NAWSA GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE Wells, Marguerite. M. November 14, 1939 Miss Marguerite Wells, National League of Women Voters, 726 Jackson Place, Washington, D. C. My dear Miss Wells: I gave the Smithsonian Institution the names and dates of the four presidents who had served the National American Woman Suffrage Association, so mine should be similar and ought to read: CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION 1900-1904; also, 1915- I am greatly honored that you are providing a plate for the portrait; that is quite grand. I am very sorry that I cannot be there, although I think if I were I would be quite embarrassed. The framer has been long in delivering the photograph, but it arrived last night and is being forwarded to you today With all good wishes, Most sincerely yours, CCC:T November 21, 1939. Miss Marguerite M. Wells, 726 Jackson Place, Washington, D. C. Dear Miss Wells: Concerning the portrait: I have a letter from Mrs. Stanley McCormick directed to Mr. Wetmore Assistant Secretary of the United States National Museum in which she says that the portrait was presented by the Committee which raised the money for it to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, who owned it, and that it is now presented as a gift to the Institute. I think her letter does not altogether agree with the paragraph which appeared in the New York Tribune the other day which stated that the League of Women Voters had presented it to the Smithsonian Institution. However, between the two, it is certainly properly presented to the Institution as a gift and that is what they are so insistent upon. They are afraid that somebody, some time, after everything is forgotten, will pop up and demand the return of some article that is in the Museum. I think that settles the matter. I will forward Mrs. McCormick's letter to Mr. Wetmore and I think that is the end of it. The whole difficulty is that there was no exchange of letters concerning the portrait. I never knew how this picture got to the League of Women Voters. I had had a letter sometime ago from Mrs. McCormick, stating that it was to go to the Smithsonian. Then came the letter from Mr. Wetmore, saying the League said it was their gift. I think we must all learn a lesson from this experience and it is,that we should not rely upon telephone conversations, talks, or understandings without confirming letters. At any rate, it is all settled now. I thank you most appreciatively for the great honor paid me in whatever was done at the Smithsonian Institution the other day. Will you tell me just what was on the name plate that was placed on the portrait? Very sincerely yours, National League of Women Voters 726 Jackson Place Washington, D. C. Miss Marguerite M. Wells President May 16, 1934 Miss Alice Stone Blackwell 3 Monadnock Street Dorchester, Massachusetts My dear Miss Blackwell: It is one of the honors of my new position as the president of the National League of Women Voters to write to thank you for your greetings extended to the National League at their convention in Boston. Words can hardly tell you how much those words of greeting did for the dele-gates and how grateful we were to you for uttering them. I must say to you also that your presence there through so many sessions was inspiring. With warmest personal regards and with appreciation and gratitude in the name of the League, I am Very sincerely yours, Marguerite M Wells President MMW:M Miss Wells writes of a dangerous illusion and what the League of Women Voters is doing about it. Quod Erat Demonstrandum Marguerite M. Wells WHEN seeking to distinguish between democracy and certain other forms of gov-ernment, it is easy to say that in one the individual exists for the State, in the other the State exists for the individual. Pushed too far, such a distinction has led to the de-lusion that in a democracy the individual owes the State nothing; since he does not exist for the State, he has no responsibility for the State. If this were true, free in-dividuals all urging upon government their own separate special interests would automatically generate a successful democratic State. The contrary is true. No great undertaking was ever achieved without heart and soul devotion to it. No undertaking is greater than that of main-taining the collective life of free individuals. It cannot be achieved unless some part of the fruits of freedom are plowed back into the soil that produces freedom. A democratic State cannot survive unless some por-tion of the wisdom and ability and right-eousness men develop when they are free is directed to the State itself. The sad world upon which Americans look out today presents no example of successful democracy. On the one hand there are nations who have gone before the on-slaught of democracy's enemies, weakened within by the conflicts and confusions of special interests. These did not bring them-selves in time to make the free-will offer-ing a democratic State requires of its citi-zens. Here in our country there is still time to profit by the sight of failure elsewhere. Yet, nowhere has the illusion been more wide-spread than here that free individuals need assume no responsibility for the State, as though out of the crucible of conflicting separate interests, by some strange alchemy a good government could emerge. Ameri-cans, of all people the most adept in co-operating in joint efforts in behalf of special interests, have failed in responsibility for the one interest which all citizens share-- the democratic State. They have neglected that responsibility but they are not unequal to it. In our country individual freedom, incomplete though it may be, has furnished forth the stuff out of which an American democratic State can be fashioned. Here an almost in-finite store of