Catt, Carrie Chapman General Correspondence Peck, Mary Gray 1916-18 Jan 10, 1916 My dear Mary Peck: I have received your special carrying congratulations. You have a good memory I had forgotten the occasion. I have been working as campaign pace in a vain effort to clear my desk at the house gets accumulations and I write not to thank you for your congratulations but to apologize for never acknowledging the receipt of 13.63 which you ought to have spent on Xmas gifts. I have it still in my own possession and the treasurer hasn't heard of it. When she gets it you will have a receipt. You need not think of me in 505. It isn't big enough to hold me. We are going to move. When we do, I may turn in this check and say it was given for the special purpose of buying some needed thing for my very own office. If you don't like it so, say so. If I should ever see you and have a minute, I'll tell you what I think of the situation. The censor would not approve of putting it on paper. I've moved from a comfortable to an uncomfortable office; from a job I understood to one I don't. Thanks for the book which hasn't yet arrived. I suppose it is the one I ought to have sent you! There is one thing you said in a letter which is true. I do need something more than human help. If you have influence with the Divinities, please implore their aid in my behalf. Lovingly. hastily C. C. Catt "Thank You" Reed from CCC Jan 11, 1916 Her thanks for Birthday book! The note of Jan 10, '16 refers to her sudden & unanticipated election to the presidency of the N.A.W.S.A. succeeding Dr. Shaw. She was released from chairmanship of the N.Y. State suffrage campaign, and so moved from state to national Hqrs. in New York City. Feb 2 1916 My dear Pam : I am en route to Chicago. I grabbed a few unopened letters and brought along to read. Yours was among them. I have only a pad - not very clean - to write on - but I am moved to write you. I need sympathy and I got it when speaking to you. Don't understand that I expect a letter of sympathy. The cause will be gone ere the letter could arrive. I have the ear ache, the toothache and the headache resulting from neglected dentistry and after have borne these three aches for a week, I went down to the Dr this afternoon and he switched out the nerve by giving the locality a hypodermic anesthetic. It was all lovely and I went home sick faint but acheless. Then the anesthesia departed, the face began to swell and the old ache in all its glory is here once more. I'm too miserable to read, or to go to bed. - so I write you: We thought we would have Cong. Conferences in all the States and I thought I would go as peace maker and melting pot director where there was trouble. Then I learned that was in 48 States 2. So I've started My mission in Chicago is to teach "Love thy neighbor" and get to work on the biggest demonstration the whole national can pull on at the time the Repubs + the Progs hold their conventions. Then I go to Des Moines to survey that field and on to St Louis to see what they can do for the Democratic Convention - then home for two minutes. Yes I am going to the Miss Valley Conferense in May. How do I like my Board? Fine Mrs Roessing is in Washington and sticks to Cong. work. H Patterson is the best all around office woman I ever saw She will take complete management there. The [Masure?] is good that is on her job. It is a good working board and we all agree to have an early convention and elect someone else in our places! A S. has had pneumonia and has been really very ill. She will go to Florida as soon as she is able and we shall not see her till spring. We all agree with you that the atmosphere 3 of a new place will give us courage. We move soon - in fact while I am away = to the 14th floor of a building on 33rd & Madison. It was an awful tragedy having to go into this horrible yoke when I was so tired, but here I am. No, there will be no Florida for me - and no rest. My [st?] to establish sisterly love and leader confidence among the workers of 48 states - some task. I sometimes doubt if the love pot will really get to boiling before the next election. You know H S would not accept the honer of Hon. Pres. unless assured that she could have desk room at the Headquarters. She could not let go. I only hope that she will not hate so hard when out of responsibility. I am going now to try to take my trinity of aches to bed. One side of my face is about twice the size of the other and growing. My beauty is likely to be much accelerated by the time I arrive in the City of [Ports?]. If it should be the unhappy cause of hesitation in the love projects, it would be a pity. I don't think you will get a book for Valentine's Day since I only got back that day and the dogs will be on my track with a thousand barks each reminding me of a duty unperformed. What you cannot read, please credit to the jerkiness of Mr. N.Y. Celebral Since you do not sign your name, I won't and leave you to guess who your correspondent of the 3 [pai?] is X.T.Y. Feb. 14 I never had a chance to get this into an envelope. I shall be home in a few hours. I do not know what I have said in the above for I couldn't read it myself but at least I may say that I have no aches. All is well in three Cities. Every body loves everyone else and has promised to pull together for the the common good. Thursday in St. Louis I made 4 speeches totalling 3 1/2 hours. It was the climax of 11 days of the hardest work I ever put in. Lovingly XTY 225 Rooms 225 Baths Hotel Blackhawk W.F. Miller, Manager Fireproof Miller Hotel Company Lessee and Operators Davenport, Iowa, Apr. 29, 1916 Dear Pau: The hour of midnight has struck and altho' tomorrow is the Holy Sabbath, I must rise early to make to two towns and electrify the audiences. Your note re birds and spring and health bulletines