WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM
A Christmas Message For 1923
by Jane Addams (recently returned from a journey around the world)
The desire for Peace and Good Will perpetually renewed in the hearts of men on Christmas Day is, in this year of our Lord 1923, shadowed by a compunction and by a curious sense of futility.
We know the world is not at peace nor is there enough active good will in it to accomplish the healing of the nations. Conscious that we have all failed in a new reach of human understanding, in moral energy adequate to repair the ravages of a world war, in a fellowship warm enough to melt down national animosities, we stand shamefaced in the midst of the Christmas rejoicing.
In the hope that this uneasiness may be but the beginnings of remorse, but the stirrings of that self-abasement which inevitably precedes a great spiritual awakening, the following Christmas message recalls the words of Him whose birthday we celebrate. [page 2]
The divided nations of Europe in a panic of apprehension lest old enemies seek revenge, lest sudden social changes destroy established governments are constantly gripped by the fear of unemployment, of revolution, of bankruptcy, of starvation.
Baffled and frightened statesmen stand helpless amid a ruined social fabric and see no way out. It is as ↑if↓ He had never uttered the words "Love alone can cast out fear," or as if He had never given a basic command to His followers "Be just and fear not."
As these statesmen celebrate Christmas day may they be convinced that only Love and a longing for Justice can remove distrust and desire for revenge, can repair the confidence and good will essential to the comity of nations, can recover economic security and moral stability to peoples so recently fostered into habits of hatred and suspicion and at last restore Peace to a continent distracted by long continued warfare. [page 3]
The United States of America caught in a traditional distrust and dislike of "foreign entanglements" abandons the solemn [covenants] made in her name, restricts her immigration, increases her tariffs, and refuses to consider her war loans as part of an international responsibility. Although producing beyond her own needs, and increasing her national shipping, she has failed to bring together American plethora of wheat and European dearth of bread: She has as yet found no way of restoring the purchasing power of Europe to the end that multitudes of idle and disheartened men may be employed and millions of starving women and children may be fed.
As Christmas is celebrated across her prosperous continent may her statesmen remember that He once said "Lend, hoping for nothing again and you reward shall be great." May the [Christmas] Season "↑stab↓ broad awake" this nation peopled by Europeans and their children, lest adopting a policy of national isolation she someday recall in bitter regret the condemnation of "[Whoso] liveth to himself." [page 4]
Those nations in the Orient which have so recently entered into world relationships that they could not escape a share in the great war, have unhappily acquired a new consciousness of the part military preparedness may play in the attainment of national ambitions.
May China and Japan with their age-long admiration for sound ethics and their veneration for the teachings of the sage and of the saint profit by the advice given to one who drew his sword in quick defense against a military threat; "Put up thy sword into his place for all they that draw the sword shall perish by the sword."
May they realize that that nation is already perishing by the sword when military authority dominates civil life, when the talk of foreign interference is substituted for discussion of internal reforms, when the fear of war-like neighbors is deliberately utilized to postpone the day of disarmament. [page 5]
In Africa, in India, in the Philippines, good men striving to establish accepted standards of government among alien populations are disconcerted and alarmed by a rising tide of self-determination, by an assertion of the popular will against their control.
May these men, honestly convinced that the time has not yet come to renounce their stewardship, remember His severity toward the self-righteous and at least on Christmas Day recall His solemn warning "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones!"
And may the millions "being prepared for citizenship" renew their resolution to continue the policy of a great teacher who more than any other living man is steadfastly committed to the typical Christmas adventure, as yet untried, of "[nonresistance]."
May at least one nation of Oriental peoples actually fulfill that essential doctrine preached by Him who ↑was↓ born Christmas Day on Eastern soil.
WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM
A Christmas Message For 1923
by Jane Addams (recently returned from a journey around the world)
The desire for Peace and Good Will perpetually renewed in the hearts of men on Christmas Day is, in this year of our Lord 1923, shadowed by a compunction and by a curious sense of futility.