commonsense and right feel-ing has developed out of freedom to think and act and speak and worship as each in-dividual chooses. Here it may still be maintained that the instinct of the people can be trusted. Here vox populi does some-times seem to be vox Dei. Given an oppor-tunity for a plain yes or no, the people's answer is usually clear and intelligent; but the opportunity must be given by those who will frame honest and simple questions to which assent or dissent may be given. Such are the leaders. All the right feeling and commonsense, the wisdom and righteousness of free individuals will fail to create a wise and righteous collective life unless our col-lective enterprise is focused and led. Thus the lesson given Americans to learn is that the democratic State, though it does not demand all of its citizens, does demand something. For twenty years the League of Women Voters has sought to prove that citizens with the interest of the State at heart do exist. To make the demonstration crystal clear, it has refrained from identifying itself with special economic interests, since their relationship to government is also partial. What needed proving has been that a sense of responsibility for our democratic gov-ernment does exist and that it can become effective. To prove it for a few is to prove its possibilities for many. Every League member is helping to make that proof. To her is dedicated this Magazine named for her, the Member's Magazine. 3 Marguerite Wells Pleasant? Vord? Votes and Vetoes REPUBLICAN and Democratic national platforms bear the imprint of League of Women Voters influence. Promoting two planks, one pledging the parties to abolish the spoils system and to substitute a genuine merit system, and the other on scientific tariff making in the public interest, League representatives were so much in evidence in Philadelphia and Chicago. Mrs. James W. Morrison of Connecticut spoke for the League at the Republican Convention; Mrs. LaRue Brown of Boston and Mrs. Louise Leonard Wright of Chicago, at the Democratic Convention. Both parties made a declaration on the merit system and on tariff. Neither accepted all of the ideas in the League planks. * * * Candidates for the Congress -- Representatives and Senators -- are having to do some heavy thinking to bring forth comments on the League's "Questions on Public Policy." The first question asked can be summed up: "Here's our foreign policy. What's yours?" Questions on government administration have stumped some of the candidates, interested others, and generally stimulated earnest thinking since no trite answer could be made. Government personnel should be selected under a merit system, say most candidates who have replied; others frankly admit they believe parties must have some patronage to exist; some want broad exemptions from the federal civil service system; few have any very helpful suggestions to make for improving the merit system. Later and more complete results may change these summaries. League questions are put for a two-fold purpose: to inform the candidates and to help League members judge among them. * * * Every League member may have a chance to attend a Campaign School in plans proposed by the National League are executed by state and local Leagues. What ideas do you have on your relationship to your representative in Congress? What significance does a presidential election have in relation to the foreign policy of the United States? What place do you think political parties have or should have in the American scheme of government? You will have a chance to (Continued on page 5) Our Day Letters Over the National Desk Wisconsin--Am enclosing some clippings. The one regarding the discontinuance of the legal status department appeared on the obituary page! Indiana--A particularly interesting angle of the state convention was our press. We were covered by eight newspapers and the United Press. At a time when papers were crowded with distressing foreign news, we received an enormous amount of space and several times made page one. Massachusetts --(Apropos of candidates' questionnaires) One candidate said he thought it was a poor time to be asking questions "just before an election." Kentucky--I'm so proud of the accomplishments of our League in vacation time. I believe we are going to live through our "awkward age." Canada--A small group of which I am a member has been meeting and studying regularly here in Toronto with the object of later organizing and operating along lines similar to those outlined in the Reader's Digest article, "Women Voters on the Job." Will you send us material? Michigan--We secured the signatures adequate to put Civil Service Constitutional Amendment on the sate ballot in November, and the Michigan League is all set to get all citizens to vote for this. You see we have plenty to do as usual. A contributor--Surely the League organization is one of the brightest spots on a rather bleak horizon! It seems to me that about the best investment possible these days is a contribution to the work you are doing. Colorado--In making the interviews, we have been received with the most flattering eagerness and the League platform planks have had respectful attention and consideration by the majority of the delegates to both conventions. Alaska--Just a line to tell you we have taken our first flying leap toward starting a League of Women Voters in Alaska. Christian Service Monitor June 15 1940 Bringing Knowledge to Politics by Stanley High I DOUBT WHETHER any organization in the country is so effective an asset to the forces of good government, or so troublesome a thorn in the sides of way- ward politicians, as the League of Women Voters. In 550 American communities, these intelligent, energetic and devoted women have done things, especially in the field of local