of J Addams, and M. Cary came to hand just as I was going to bed last night, so I took it, and some others, as a soothing draft. I got so excited at your discovery that the faces of the above two were askew that I got up and examined mine. I find I am all amiss too. Now I do not know whether I am going to lose my kidneys like J. A. or my mind A. is my mind like M. Cary. I'm terribly worried. Don't tell it abroad, but let me whisper a secret into your ear. Iowa is coming next. Get ready to whoop, but don't whoop too soon. Lovingly, CCC ROOMS $1.00 ROOMS WITH BATH $1.50 COUNCIL BLUFFS LEADING HOTEL Grand Hotel EUROPEAN TELEPHONES IN EVERY ROOM First Class Cafe and Grill Room in Connection (Sunday April 16 1916) Council Bluffs, Iowa My dear Pan: I have received various weather bulletins from you from time to time, set in more radiant language than that used by the Government. I found them interesting but as we had weather too, they were not startling enough to compel me to stop a national campaign to reply. I have also received various gifts including a box of Huyler's best, but even those could elicit no word of gratitude from a hard hearted worn out reformer. Now comes the bargain hunter with a stamped envelope. What a Pan! Well, that typewriter was never replaced after its return. I had lost the key. I told Mrs. Shuler she might buy it but before I set a price she could try it and see if it would work. I asked Clara to get it repaired and she did, but apparently it doesn't work or Mrs Shuler would not want to give it up. Since she does I am willing that she pass it up to you and we will see how you make out with it. I fancy it is rusty. A kerosene bath might be a wholesome treatment. I never got on with it as my hands were too big for the key board. I expect yours will be about right. Last night I made a particularly bum speech to 3000 people. I am wondering this morning why I was ever born to "set it right" [That's a quotation. dear Pam from the Book of Bulzebub.] The real difficulty is that I am ruined -- ruined by luxury. I don't like washing off the soil 2 by hand in ice water out of a bowl I don't like cold houses because the women choose to clean up early and thus put out their fires. I don't like creaky springs in my bed and all the rest of it. I am homesick and want to creep back to my own nest. I don't want to be a reformer today. I am going to try to get the date of my first speech for suffrage and see if I cannot get on the retired list. I am chuck full of selfishness today. Under ordinary conditions you wouldn't get even this excuse for a letter for I am doing one night stands but I have a workers conference here and so have a few minutes to share you. I know you will sympathize with my afflictions when I tell you that they sent my schedule without railroad information and I've been looking up my connections. That is another cause of my desire to [s?}. All day travel back and forth over the State with no chance to breathe. Whew! Excuse my mood. You are a nice Pam always except when you insist on replies to your letters and thanks for your gifts. Lovingly C.C.C. How it would have comforted you when heard the inane things I said last night. We all have our inane spells but you would have realized that others could be inaner than you ever dreamed of being. Cheer up. Monday the third of July A.D. 1916 Dear Mary; - I feel like writing you a letter. The reason is that I have just read on which just came this minute. I ought to be doing a million more important things, but I thought you'd like to know that I am taking a vacation. It began yesterday morning (Sunday) and will end the evening of the 4th. [handwritten] a million more important things. I thought you you'd [?????] that I am taking a vacation. It began yesterday morning (Sunday) and will end the evening of the 4th. I wanted to get as far away from my troubles as I could so I read a new book. "The Men of the Stone Age" where the civilized Christians of 1916 have choked, poisoned, and blown each other up in an historical battle on the Marne, 25000 years ago mammoths rhinoceros' bears +c were roaming and some of our grandfathers were playing Goliath out there with their stone arrow heads and spears. What do you think of that? Today I've sorted over my clothes. I have two varieties -- one that will go around and one that won't. I have divided up the latter kind among my cousins and nieces. and prepared my bureau drawers for summer. That accounts for my vacation up to date. [N?]ow I am going to write you because I am in trouble, some trouble Now for the troubles. I've tried them on others but no one up to this instant has given more than a sigh toward relief. I want a President for this confounded movement which is out to get us a vote. When I got back Sat eve. I found notes from Miss Ogden relating the details of a call intended for me from M. Cary T. She wanted to protest against a Sept convention on account of the election. She had been informed by H.S. that all the selected Board were going to resign (I suppose she meant quit when their time was up). She wants the convention in Sept, but another later on to elections. I suppose Sept isn't a good time for caucuses. The notes left me in doubt as to whether she feared we might not have voters enough to defeat any ticket some of us might put up, or whether she fears, as I do, that we will find no one to vote for. If I thought we could scare up a lot of candidates and thus stir up excitement, I could sleep nights, for I would know that somebody would get elected and those who didn't would see that that those who did performed their duty. But I cannot see, smell or feel a solitary candidate for any post. We declared for a working Board and the only ones willing to continue so far as I can learn are the two who have