We know the world is not at peace nor is there enough active good will in it to accomplish the healing of the nations. Conscious that we have all failed in a new reach of human understanding, in moral energy adequate to repair the ravages of a world war, in a fellowship warm enough to melt down national animosities, we stand shamefaced in the midst of the Christmas rejoicing.
In the hope that this uneasiness may be but the beginnings of remorse, but the stirrings of that self-abasement which inevitably precedes a great spiritual awakening, the following Christmas message recalls the words of Him whose birthday we celebrate. [page 2]
The divided nations of Europe in a panic of apprehension lest old enemies seek revenge, lest sudden social changes destroy established governments are constantly gripped by the fear of unemployment, of revolution, of bankruptcy, of starvation.
Baffled and frightened statesmen stand helpless amid a ruined social fabric and see no way out. It is as ↑if↓ He had never uttered the words "Love alone can cast out fear," or as if He had never given a basic command to His followers "Be just and fear not."
As these statesmen celebrate Christmas day may they be convinced that only Love and a longing for Justice can remove distrust and desire for revenge, can repair the confidence and good will essential to the comity of nations, can recover economic security and moral stability to peoples so recently fostered into habits of hatred and suspicion and at last restore Peace to a continent distracted by long continued warfare. [page 3]
The United States of America caught in a traditional distrust and dislike of "foreign entanglements" abandons the solemn [covenants] made in her name, restricts her immigration, increases her tariffs, and refuses to consider her war loans as part of an international responsibility. Although producing beyond her own needs, and increasing her national shipping, she has failed to bring together American plethora of wheat and European dearth of bread: She has as yet found no way of restoring the purchasing power of Europe to the end that multitudes of idle and disheartened men may be employed and millions of starving women and children may be fed.
As Christmas is celebrated across her prosperous continent may her statesmen remember that He once said "Lend, hoping for nothing again and you reward shall be great." May the [Christmas] Season "stay broad awake" this nation peopled by Europeans and their children, lest adopting a policy of national isolation she someday recall in bitter regret the condemnation of "[Whoso] liveth to himself." [page 4]
Those nations in the Orient which have so recently entered into world relationships that they could not escape a share in the great war, have unhappily acquired a new consciousness of the part military preparedness may play in the attainment of national ambitions.
May China and Japan with their age-long admiration for sound ethics and their veneration for the teachings of the sage and of the saint profit by the advice given to one who drew his sword in quick defense against a military threat; "Put up thy sword into his place for all they that draw the sword shall perish by the sword."
May they realize that that nation is already perishing by the sword when military authority dominates civil life, when the talk of foreign interference is substituted for discussion of internal reforms, when the fear of war-like neighbors is deliberately utilized to postpone the day of disarmament. [page 5]
In Africa, in India, in the Philippines, good men striving to establish accepted standards of government among alien populations are disconcerted and alarmed by a rising tide of self-determination, by an assertion of the popular will against their control.
May these men, honestly convinced that the time has not yet come to renounce their stewardship, remember His severity toward the self-righteous and at least on Christmas Day recall His solemn warning "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones!"
And may the millions "being prepared for citizenship" renew their resolution to continue the policy of a great teacher who more than any other living man is steadfastly committed to the typical Christmas adventure, as yet untried, of "[nonresistance]."
May at least one nation of Oriental peoples actually fulfill that essential doctrine preached by Him who ↑was↓ born Christmas Day on Eastern soil.
Trinity Phi Beta Kappas Hear Jane Addams Address
Famous Lecturer Pleads for Help for Starving Europe.
OUR DUTY TO THE WORLD
America Has Enough Surplus to Restore European Credit.
HELP URGENTLY NEEDED
Miss Addams Was Also Principal Guest at Annual Dinner of Society.
Special to The Observer.
DURHAM, March 31. -- For economic and humanitarian reasons the United States should come to the aid of the starving and resource depleted countries of Europe, was the theme of Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago, annual Phi Beta Kappa day speaker at Trinity College last evening. The address of Miss Addams came following the initiation of members in the afternoon and the annual dinner in Southgate Hall at 6 o'clock in the evening. Fifteen hundred people filled Craven Memorial Hall to hear the noted social and political reformer.
