NAWSA GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE International Woman's Suffrage Alliance - 1945 Dear Mrs. Ashby and Mrs. Bompas: Sometime ago, Mrs. Ashby wrote to say that she thought it a pity that the United States was not represented on the Board of the International Alliance and she asked if there was not some way to which appointees could do service in such capacity. I now announce that the following two women will accept the position of advisory or auxiliary members of the Board and will be prepared, when the time comes, to take up correspondence with your representatines in reference to any matter which concerns the opinions of women in after-war policies. Mrs. F. Louis Slade, 49 East 67th Street, New York, N.Y. Judge Dorothy Kenyon, 50 Broadway, New York, N.Y Mrs. Slade's husband is rather frail in health and it might be possible that his serious illness, or even death, might, at the moment when she was most needed, interfere with her service, but if that be true, and I'm still living, I will see that another woman is appointed in her place; however, I hope it will be possible for her to serve for I know of no woman better equipped the office. I need not mention Dorothy Kneyon's history, because, as an appointee of the League of Nations, you know her status full well. Both Mrs. Slade and Miss Kenyon are broad-minded, fully informed about the rights and privileges of women and they are favorable to advance liberal plans for a better world. In a letter to you and Mrs. Ashby, dated June 16, 1942, and a letter to Mrs. Ashby , dated August 19, 1942, I answered an earlier request received from Mrs. Ashby. She had thought it might be possible that the English officers of the Alliance might be bombed to death and that there would be no one to call the International Alliance into action. She suggested that we have a committee in this country to serve in an auxiliary capacity. At that time, I asked the Board of the National American Woman Suffrage Association to name a committee. They named Mrs. Raymond Brown, 55 East 76th Street, New York, NY. (A very able woman and the former editor of The Woman Citizen for many years.) Mrs. F. Louis Slade, 49 East 67th Street, New York, N.Y. Miss Anna Lord Straus, 16 East 64th Street, New York, N.Y. (A grand- daughter of Lucretia Mott and the president of the New York City Leave of Women Voters.) These women were appointed to take my place in the event there was no one in England to call the International Alliance and it was their business to do so. I think they understand that, but if they do not, it does not matter if all of them are called up to serve as advisers for anything wanted when the time comes. As I am growing on towards eighty-five years and infirmities, you cannot depend upon me for assistance. I am intensely interested in all that is going on and I suppose that will be true as long as I breath. I do not now believe there is any danger of accidents befalling the officers of the Alliance in England. So far as Europe is concerned, I firmly believe the war will come to an end within a year. The arrangements, afterwards, are going to be harder, more complicated, and far more difficult than we dreamed possible at the beginning. I am sure you good people must be virtually exhausted and I think the whole world might be included in that description. May fate treat you kindly and find a way to give you some rest. With best wishes to you always, Very cordially yours, CCC:HW. June 20, 1943 My dear Mrs. Bompas: I have today received your circular letter, dated April 30, 1943, on the status of women, in which you indicate that the Liaison Committee of women's international organizations has passed five resolutions of things to be presented to the re-builders of the world when the war is at an end. I was surprised at these resolutions. I think the statement are weak and not at all commensurate with the needs of the hour. The first resolution should have been a statement that women make their primary demand upon the re-builders of the would to find the means of settling all differences between nations by peaceful means and to abolish war forever. Perhaps the second should be a resolve that in the event men are not able to rise to such height of power and nobility as to discover the means of abolishing war then, in the event that war does come again, women should be protected by international law as non- combatants and that any attack made by any member of an army upon their honor, their freedom, their property, should be regarded as a war crime to be punished when the war is over by court martial. The third resolve should have been the demand for the immediate return to the women of all occupied nations of the rights and privileges which their own people had formerly extended to them. (As most of these nations had given their women the vote, the return of it would be included by these terms.) These three things are much more fundamental than any of the five resolutions the Liaison Committee passed. The only reason I make these comments is that I fear that when the time comes for a body of some sort to meet with the responsibility of taking steps for the re-making of the world, it will omit, as usual, the fundamental things and pick up superficial problems and make plans to solve them. We are all going to be hungry when the war is over and, probably, the first thing talked about will be food. It is very important, but quite superficial as compared with plans which will make certain that people will not be hungry at some future time from the same cause. As I cannot be present, even in the fringe of the petitioners of that time, I am putting in my protest now. What a comfort it would be to the old men and women octogenarians if they could begin life again with the vigor and hope of thirty years and the knowledge and experience of eighty. In that event, things might really get done. For example, a radio interview with the British Ambassador the other day alluded to the recent death of his son in some air battle and he, himself, mentioned I thought, -- how can a man, with most of his life behind him, think hopefully and joyfully of the future with such tragedies in his memory. What a world this is and what idiots we all are to permit war to destroy everything we care for. Very cordially, CCC:HW. INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FOR SUFFRAGE & EQUAL CITIZENSHIP 45 Kingsway, Wembley, Middlesex 20th May 1943 Dear Madam, As a member of the Liaison Committee of Women's International Organizations, the Alliance sends you the enclosed Resolution which speaks for itself. Our representatives took part in many of the deputations to representatives of Governments in this country, and we hope that you may be able to follow up in your own country the effort thus made to make governments aware of the claims of women to a proper status and a real share in their national life. Yours truly, Katherine Bompas Secretary LIASON COMMITTEE OF WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS. Resolution passed at a Meeting of the Committee held on Friday, April 30th, 1943. STATUS OF WOMEN. The Liaison Committee of Women's International Organisations realises, from a study of the results of the deputations to representatives of Allied and Neutral Governments in London, carried out during 1942 and 1943, that there is little actual hostility to the principle of equality of status between men and women, but rather that there is ignorance of the facts as regards the status of women, lack of understanding of women's demands and little recognition of the fact in all nations there is a great wastage of woman power, a wastage highly detrimental to national development and prosperity. An immediate example of such wastage is the exclusion of women in the planning and organisation of post-war reconstruction. The Committee also realises that apathy among women themselves largely contributes to the above ignorance and lack of understanding and acts also as a bar to the achievement of equal status, even in countries where the equality of the sexes is recognised in the Constitution. In order to dispel the above conditions the Committee urges upon its constituent members and, more particularly, upon their national constituents, to redouble their efforts in the following directions: - 1) to make the status of women a vital political issue immediately and until full equality is achieved. 2) to press for the full representation of women, both in the permanent administration in their own countries and in all national and international bodies set up for the planning and organisation of post-war reconstruction. 3) to give the widest publicity to the present situation in order to rouse women to press for equal citizenship and to infuse into them a stronger sense of the duties implied in such citizenship. 4) to press for the abolition of all disabilities placed upon women which may be still existing in their own country. 5) to work for the recognition of the right to earn of all women, whether married or unmarried, on equal terms with men. 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