managed to escape from full time service. We elected a Board for New York (i.e. to stay in NYC) but if we vote to center on the Federal Amendment, we ought to move the Headquarters to Washington and that would mean a different Board of course. We cannot pay salaries, altho we neglect to a couple of them upon a squeeze I presume. Mrs. Roessing is as capable as we could find for the Congressional work, but she cannot go on, and Miss Patterson could not be excelled for the office management, but she cannot go on. I suppose Mrs. Rogers won't continue if we go to Washington. So there is a Pres.; a first Vice Pres, a Cen. Sec'y and a Treas. to be found. Other officers could be found quite easily. These must all be masterly each in her own way. For Heaven's sake nominate one and save my life. I could go on another year if Mrs. Roessing and Miss Patterson had remained for they are trained and I could lean on them, but it is impossible for me to train in new officers in addition to my own duties, at a time when I am tired to the limit. Now, stop writing me about moonshine and sunsets and find me a successor! Do it now. Concerning the "write up". It had already gone into print when I received your suggestion of return. Your name should have been attached, but it was so interwoven with Haeslip's that I could not manage it. I only saw it in proof. Mary, I think you are a silly looney ijit about some things, but little short of a genius with your pen. You've simply got to use it to better purposes, or go to work on the redemption of your sex. The idea of taking time to go boating while Rome's burning!!! C.C.C. VOTES FOR WOMEN [letterhead] Friday Sept 23, '16 Dear Mary Peck When the gifts accumulate, it is compulsory to write a word of thanks. A book, I read en route to Atlantic City and finished it before I unpacked. It was a good one and got the New York wiggles out of me before I put the Atlantic City ones on. Many thanks but here is an order, a positive order, you are never never to send me anything again. I mean it. The big box of color from the garden was a charming gift. The asters straightened up as soon as they were given a good drink and [hondierrated] the whole house. They are still doing it. There are sad days when the gardens say their farewells to us. When I gave up mine and [cause to loion] I thought I could never get on without it, but now that I don't see gardens, all seasons are alike to me. I know enough to know it is getting colder, that is all. I am glad you are fortunate enough to have a garden and to enjoy it. Mary G. P. my "life and works" will never be writ. Whoever attempts it while I'm here, will try it over my dead body, and whoever tries it after I'm gone will be haunted by a ghost as lively as that of Hamlets pa. This is final. My "life" is about at an end. My "works" are a feeble, aimless drugery. Drop it. The reason that you are not in on the new deal is that you call me by too intimate terms. Business relations are not cemented by any "dearests's." Improvement will be noted with pleasure. I have "put over" the biggest [piece of] week's work I ever did in all my life and there's another day of it. That ought to excuse me for brevity. I don't care to receive any weather bulletins, or analyses of my character. I've known myself longer than you have and I know more about my mental insides than you ever will. What you have to say about gardens, motoring, farming or campaigning will be patiently read, but not acknowledged. If you don't get down to business and write something worthwhile soon, I'll wallop you. Love to Clara. Tell her to stay as long as you can stand her. C.C.C. Dec 30, 1916 Two West Eighty-sixth Street My dear Mary Peck: I instructed my secretary to return appropriate thanks and greetings to you. Whether she has obeyed or not, I am not informed, but when the gifts come in almost daily for a month or so proper manners demand a word of appreciation. First, when you intend sending cheese, buttermilk butter or a cow, plum pudding mince pie or a cake, please ascertain whether I am in N. York or Kamschatka, 2 It is difficult to restrain the appetites of the family until my return. Despite orders not to present me with such gifts I am in receipt of at least four, all lovely, all useful, all acceptable, altho' the cake got tired waiting for me to get home. I have concluded that as dreams go by contraries, so does M.G.P. Therefore, I no longer demand cessation of gifts - but their continuance. About one a month or oftener would be well. I like your taste so I make no suggestions. That dream of yours was prophetic I never thought it would get out that orange blossoms were scheduled for me - don't tell. It might reach the bridegroom to be - and he doesn't know about it yet. No, you didn't get an Xmas gift from this quarter and you never will. I've reformed. Nor do I love you! Yet, I'll confess the world would seem a whole lot lonesomer and cheaper were you not in it. I hate your movies. Why not do something else- will you? Say, I've written a book! True. Would you review it? I am finishing it off Sunday and New Years Day. If you pass through Washington on a film let us know at 1626 Rhode Island Ave. I shall be there until Jan 10 and thereafter will vibrate between the two Cities. Here's my greeting to the strangest morsel of humanity I ever knew - one M. G. P. May 1917 remove her from the movies and put her where she belongs. Lovingly - just for Xmas Carrie C. Catt I may make sure of an extra sandwich for you. Really, I do think you are very nice little girl, but my! How you do squander your dividends! If we go to war, which God forbid, I'm going to get a place for you making gas bags and I'll furnish a select list to whom to mail some samples. I hope you will be obedient. Lovingly, Carrie C. Catt Saturday pm Feb 