government, out of all proportion to their numbers and resources. The League started in 1920, shortly after women got the vote, when Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, foremost of their leaders, proposed that women organize to make their voting count for better gov- ernment. The result was the League of Women Voters. Its purpose was announced in the battle cry: "Arise, women voters of East and West, of North and South, strong of faith, fearless of spirit; let the nation hear you pledge all that you have and all that you are to a new crusade, a national crusade that shall not end until the electorate is intelligent and clean." That this goal is not yet reached is evident from the zeal, the courage and the not infrequent breathlessness with which members of the League continue to pursue it. But the record of their pur- suit shows how much a handful of citi- zens can accomplish when they really try. For only a few hundred thousand (official membership figures are not divulged) out of twenty million women voters belong to the League. < < < The stir which the League makes is chiefly a matter of method and hard work. From better city jails to reforms in state finances, on up the political scale to the activities, in Washington, of the Women's Joint Congressional Com- mittee (the "Women's Lobby") it is League technique and the unremitting labor of its members that enable it to move in, successfully, where politicians fear or fail to tread. Though exclusively political, the League is sternly nonpartisan. Its members are representative of most of the rungs of the economic ladder and of all parties. But it only backs policies, never candidates. The only ax it grinds is that of good gov- ernment. Its own officers, when they be- [...???] [Image of Marguerite M. Wells.] © Harris & Ewing MARGUERITE M. WELLS President of the National League of Women Voters at every session of the State Civil Service Commission during the entire four years between 1935 and 1939—a watchful eye- ing which the chief personnel officer of the Civil Service Commission testifies was beneficial to the entire system. League deputations sat, notebooks in hand, through each session of the 61-day meeting of last year's Indian State Legislature, and now Indiana's 21 local Leagues are making definite suggestions as to simplification. Nearly all of the legislatures, in states where the League is organized, are subjected to similar scrutiny. In the 46 League communities in Illinois, it is an established practice to have members on hand for every meeting of the local town councils. When, in looking into the city's sewer system, a League committee in Columbia, Mo., applied to the City Engineer for maps and an explanation, he provided both— with the comment that this was the first such request in 20 years. A year later, a bond issue was authorized for moderniz- ing and extending the system. The mere knowledge that they are being watched by these tireless, intelligent women surely has a salutary effect on public officials. < < < In a number of states, the League is the largest steady market for official state documents. Last year a Governor's commission in Connecticut brought in a report on the reorganization of the State government. It was voluminous. A legis- lator, on the floor of the State Senate, held a copy aloft for his colleague to see: "Nobody will ever take the time to read all that," he said, "unless it is the League of Women Voters." The League had already read it. Indeed, it had conducted a State-wide contest for the best re- organization plan and more than 30 Leagues had drawn up proposals. A few days after the official plan appeared, the League presented the Legislature with bills to carry some of its proposals into effect. At present the most complex League study is taxation. This project was launched with a general survey published by the national League under the title: "How Should Government Be Financed?" Its purpose was "not to tell the voter what divulged, out of twenty ? women voters belong to the League. < < < The stir which the League makes is chiefly a matter of method and hard work. From better city jails to reforms in state finances, on up the political scale to the activities, in Washington, of the Women's Joint Congressional Committee (the "Women's Lobby") it is League technique and the unremitting labor of its members that enable it to move in, successfully, where politicians fear or fail to tread. Though exclusively political, the League is sternly nonpartisan. Its members are representative of most of the rungs of the economic ladder and of all parties. But it backs policies, never candidates. The only ax it grinds is that of good government. Its own officers, when they become political candidates, resign their League position. This does not mean that parties and candidates are no concern of the League. On the contrary, more than 10 years ago, the Cleveland League adopted the pre-election practice of inviting rival candidates--some of whom had never met before--to expound their arguments from the same platform. That is now a nation-wide procedure. Before last fall's municipal election, the League of Cambridge, Mass., queried the 150 candidates for local offices as to their qualifications in education and experience. Without waiting for follow-up letters, all 150 replied. Their answers were mimeographed and distributed, without comment, to the city's 27,000 women voters. In Springfield, Mass., at the request of the editor of the Springfield Union, the biographical material gathered by the League was turned into thumb-nail sketches and printed as a daily pre-election feature. Some such nonpartisan "Who's Who" is a League project in most communities. This interest in party government and its officials does not lapse between elections. During