Personal experience and observations while in Europe last year to attend the opening days of the League of Nations supplied Miss Addams with the most of the data used in her address. Miss Addams declared that present conditions among European nations, famine and lack of purchasing power, presented a state that would make possible the United States coming to their aid and in so doing to [reestablish] herself as the friend of the down-trodden.
For two centuries America has been held in European minds as the "big brother" to the nations that need a big brother, declared Miss Addams. She asserted that our action with reference to the League of Nations and the apathy which we have shown in other instances since the war has tended to break down this conception.
Attended Geneva Conference.
Speaking of her experience while attending the opening sessions of the League of Nations in Geneva last September, Miss Addams said that the [nonparticipation] of the United States in the League [practically] eliminated its efficiency. Eight agreements effected in the first ten days of the sessions wouldn't have been adopted if the United States had been a member of the League, the audience was told. Miss Addams enumerated several instances in which the League could have accommodated concrete results if we had been a member.
After attending several sessions of the League at Geneva Miss Addams visited several of the countries which suffered most from the war. The audience was given the benefit of her observation. What she had seen was used as argument to show the dire necessity of the United States going to the aid of the ravaged countries.
She declared that in northern France she saw children being examined for traces of tuberculosis. These children had been underfed and were mere skin and bone. Sixty [percent] of the number were found to have the dread disease. Miss Addams told of having seen women in Vienna who had suffered from frozen hands because they had not been able to secure fuel.
"In one or two instances," said Miss Addams, "women had to have their fingers amputated because they had been frozen."
Conditions in Russia and [Czechoslovakia] were cited. She spoke of a report which affirmed that 10,000,000 people in the Volga Valley would die of starvation if they did not receive relief. Governments should not be considered in an instance like that, affirmed Miss Addams, after she had shown that this condition was due more to a drought which had prevailed in the [country] than to the work of the Bolshevik government.
Europe is Suffering.
The European nations which are suffering so terribly have heard greatly exaggerated stories of the wealth and prosperity which exists in the United States, declared Miss Addams. She told of common beliefs among some Europeans that America was burning surplus product of corn, and was greatly overstock with wool and cotton.
Miss Addams gave figures to prove that America did possess an over supply in several products, but not to the extent which the Europeans believe.
"Something is wrong if we cannot arrange that our surplus shall reach the countries which are in such dire straits for the very things with which we are over-supplied," it was said.
Miss Addams did not confine herself to the humanitarian aspects of the case. She showed that if the United States would give to the European countries the credit and support which they need at the present time, that the European countries must inevitably recover their power to purchase. This recovery, it was shown, would bring a revival of world trade in which the United States would be given precedence by virtue of having made it possible.
Much of the part which the United States is to play in the future political arrangements European powers will make or are making at present will depend upon the manner in which we act at the present time, it was said. Miss Addams pleaded for a public opinion that would express itself to the end that something might be done by our government.
Dr. W. T. Laprade, president of the Trinity chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, introduced Miss Addams to the audience as a member of the fraternity whose life had exemplified the principle of the society.
WORLD LIKENED BY JANE ADDAMS TO PICTURE PUZZLE
Chicago Woman Makes Two Addresses Here -- Says Europe Favors Disarmament Plans.
The condition of world affairs today resembles nothing so much as a puzzle picture with many of the pieces lost or broken, waiting for someone to come and make it whole again, according to Miss Jane Addams of Chicago, who addressed two sessions of the St. Louis Community Forum yesterday.
At the afternoon session Miss Addams discussed "European Opinion Relative to an International Organization" at Sheldon Memorial, 3646 Washington boulevard. The evening meeting was in Musicians' Hall, 3535 West Pine boulevard, which was filled to capacity to hear the address on the "Significance of the Washington Conference."
"The people of Europe have so long been pawns in the hands of players," said Miss Addams at Sheldon Memorial, "that they do not know how to move. In many countries the ones who formerly moved the people around at will are dead, or lost to power. So the people wait patiently for the ones who will come along next and move them to where they belong."
"Europe is tired and sick of war and longs for something, a League of Nations, or the Washington Disarmament Conference, to settle their difficulties and start them on the high road to prosperity.
