NAWSA                                   Subject File                                           Whitehouse, Mrs. Norman de

                                                                         COPY
                                                                                                                               October 11, 1916.
My dear Mrs. Whitehouse:
     Our publication in the Masses of a Ballad which seems irreverent to many Christian people, has been maliciously used by the Anti-suffragists to discredit you and some other suffrage leaders with those people.
     The facts are these: We issued in September, 1915 a "Woman's Citizenship Number", and in generous gratitude for the help it gave to your cause, you agreed to be one of the singers of a letter asking a hundred suffragists for a small contribution to the sustaining fund of The Masses.
     You signed this letter in November 1915.
     It was signed two months after that, in a number devoted entirely to other matters, and of course entirely to other matters, and of course entirely without your cognizance, that we published the Ballad.
     I know that you are one of those who think this poem was irreverent, that you would not tolerate its publication, and that if it had been published before you signal that letter you never would have signed it.
     The Anti-Suffrage leaders know this also, and their linking of your name with our Ballad, as though it had been published before you signed the letter, is not honest.
     I hope that you can make this fact known to those whom the Anti_Suffrage approach in this way, for however much we might disagree as to what is and is not irreverent, all persons of moral principle will agree in condemning and ignoring a consciously dishonest attack upon your reputation.
                                        Yours sincerely,
                                                           Max Eastman
Mrs. Norman de R. Whitehouse
303 Fifth Avenue 
New York City 

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