17, 1917 TWO WEST EIGHTY-SIXTH STREET NEW YORK CITY My dear Crazy Mary: As you seem to have stopped apologizing for a certain gift, I will melt sufficiently to say that I admire the beautiful gift, also the giver but condemn the wild extravagance. I once had an uncle (by marriage please note) who went off his head and the early symptoms were extravagances in umbrellas. The memory makes me fearful of what may come your way. I feel it to be my duty to check this budding symptom before it goes to far. Therefore, I make two conditions: I'll keep this lovely specimen for six months before using. In that period if you have a desire to present so extravagant a gift to another, I will let you have this one for the purpose and if I discover at the end of that period that you had no recurrence of the symptoms which reached so dangerous a stage about Jan 9th, I shall use the umbrella whenever you are about, in order to remind of your past sins. 2. If another gift big or little comes I shall return it!!! Now Picky Pan, I've heard that there's millions in the movies, but take my advice and hang on to all you get. Why do you not come to call when you are in town. I heard you were here. I could tell you many interesting gossippy things if you would. The sandwich lady still comes, and I invite you to lunch with me at the office the next time you come. You must telephone first to learn whether I'm here or there and second that Copy Two West Eighty-sixth Street New York City Dear Mary;- Clara tells me your entire family are out of commission. I'm sorry. It will prevent you from an early enlistment as chaffeur for the trenches which I had expected. I could tell you lots of nice interesting gossip if I had time and didn't have writers cramp. Why the latter? I've written two columns for the Journal, and State letters to Champ Clark and Claude Kitchen, and made out a program for a drive on Congress. This while Billy Sunday is beginning his campaign to make us keep the Sabbath. Now I am off to bed. By the way, our Congress Lady is a sure enough joker. Whatever she has done or will do is wrong to somebody, and every time she answers a roll call she loses us a million votes. I wish I had your wit and bag or words-I'd write a booklet on "How Men's Minds Work"! Adieu C.C.C. April 8 1917 Jeannette Raukin 1917 A Happy New Year Thanks dear, wicked friend for the funny book. I need it. It will travel much with me to Washington. We have a party at 171 tomorrow Wednesday. You are the only outsider invited Come at High Noon. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt 2 West 86th Street New York A Happy New Year! I hope that as your years increase They'll bring an increase too Of health and wealth and all that tends To make life glad for you. Oct 1, 1917 CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT 2 WEST 86TH ST. NEW YORK My dear Mary: A lady once sent a foolish letter to an alleged friend with an enclosed special delivery stamp on it addressed to a certain hotel. About a year later or perhaps three she sent on Oct 1, a captivating box of wonderful roses and asters. They arrived at breakfast and were exhibited to the family which consisted of MGH and A.H.S. who is here for a Board meeting. Neither made any comment so I do not know what they thought, but I thought them an emblem of a departing summer which has been all too short and the harbinger of a coming winter full of dread. The autumn garden always affected me so. How I have sorrowed over the threatening frosts which were coming to take my flowers away. It was sweet of you to give me this touch of your garden and I did truly feel grateful for it. No one ever loved a garden more than I. I should like to see yours. Someday I may. This is not going in the special delivery because it isn't properly addressed but someday you will get it. I have it carefully preserved. We have a four days Board meeting + a conference of Campaign presidents. So there isn't much brain left to work with at the end of the day. I am worried over the future and wretchedly miserable in consequence What horrid belligerent creatures men are! Yet even when they see what a mad mess they have made of the world, they think they should keep on with it and keep the more civilized sex in their caves. I try to keep a vision of "peace on earth, good will to men" and democracy that is to come out of it all, but the vision is dimmed tonight and I am dull, - duller that usual I mean. The only brightness in the day was that box of garden beauty. Thank you dear Mary. Yours truly Carrie C. Catt On Empire Tours EUROPEAN PLAN FIREPROOF THE TEN EYCK, ALBANY, N. Y. UNDER SAME DIRECTION THE ONONDAGA Under direction of FREDK W. ROCKWELL SYRACUSE, N.Y. Proctor C. Welch FIVE HUNDRED ROOMS Manager Tues. Oct 23. 1917 My dear Mary: I am glad you thought better of mailing a daily letter. I might have been so upset that I would not be able to speak my piece at night. My itinerary is shortened and I return to N Y from Ogdensburg. In N. Y I can work in the office and speak at night. H. M Mills is to lunch with me early so this must be an abridged epistle. You are about as big a fibber as Mrs. Wadsworth. I am not a calm person at all. A tickle in the the neck might not make me blush, but this suffrage situation has utterly put me to rout. We have won our cause. Not one outstanding claim stands unrefuted. The rest of the game is political. I am no politician and politics is no place for a reformer. That is why I can see no opening of the Red Sea of political messing for us to walk through. Suppose you think it out. Go out in that wonderful garden of yours. Its photograph made me homesick. The falling leaves and frosted foliage will make you understand that something has come to an end. It is the symbol of the end of the stage of argument. What next? We