. These are a few things which must be done. There is a curious inconsistency in attempting to do international and local work at the same time. They do not harness well together. I received that double enveloped mysterious communication from you and lest I be caught red handed, I tore it into bits as soon as read. Now, how can I reply? Step has been made a fraternal delegate from the Federation of Clubs. I do not know whether she will be able to go, but if she did not, and you did, her imagination would make her very unhappy. Her affection, altho never the a.s. kind is masculine so far as ownership goes. She thinks she owns me and she apparently never doubted the perpetuity of her title until you appeared. I have now poked so much fun at her about it that she no longer shows signs of the monster, but he's there. Now, can you go as a fraternal or shall I report you to the National Board. Will Frances go as a delegate from Trade Union League? The above will make no difference about your going I'm sure altho' you did say that you would go if Step did not. Did you mean that? How are you by this time? Are you strong yet? I am sorry to hear that Dr. DeBey is not well. I had hoped Dec. 28, 1910 2 West 86 St. My dear Pan:- My notepad is certainly the gayest one ever made and I feel very proud of it. You ought to be spanked for having sent it tho', but as spanking cannot be administered at long range, I'll wait for an appropriate time. I think I could just about take you across my knee in a motherly fashion. I have been on the verge of a letter to you several times but couldn't make it. I wanted to tell you that I had sent in your name among other possible candidates for delegates, and had broken the news to Her Nibs that Mrs. Frances would go from the National Trade Union League and Mrs. Mollie from the National Federation of Clubs. The reply is that she has a list of her own and that they want to get the best ones. That settles your case for in the estimate of some folks you are not the best, but the very worstest of the worse. Two can go from a National body, but only one may speak, or discuss. It must be nice to go from the University and the fact that Minnesota is such a Scandinavian State would be excuse enough but our rule is that fraternal delegates must come from National bodies. Or, I should say we invite National bodies only to send such delegates. We will certainly receive all delegates who came without invitation but no time can be given on the program to such delegates without the vote of the convention. However, get credentials from the University by all means and also from the Trade Union League. If you are bursting with mad desire to express your restrained feelings, I'll ask a special privilege for you. I am going to see if I cannot get a reduced rate on the Scandinavian Line if as many as ten will go, in that event Frances and Pan and Ann and Luci might room opposite and play poker together. I either have to stay in Stockholm three or four weeks after the meeting or carry the minutes to London for printing. It will depend upon my plans for the long trip. Thus far they are in chaos. I am trying to sublet my apartment so I can have something to travel on. If I am unable to do so, I may not go away for so long a time, but wait for that trip until I can rent it. Step is wild over my uncertainties, but as I wait upon the passage of events and am no prophet, I can do no otherwise. I hope you were as happy on Christmas as it is possible to be when the memory reminds you that a year ago there was a mother in your home. I cannot say that such days are particularly merry to me. That you may know how demented I am, I will tell you that I bought some toys for my grandchildren and utterly forgot the most important child until some days after Christmas was over. I do not know whether I have had a chance to tell you how I forgot to introduce Harriet M Mills at the Cooper Union meeting and how Ida H made public mince meat of me because of that slip and because I did not introduce Belva with a flourish. Really, I am not responsible you see. This letter is not due you, as I have only had about six to my sixteen. Thanks, dear Pan for my Xmas. Lovingly C.C.C. Dec. 29, 1910 Dear Pecky Pan: Concerning books: when I returned home from Dansville, I inquired if that package of books had arrived. It had not. I took the matter up with the Express Co who informed me that Geneva was not on the line. By that time the express receipt had got buried in the rubbish and couldn't be found. Pan was being transformed into a Hys and couldn't be asked anything. Now you tell me your agent has a receipt signed with a G from 2 W. 86th St. G stands for Garvin our manager at the time. It has since developed that he stole everything in sight. Now will you please let me know (1) just what books you had. I know one was Vol 8 of the Beacon Lights of History. Do you remember the others (2) from what office was the package sent. The receipt has since turned up but like most receipts it is not legible. (3) At what date was it received? (4) Was the signature Garvin? I know where he lives and I shall send a collector with a warrant after them. When he left this house he stole the knobs off the doors! All day I have been bookkeeping to try to find out how much money I'll have to go around the world with and as I never could add, it was tedious! Tomorrow a stenographer at the house to see if we can raise some Party money. Work, work, work My sense of humor is rather underdeveloped but I nearly had a fit when I saw Step's Christmas present. She didn't know it and so far as I know didn't see the point. O you wicked sly Pan! Lovingly, C.C.C. Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.