a recent Congressional holiday, the Oklahoma League organized deputations to call, in their home towns, on each of the State's Washington representatives "to remind him of the League and what it stands for." < < < First and foremost, what the League stands for is digging up facts. Accordingly, last year there were more than 5,000 study and discussion groups, some meeting only a few times, others once a week through the entire winter. On major issues, as a starter for these groups, the national League provides "working kits" which contain introductory literature. Some 60,000 pieces of such documentary material were sent out last year. This information is brought down to cases by the fact-finding which the State and local Leagues do on their own. It is likely to be exhaustive. Because Civil Service was on its agenda, the California League has a deputation in attendance THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, JUNE 15, 1940 Bottom of a photo of Marguerite Wells with copyright by Harris & Ewing; caption reads: MARGUERITE M. WELLS, President of the League of Women Voters Photo montage of four women with copyright by Harris & Ewing, Wide World; caption reads: LEADER EMERITUS, AND LEADERS ACTIVE Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt (Center), Pioneer Suffrage Leader. In 1936 the National League of Women Voters Renewed Their Demands for a Complete Merit System. Pictured Above, Left to Right: Mrs. Robert A. Taft, Miss Marguerite M. Wells, President of the League, and Miss Anna Lord Strauss, Second Vice-President commission in Connecticut brought in a report on the reorganization of the State government. It was voluminous. A legislator, on the floor of the State Senate, held a copy aloft for his colleague to see: "Nobody will ever take the time to read all that," he said, "unless it is the League of Women Voters." The League had already read it. Indeed, it had conducted a State-wide contest for the best re-organization plan and more than 30 Leagues had drawn up proposals. A few days after the official plan appeared, the League presented the Legislature with bills to carry some of its proposals into effect. At present the most complex League study is taxation. This project was launched with a general survey published by the national League under the title: "How Should Government Be Financed?" Its purpose was "not to tell the voter what views to hold but to point out what he needs to know before he holds views." From that broad base the New York League last fall launched a six months' study of the State's tax system. Ohio, after a similar study, has produced three pamphlets on its taxation. The Minnesota League combined its tax study with a plan for "a coherent direct-relief program." Missouri concentrated on the sales tax; Washington and Nebraska on taxation and adequate school support. < < < In the course of its taxation study, the Colorado League discovered that in some counties school expenditures, based almost entirely on the taxable property in each county, came to less than $20 per pupil per year. That was nearly $100 below the State average. They also discovered that Colorado was near the bottom of the 48 States in State support for education. One country was investigated in detail. It was bankrupt; even interest payments had been defaulted for three years. The banks, the League's inquiring members learned, were refusing to cash the school warrants with which the teachers were paid; the country itself had no school building; of its five schoolrooms, one was located in a church, two in an abandoned adobe house, and two in a badly lighted, unsanitary garage. The discussion of these facts by the local Leagues resulted in a drive to modernize the State's taxation system so as to insure better education in impoverished areas. But the League's thoroughness as to facts is not the only reason for its political effectiveness. It does not operate-- totalitarian-wise--from the top down. It operates--town-meeting wise--from the bottom up. The League's proposals for the reorganization of State government in Connecticut were preceded by five years of local discussions on municipal and State financing taxation and budgeting. It is the League's creed that good government begins, not in Washington, but at (Continued on page 13) Page Seven All-Year Club of Southern California Photo WESTERN WONDERLAND: In the Joshua Tree National Monument Near Tweny-Nine Palms, California ...Bringing Knowledge to Politics (Continued from Page 7) home. While it makes pronouncements on national issues such as neutrality legislation and the reciprocal trade agreements, they reflect the majority sentiment of hundreds of local Leagues. The national League is on record, too, for "a co-ordinated system of adequate relief for the unemployed and needy." But the co-ordination is to come from the local Leagues: a nation-wide study has just been launched under the title: "Relief in My Town." In some 500 communities, League women are making it their business to get the facts and take counsel with those in local authority as to how snarls and inefficiencies can be unraveled. Last year, the most important item in the League program was a "Know Your Town" project. In hundreds of towns and cities, inquiring League committees microscopically examined community institutions and local governments. The facts were so usably assembled in many cases that their publication in booklet form was financed by local businessmen. < < < Frequently these investigations pried the lid off situations which called for political action. This was particularly true in Illinois. Taking nothing for granted, one town's League committee had its drinking water analyzed. It was reported unfit for human consumption. Further League investigation disclosed that a sewer ran dangerously close