are in the stage of surrender, but how to bring the actual throwing up of hands, the handing over of the sword, is too much for my reform mind. My mental apparatus is fixed for argument and there is nothing left to say or do. Think it out Mary and send me a plan. Send it not later than Oct 31. You will have to pay 3 cts on it after that. Yes the war has psychologized the nation and depression, anxiety, doubt has taken the place of normal living and thinking. A cloud is over us all. And dear Lady of the beautiful garden, it is going to be here a good long while. When the nation emerges from the cloud, some of us won't be here. Are there any farms with brooks on them and trees and orchards and a man who can take care of them? How would like me for a neighbor? It is too far away from my workshop to tell the truth but I'd love to hide away till it is all over. I seem to be both a slacker and a coward. Don't tell. They will jail me. I see Alice Paul is in for 7 months. Poor little misguided idiot. I suppose she will try the hunger fast. It is time for something new. Lovingly C.C.C CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT 2 WEST 86th ST. NEW YORK April 14, 1918 Sunday My dear Mary Peck: I despair of finding opportunity to write you a real letter. After you have sent me about six presents it is my noble custom to write you a collective note of thanks. The six have been duly received, the climax being the maple sugar which I like better than any other thing --to eat. It got boiled according to your directions and canned on the day of its arrival. Further I have given orders that no one shall have any of it when I am not at home! No gift was ever more appreciated nor more cruelly received. Still, you keep on forgiving me and sending more despite my various Kaisarian edicts that gifts should cease. Your letters rather infrequent of late, are always read, appreciated - and neglected. But Mary Peck, I live a dog's life. I haven't time to tell you all my troubles either. They are making a law down in Washington which may lead to tar and feathers for those who criticise the Senate in time of war. My real conviction isn't fit for print and isn't worth a coat of feathers so I refrain. Tomorrow I go to Indianapolis for the Executive Council meeting where we are going to adopt ratification plans and also plans for Congressional elections when and if that old Senate doesn't do the right thing. The war news is as black as can be. Washington thinks we are in for 3 or 4 years and I think Germany will invade us! Who would think all these horrors could happen in our generation. We must establish the matriarchate again and bottle up these belligerent male creatures who will at each others threats if allowed too much freedom! What do you say. Maybe a threat of that sort would bring the Kaiser to repentance. Really Mary P. I do hereby solemnly contract to write you a letter -- soon. This is only an apology for its delay. Lovingly C C Catt April 22, 1918 CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT 2 WEST 87th ST. NEW YORK My dear Mary: Don't faint away. This letter doesn't count. It does make me a little homesick to hear about your garden but is a sweet kind of homesickness so you needn't stop. You see, I came of a line of farmers. I suspect it leads back to the time when my ancesters played you yours in the trees hanging by their tails. So when the spring comes to the whole long line cry for a chance to dig in the earth. You are right, it is the plants which you have "borned" that are lovable. I should like your garden, but I'd like my own better were it only half so nice. We agree on that. I get on very well being a city dweller in winter but it is awfully hard to stick to mental grind during the summer and I'd give most anything I own for the privilege to shake it all off and flee to a farm where I could dig undisturbed all summer. But I cannot and if I could, there is no peace of soul for anyone who knows how to read these days. I have just finished reading Gerard's second book. I had read the first and then I accepted an invitation to go to my first movie and see Gerard's pictures. I went and came home more moved that I've been yet by this brutish think then I topped it off by reading Dang the Hillis! German {?} that has so unsettled my mind, that I think I shall be put into an asylum after I've read Braud {?} story, Belgium which I propose to do before I go to bed. This, then is the farewell of a mind departing, unhinged and thrown on the scrap heap by shock. It is quite possible that you and I will be paying indemnity to that of Berlin because we couldn't heal him. It is proper to say that we will win. We all thought so in the beginnign, but brave minds won't do it. I don't see how it is to be done. Have you read Gerards' book? I'll send if you haven't I will not sent Hillis! It is too terrible!!! Lovingly Carrie C. Catt April 23, 1918 My dear Mary I am sure you thought when you rec'd my note of a few days ago that the promised letter would never follow - but here it is. All last week was spent in going coming and staying by the Indiana apotis meeting. It went well. There was one day of Board meeting and two of Executive Council. There was the State Suffrage Convention and a {?