Europe is Unsettled.
"Switzerland has been the haunts of all the exiles of the world and has been hurt financially by the many raids made upon it. Poland has been torn by conflicting forces. Germany is in the hands of insurgents and Russia is topsy turvy. France is merging from her condition and convalescing slowly. Italy is almost bankrupt. England is even losing her strength. The United States alone remains unhurt to any extent by the world-wide catastrophic war.
"The people of Europe cannot understand how we can start so soon after the war to build great battleships that require so much money. They see us putting money into one monster that would feed thousands of starving Russians. They see another ship built that would help clothe the people of Poland. Money enough is put into another ship to help set Austria on her feet financially and put her back in the markets of the world. And now down in Washington, they tell us that they have decided to scrap all that expenditure of money as a result of the conference! A little thought would have put the money where needed, and it would not be necessary to dispose of the ships to the 'scrap pile.'
"All over Europe the people have turned time and time again to the League of Nations as their only salvation. To them it looked like a proverbial godsend amid the turmoil of the recent years. They can not understand our rejection of its terms."
Tells of Vienna Conference.
Miss Addams recently returned from an extended tour in European countries as delegate to the International Conference of Women for Peace. She was the chairman of the meeting which was held in Vienna. During her visit there she met with all classes of people in the different countries.
"Our conference was held in Vienna," Miss Adams continued. "To it came women of high and low degree. All came with a common purpose -- to stop war if possible. Many dramatic stories were told by these women who had suffered much in the war days. I recall one Belgium woman who had been prisoner in Germany for several years. She returned to find her home gone to pieces, but her children were cared for. She remembered how the little ones of Germany had suffered by the blockade. She took a number of little Germans into her home. She told us that she bore the children no malice, and that it was well for the children to grow up together without hatred. The other women agreed with her, that we must start to better conditions with the children.
"The sights and scenes around Vienna are sad indeed. To see the great libraries, hospitals and other institutions to which we sent our young people, going to pieces slowly, is a pitiful thing. The people have no money to spare for such places. They have not enough to keep body and soul together. Professors are living on one meal a day, such as we would give a six-year old child. Old people are killing themselves in order to leave enough food for the children.
"I remember the Mozart festival at Salzburg. Students came in great crowds, in rags and almost starved condition. Yet, it seemed as of nothing could quench their love of art and music. Surely such people are worth saving!"
E. M. Grossman, who presided, invited the audience to ask Miss Addams questions. These were many and varied and showed the interest the audience had in the subject.
At her evening address Miss Addams told what the conference for the limitation of armament could and would do if it were given the power.
She said that Europe was looking toward it as eagerly as they did the League of Nations and hoping for it as a last resort.
Jane Addams, Back from Europe, Tells of Moral Let-Down
NEW YORK, Oct. 1. -- Empty stomachs are principally responsible for a juvenile crime wave in some parts of Europe, Jane Addams of Chicago declared Friday on her return from a trip abroad. When they get food, she said, conditions will return to normal.
Miss Addams went to Europe in June to attend the Woman's International league for Peace and Freedom, which met in Vienna. She described conditions in the Balkan states as "very sad and uncertain," and said that Austria is "absolutely bankrupt."
"There has been an apparent slump in moral conditions in many countries of Europe." added Miss Addams, "but this is simply from the lack of moral restrictions, which could not be exercised during the war while so many men were at the fighting fronts. It is simply a cause of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind."
Food for Starving Children in Europe Only Crime Wave Cure
Jane Addams of Hull House, Chicago, declared yesterday that empty stomachs of children are principally responsible for the juvenile crime wave in some parts of Europe. When they get food conditions will return to normal, she stated. Miss Addams arrived at Hoboken on the Rotterdam of the Holland-America line yesterday.
[image Jane Addams]
"The crime of the younger generation to a great extent is caused by their wildness for bread," she said. "A child with an empty stomach after a certain number of days of emptiness is no great respecter of creed or code. I firmly believe that in Europe food will stop the crime wave."