to the town well. Presented with these facts, the Town Council took the necessary action. In Peoria the inquiry disclosed a high rate of infant mortality. Pressure was exerted in the right places, and money was appropriated for a baby clinic which is now in operation. The League in Carbondale found that its schools needed a nurse. The League in Carbondale found that its schools needed a nurse. The League got the necessary 200 signatures to a petition and the schools got the nurse. Unpleasant and unsafe garbage disposal methods exposed by the League in Highland Park led to a campaign which--as one resident put it--made the town "garbage conscious," forced local candidates to include a garbage plank in their platforms and led finally to the purchase of an incinerator. The "Know Your Town" investigators in Evanston, a swank Chicago suburb, found that the city jail--in the basement of the police station--was unbelievably dirty and rat-infested. Cots, save in the women's cells, had no blankets. There was no lavatory. Rickety, wooden stairs were the only entrance and exit. These facts the League presented, by letter, and by visits to each alderman. THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, JUNE 15, 1940 [column 2] When action was delayed the story was given to the newspapers. The result was a jail clean-up. By the request of the Red Cross, the three Leagues in Lorain County, Ohio, undertook a searching probe of the county Children's Home. An unsavory political situation was discovered. The result was a wholesale clean-up and the formation of a County Welfare Council which, for the first time, took child welfare out of politics, provided a central clearing house for all county welfare cases and started a thorough investigation of relief. When the League turns on the heat its methods are as down to earth as those of a well-oiled political machine. Recently the politicos of Willmette, Ill., decided that the time had come to rid the town of its village manager system. The League put on a telephone campaign which reached every voter, and the village manager was retained. To get a town appropriation for better library facilities, League members in Oberlin, Ohio, called personally on 4,200 voters. The money was voted. The Illinois League is back of legislation to permit city manager government in towns of more than 5,000 population. Its petition for such an enabling act is already approaching 450,000 signatures. The matter will not be left there. In its long fight for permanent registration in Illinois, the League laid siege to every session of the legislature. Rebuffed year after year, its members returned to their communities, set up county-wide speakers' bureaus, appeared wherever they could get a hearing, blanketed the country press with weekly articles and cartoons, put "educational pressure" on every State legislator between sessions, and came back the fifth year with votes enough to put the measure through. < < < Numerically, in almost every community, the League is politically insignificant. But it manages to multiply itself. In the Illinois permanent registration fight it was largely responsible for the organization of the Illinois Women's Conference on Legislation which speaks, legislatively, for 15 State-wide women's organizations. The Women's Joint Congressional Committee in Washington-- dubbed by Congressmen "the Women's Joint"--speaks on Capitol Hill for 20 national women's organizations. The League was back of its formation. The good tidings of better government are spread with missionary fervor. More than 1,000 [column 3] citizens, male and female, registered last fall for the three-day City Government Institute put on by the St. Louis League in cooperation with the city's officials. In Massachusetts and a number of other States, each election is preceded by "Schools of Politics," at which experts discuss issues. Each winter, the Chicago League runs a "School of Government" which concentrates on two or three major municipal problems. In many places League members set up pre-election voting booths where citizens are instructed in the use of voting machines and given nonpartisan material on candidates and issues. The League's booths in Boston last year were located, by permission of the Mayor, on Boston Common. < < < In many States, the League has backed campaigns to let women serve as jurors. Where such a law has been passed, the League carries its responsibility a step further by providing a list of its members available for jury service. Because it investigated (and found woefully lacking) some of the civics courses taught in the schools, the Cincinnati League has been asked to prepare a supplemental text on local government. Its preparation--farmed out, chapter by chapter, to League committees-- is now under way. The Commissioner of Education in Connecticut recently designated the League to make a State-wide study of teacher supervision in rural schools. "The National League of Women Voters," says an official bulletin, "exists for the political education of women through active participation in government." Eleanor Roosevelt, according to the New York Times, has credited the League "with having grounded her in citizenship, with having taught her not only what she needed to know about the country and its government but also how to investigate and weigh its problems." Similar testimony is borne by hundreds of women who are serving their communities on welfare councils, boards of education, budget commissions and in other official capacities. The only limit of participation is that imposed by the women themselves, by the degree of their willingness to give part of their thought, time and energy to the practical business of making this country a better one to live in. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.