} Committee of the Council of Defense resuming about he same time with the result that quite a splash was made there and at the same time we were let alone to conduct our business. We have plans to ratify when and if there is something to ratify and plans for making trouble in the elections if we do not get through the women were earnest able and more satisfactory and around than was once the case. I feel gratified with the results (which were not for the public because we have coppered at the chances. But my dear Mary life is hard these days. As you run our movement stands now on four corporate logo. The N.A.W.S.A itself, the Pub. Co.; the Lestil Commission, the Citizen. I am president of three. I have recently received on distribution from the Leslie estate about $200 over face value of real estate and mortgages. All the property is out of repair - most unaccountably so, mostly unreuted and is about the worst luck I ever drew from fate. That however is added to the others and that house in Washington with its attendant senatinal problem is an ever present nightmare. If I had a garden like yours to walk in and romance about, it would be a happy release, but as I havn't my only recreation is going to bed rather early and reading a war book which is usually something about German atrocities. My lot is a hard one, is it not and I have't sense enough to extricate myself! Washington presents a study in psychology which should tempt the genius of some master of the pen. I'd like him (her or it), to let me tell him what I know about the Senate and let him dress it up in appropriate humor and cynicism. It would be barred from the mails, but it would be fun nevertheless. Our [xxx] tale runs this: a senator was for many years a bachelor who lived two summers on a country place. On either side lived a widow each of whom, the State declares set her cap for him. One widow was Mrs. Dodge expresident of the Ladies Opposed, the other was a suffragist. After twenty years, he proposed to the companion of the suffragist who is neutral on the subject. He had know her at the time but could not make up his mind which of the three he wanted or perhaps he proposed to the two widows first and took what was left. Now he says he wishes he could be in Turkey when that vote is taken! If he votes yes, there is Mrs. Dodge to the left of him, and if he votes no there is Mrs. Wood to the right of him. We expect him to run away. for a man who took 20 years to discover whether he wanted to marry a girl or not, will not be able to decide so momentous a question as to whether Mrs. Wood shall have political liberty or Mrs Dodge political slavery. This is only one take Each of the 96 has one as interesting. I have been laboring with indigestion occasioned by eating strawberry shortcake on a dining car. The strawberries were good and so was the cream, but the crust was a victory pattern. The ingredients were equal parts of sand, corn meal and shrapnel. I am about over it now, but the victory brads are likely to drive us all to early immortality. I see our dear Senior Senator is spoken of for Governor. I sincerely hope he will stand for it No cat even shook a mouse with more malicious delight than certain women will go after him. I'd circumnavigate the globe to get here to do my bit. That Wadsworth dare seem to be as blind as bats. They belong to the same brew as the Kaiser. that was pitiful - the fate of the clean up Castile lady! I hope the garden will smile on you through a long summer. I'd like a farm like yours with a chance to live on it but I'll never have it now. My nose is on the grind stone and there it stays til I'm done for. I really envy you. How will you trade jobs for awhile? You stir my maddening desires when you describe that garden of yours. Unless you plan to send me to limbo even before my time, don't do it anymore. These are cruel times are they not? No one can get away from the m[xx]ony of them Even in your quiet garden you cannot forget the millions of young men, some near here sons who have given up their lives to satisfy what Mr. Gerard calls the "Ring business" and perhaps that sacrifices is the least that the world is making. Whatever can [??] find to punish him. He had his six [k?]inglets can never be put off on an Elbe or St. Helena Any punishment human beings can devise would prove too gentle to fit the crime. Nevertheless women are coming out unto their own when it is over. - unless they debase themselves in worship of the few specimens remaining of "man the noblest work of God." It would be interesting to live in your garden for a hundred years and watch the happenings of the next century. I got your Indianapolis letter for which accept my acknowledgements This is a letter. There will be no more for a t[xx]lor month. Lovingly, CC Catt CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT 2 WEST 86th St. New York July 10, 1918 My dear Mary: I believe I should begin at cherries, a basket of which was received while I was at Washington and they had disappeared where cherries are supposed to go before my return. Annie wanted to know if I would not like five or six for my lunch! Whereupon she was staggered by my bold demand for all that remained and no one around here saw them again except me. When I returned from the seat of our Salons of great vision I found two books. Are you never going to stop? Well I've acquired as graft one of those boxes the Equal Franchise libraries handled in and I've packed it with books for my vacation. The Virgin is there but Andes will wait for the case is packed chiefly much nice gruesome war books which I must read because I am helping on a leaflet. I do not know how to thank you for you ought not to do these extravagant things. I want you to save your money to buy votes for the Democratic candidate to succeed the Senior Senator! I wish I could exact a promise to send me no more gifts. How can I manage it? No living mortal knows what that Senate is going to do or when! They are now so busy hating the president because he wouldn't let them go home that they won't do anything he wants till they get over it. We have no chance at a vote before the last of August unless the unexpected happens, so I shall go to Lake Mohonk, Mohawk Mountain House, from July 20 - Aug 10 on a vacation - that is if nothing blows out or up before we start M G H goes too. I am going