I am informed that in America people are of the opinion that the famine in Russia has lost its dreadful aspects and that the work of the Hoover organization is sufficient to save the millions of Russian peasants doomed to die from starvation.
Allow me to address to you a few words on the subject.
I think that the work of the Hoover organization is, by its scope, an unprecedented phenomenon in history. Never before has a country come to the relief of another with such generosity and such munificence of supplies and means. Hoover's agents are real men of courage. I will not exaggerate if I call them heroes. America can be proud of her children who are so beautifully and fearlessly toiling on the vast field of death, in an environment of epidemics, barbarism and cannibalism.
This work, in addition to its immediate purpose, that of saving millions of people from starvation, has another, and in my opinion a far greater purpose. It resurrects in the Russian people the sense of humanity destroyed by the war, it revives the shattered dream of the possibility of the brotherhood of nations, it fulfils the idea of the cooperative, friendly collaboration of nations.
The European war, and then intervention and civil war with all its horrors, hardened the heart of the Russian people. Especially deep was the harmful influence of intervention. In spite of his mental density, the Russian peasant understood that foreigners do not want him to be free, that they want to restore in Russia the old regime. Facts, speeches, the destruction of his homestead and rivers of blood convinced the moujik of it. It is fully comprehensible that he developed a negative attitude towards the foreigner. The foreigner sought to make the Russian people beasts of burden of the landlords, bureaucrats, and merchants.
And then, in the terrible days of the famine, amidst utter helplessness, these enemies, the foreigners, appear as the [saviors] of the lives of millions of children, unselfishly and dauntlessly destroying by their [endeavors] the feelings of hatred and [rancor] embittering the heart of the Russian people.
You will agree of course that the achievements of the work of the Hoover organization are important and magnificent. Some days we will after all be living and working like friends and brothers, and glory to those who hasten the arrival of that time so necessary to our happiness.
But, to return to the main purpose of this letter. The famine is not decreasing. Hoover's organization, working self-sacrificingly on the Volga, cannot of course embrace all the stricken territories of enormous Russia. On the shores of the Black Sea, in Odessa and Crimea, millions of people are also perishing without relief. The German colonists in the South, a cultured race and excellent workers, are dying out. The hardworking honest Tartars are perishing, and most of all the native Russians, especially children.
The famine is bigger and more ominous than all that is said and written about it. Hundreds and thousands of acres of the cultivated area are laid waste by locust. People are eating the locust and consequently fall ill. They eat roots, grass, leaves, and this causes epidemics: cholera is threatening. I cannot quote the figures of mortality because I doubt the accuracy of the statistics. The letters which I receive from [page 2] all sides paint the situation as horrible. Everywhere, people, exhausted by the famine in the winter, have thrown themselves greedily on the vegetation of the spring, and the consequences are obvious.
Permit me also to call your attention to the condition of the Russian intellectuals, mainly the Russian scientists. All of these are men of ripe age or old men emaciated by years of under-nourishment and heroic labor in the midst of cold and hunger. They are the best brains of the country, the creators of Russian science and civilization, who are necessary to Russia more than to any other country. Without them life is impossible just as it is impossible without a soul. These people belong to humanity.
There are only nine thousand of them in all Russia, an insignificant number for such a vast country and for the civilizing work which the Russians require. These most invaluable nine thousand people are gradually dying out without having time to produce successors.
I think the preceding is sufficient to arouse the energies of the friends of the Russian people to help Russia live through this accursed year.
MAXIM [GORKY]
Jane Addams Says America's Responsibility to Humanity Demands Succor for Europe
Says Continued Aloofness Toward Horrible Suffering Would be Traitorous.
"The foremost woman of the land -- Jane Addams, of Chicago!"
This was the way that Dr. Dexter Perkins, president of the City Club, introduced the distinguished speaker at yesterday's noon luncheon at the Powers Hotel and the largest crowd of men and women that ever attended a City Club luncheon rose to their feet in tribute to the woman whose name has become synonymous to kindness, sympathy and humaneness.
Relates Facts Simply.