to Chatauqua next week for two days and M. G. H. is going as a delegate to the [?] Republican Convention! Wadsworth will be another! He will not approve of her being there and she will not approve of his being there - so they are on equal terms. I have found a place - not a farm - a sort of play place for tired souls that I am in love with and want. It is on the Hudson and they say it is hot. It is a little one of three acres but it is all hills and dells and looks bigger. There are lots of spots where one could hide and it has some beautiful trees, but I have no time to buy it and no time to move into it and no time to live in it anyway. If it will only keep until I can call a convention and an election I'll have it and shall then expect dissertations on how to raise a garden. Don't send them in advance I ought to say that I have sold a piece of property and so have a little money, not much, toward "my farm" Isn't it tantalizing that I cannot deposit it on this little Fairyland! Well, when the war's over, if I am still here, and able to crawl, then I, then, there will be a farm. Lovingly C. C. C. Wednesday Oct. 24, 1918 Miss Pan Pick, Dear Miss: Since you "want a great adventure, a reckless thrill" you shall have one. If you carry out successfully this first assignment to thrill-duty you shall go to the next International as chief of the American Delegation with all your expenses paid and your trousseau supplied to boot. You are a chauffeur; you say you would like to drive a tank. There are a few slow ones around the country. Probably there are some in Washington. Get one. Find a pal to stand near the exit of the Senate who will raise her hand when the group appear that we are after. Then drive like mad. I'll bail you out and see that the charge was reckless driving! Some such proof of your fitness for international affairs is needed and [the] der allerHocchste cannot consent to consider your plea for international honor unless they are forthcoming. A campaign was starting yesterday in N. Jersey--anti Baird, one in N.H.--anti Moses and a paper campaign, we will send you a copy is going to Idaho to [?] it deep-- anti [?]--and one is on in Mass-- anti [?]. I suspect they wil all end as wil the anti-Gould. But those laugh best who last [?] and we wil shake up the dry bones anyway. You tell Eliza that if the Death Angel 2 don't reap me I shall reap the Deacon's apples on a real farm. No meetings allowed anywhere so I am no where but stirring up devilry in the anticamptaigns. It's a pity women so nearly match men in the fool business. You are a great old gusher and you can no more help lying than a poet or a campaign-hence you are forgiven. I am actually writing this in office hours. The stenographer awaits, hence Goodnight C.C.C. Tuesday Oct 15, 1918 CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT 2 WEST 86TH ST. NEW YORK My dear Mary: I hereby acknowledge receipt of three letters and two parcels by post + some before the actual number of which I forget. I entirely missed the point in Letter No 1, for which Letter No 2 was an apology. My feelings are much like those of a rhinoceros. Yesterday I told the treasurer, Mrs. Rogers that she had insulted me about 10 days ago and that I didn't know it until four days afterwards. You may always be certain that if the apology reaches me within a week after, the injury, that it will be probable that I have not yet comprehended that there was an injury. Those apples and tomatoes and nuts are a great old gift. The Tallman sweets were cooked immediately and formed our Sunday desert. They came pretty near being done right. When they began to swell up, I popped in the oven, and lo! they were covered with sugar! The cook got scolded and was made to scrape it all off! That cook knows more than anybody could tell her anyway. We used to have those sweets when I was a child and so I know all about them. But I never ate a better apple and I doubt if as good as Deacon Ezra Jones. There were many varieties in the old days that were better than those we get in the market, but most orchards got killed off by something or other the Kaiser sent over, and the new commercial orchards are composed of varieties which keep--keepers vs eaters has outsted the eaters. There were golden brown russets, and juicy snow apples, and early Junes, etc. I suppose forward farmers like you still have such varieties in hiding. Now see here, you said you lived next to a nursery man. Of course he has apple trees. Why can't he graft one with a Deacon Ezra for me? If should be as big as possible in two years and then I'll buy it for my farm. I'm looking for it all the time. It must have a view--any kind will do, a babbling brook a good and fertile garden plot, an orchard with much variety but not for commercial purposes all the small fruit there is and a pasture for my cow. There must be a place for a farmer to live. As to a place for my family, a tent will do. I would like some woods and certainly a few fine trees. Do you know such a place? The farmer would have to be sealed to the farm for life and his wife would have to cook as well as Eliza. The family residence if there was one must have a sleeping porch and a bath room, nothing else essential. While you are roaming around after Gould you might make a commission farm selling. No. I forgot, I had a little money ready for my farm but it has gone into Liberty Bonds. No, I cannot buy till the war is over. That will be not later than 1919. Then I must get out of the N.A.W.S.A. and jack up the International and I shall be ready for Deacon Ezra. I don't know what you said about the feebleness of my advancing years, but there is truth in the hint that I could not do farming myself as I once could but I can boss the job so long as I have a leg left to limp around on. More, a round dozen of my female ancestresses and near relatives to them lived at least 34 years longer than I have lived yet! Clara was certainly impertinent to order a box of tommytoes for me. As I have informed all the rest of the world except you. I paid a man $10 to examine my smears and say I had the influenza and found it well worth it. I got a hyperdermic serum and that modified the malady, so that I really enjoyed myself. I went to the office yesterday; I am trying to throw a speech together today and tomorrow I'm off for Oklahoma unless they wire that meetings are closed. I am all right but tired as Peters wife's mother. Yes I've read and reread Gibbons but so long ago I fear it is like some Bible tales, I ought to remember and don't. At any rate I do remember that the Teutons wiped out the Roman Empire but I had the impression it deserved to go. I thought it was strong on archelestians and art and weak on morals and democracy. I hadn't learned to lay the Dark Ages to the Kaiser but if but if it can be done, by all means let him have the punishment for it. Immortality is necessary to arrange for an appropriate penalty for his misdeeds. You need not worry about that President of ours. He was slow to arouse but he's on the war trail now and he will smash things German far more effectivelly than any Ally would have dared. Why can't that little weakling, descendant of George the 3rd abdicate and set a good example? Yes, it is a pity women are not in it more completely, but the war is going to put them in it. Let us be content with that. But the real dread is here. Wilson is a strong character and a big man in truth. I remember Mrs. Potter had a great admiration for him . But the men in line for succession are the merest shrimps. If anything happened to him, God help the world. More if Lodge gets control of things by a change of politics, move to Canada! There is a type of reactionary Republican and a type of Democratic recatinary. They differ in their symptoms. The Democrate is like a Pterodactyl just wading around in his marsh, but the Republican is like a Leopard, as far behind the times as the other, but master of all he surveys. Gould and Wadsworth, Lodge and Brandiger-- beware. They are doubtful improvements on the Kaiser! Now, I must go back to my speech. I am grateful at the rate of 3 apples per day and 4 tomatoes per meal for the wonderful boxes. I have certainly enjoyed your report on Gould. I am glad another vampire has settled near him. A change from asties is sometimes helpful. Lovingly, Carrie C. Catt Dec. 1918 My dear Mary: I do not know what became of that letter. At any rate, I had begun to tell you that all the household got drunk on that cider, for the ferment bugs got stirred up by the jolts of the journey down and were going like mad when they arrived. It was all right however, for none of us got out on the street, and were not run in, although we should have been! When I get that farm I shall have a cider mill too. If I had an Eliza and a John to watch for it wouldn't take long to find the farm. You have placed an order for a Christmas present, and if you should receive a fair return for all the nice things you have sent down here, you would receive a [?] [?], a Packard and an aerplane. But, alas, I am tied fast to that Senate and not only have no time for Christmas shopping and no spirit for Christmas thinking. We have to move in the spring and so I began preparations by thinning out my books and one hundred of them will go forth to other shelves as a substitute for gifts. Did you ever hear of any old tight wad with a keener sense of economy? Well you will get a pack and that is all M. G. H will get. If you do not like them, pass them on. They were all chosen with special reference to your tastes and your needs! Please keep them til xmas and make believe you have something worthwhile. We have a petition to Moses, (not he of the bulrushes, but he of the N. H. short term), from the Legislature of N. H and it now lacks only 11 of being two thirds of both houses. No publicity has been given out yet. We intended to present it to His Nibs on Friday last, get his promise of support and go to the bat before Christmas and what do you think prevented? Well, the influenza caught the gentleman tight and took him down to the door of pneumonia and he isn't able to see anyone yet! We are camping on his doorstep and as soon as the doctor permits we are in. Did you ever see such luck. It is getting on my nerves and I'm beginning to think Gott nicht mit uns. A special delivery of instructions must get off to Washington tonight, so here comes the end thereof. Lovingly, CCCatt Sunday Eve. Christmas 1918 Dear Mary: A mighty box arrived three or four days ago. It didn't say keep, but kept it was and opened this morning. A few apples went into my bureau drawers which is, you'll admit a country trick. They are luscious. The jar looks as though it contains something luscious, but the test wil come later. I certainly need powder leaves and have had none since the war began. I was obliged to [?] up that shameful card quick before other eyes should behold it. Shame, shame, naughty Mary. It was a bounteous Christmas and I give thanks in meek submission to the obstinacy with which I have coped in the effort to save your gold from being spent on me. But when you learned that my weak place was my stomach, just like a man's, I surrendered. I shall now agree to accept everything that comes and cry for more! We had give orphans for dinner. Mrs. Park, Mrs. Harper, Mrs. Shuler, Miss Shuler, and my niece Ruhe. We sent them home eary and all the giftors will be thanked by the giftee before bed time in order that I may resume the grind tomorrow without hindrance Happy New Year to you! Lovingly CCCatt Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.