What this large and visibly impressed crowd saw was a woman of medium height, with hair well streaked with gray, and dressed in a plain dark dress relieved only by a white lace collar. In a clear, well-modulated voice that carried to every corner of the room she started in, without preliminaries, to tell the story of the condition of the starving children of the European countries. It was a story of things she actually had seen, but Miss Addams told it without stressing the sentimental side of it as many another speaker would have been inclined to do. It was too real a thing to her to need any descriptive passages that are designed to appeal to the emotions. Just because her story was so plain and straightforward it made all the deeper impression and the audience left the hall feeling as Miss Addams feels, that it is the duty of the United States to cast aside its policy of aloofness and do something to help straighten out conditions in the less fortunate European countries.
It is only rarely that a woman is invited to speak before the City Club and still rarer for the club to extend invitations to the women of the city to participate in the lunch. Women, of course, are always welcome to sit in the balcony to listen to the addresses, but yesterday they were allowed to come for luncheon. The result was a crowd so large that several policemen were stationed in the hallway at the Powers Hotel to keep the crowd moving. Practically every seat on the floor was taken; the balconies were taxed to the limit, and then there was an overflow in the hallway and adjoining rooms.
Great Numbers Without Aid.
Miss [Addams] spoke first of the Hoover fund of $33,000,000 that is required to keep the most unfortunate of the children alive until the next harvest or until better industrial conditions are established in the European countries. She said that the children of the suffering countries could be divided into four classes: the small number who are approximately normal, those who are suffering from malnutrition, those suffering from incipient tuberculosis, and those who are in crying need of continued hospital treatment. The fund that is being collected will go to the children of the last two classes, and Miss [Addams] [page 2] pointed out the fact that the whole situation involving the other children and the adult is left untouched.
"What are we, as a nation, going to do in this crisis?" asked Miss [Addams], and this question she put to her audience time and time again during her talk.
Are "Floundering Around."
She showed that this country has at the present time a large amount to spend. There is a glut of wheat, due to the stimulated production during the war. She said that it is estimated that there are two clips of wool, amounting to a billion pounds, in storage in this country. There is a great quantity of cotton unpicked in Oklahoma and Texas. Proposals had been made to ship the wool to Austria and the cotton to Czecho-Slovakia for manufacture into the finished product, but nothing ever had come to the schemes.
She told about her appearance before the Finance Committee of Congress at the request of a body of farmers to ask that certain appropriations be cut down and the money sent instead to Europe as a national loan. Miss Addams said that the legislators did not go into the merits of the scheme, but instead asked her what she thought the public sentiment would be on such an action.
"We are floundering around," she added. "If a plan could only be formed, Congress would be relieved and something might [be] done. The League of Nations is supposed to deal with questions like this; it has a committee on economic relations, and I feel that if some sentiment came from [this] side something would be accomplished."
Normal Child a Rarity.
Miss Addams then went on to tell of some of her experiences investigating conditions in the starving areas. She said that she visited five different countries and the impression of the starving children was one that she never will lose. She said that in her work here in America she always had come into contact with unfortunate children, but here it is always possible to do something for them.
"In Europe," Miss Addams continued, "there are whole areas in the cities and in the rural districts where you are unable to see a thoroughly normal child. In one section of Saxony there is not a single healthy child. I will always remember one day when I was with a doctor who was examining the children of school age in one of the cities. They passed before us in rows. We saw children who looked to be 6 or 8 years old and then found out that they were 10 or 12. The children who grew to the normal height, in spite of their lack of food, invariably died. They just couldn't do both. Those who are left are the stunted ones. At Lille we saw dozens and dozens of skeletonized boys -- [page 3] and all we saw were those horrible bony structures with their shoulder blades standing out."
Children Like Animals.
"The doctor in our party estimated that 40 [percent] of the children at Lille of school age had open tuberculosis and that many of the rest were suspects. He doubted if they ever would be normal again. And that was a thing which we saw over and over again. In other children we noticed all sorts of deformities coming, due to the fact that children suffering from malnutrition were up and about and not being cared for in hospitals as they should be."
Miss Addams told a story that was given out by General Smuts of an English officer who was traveling in Vienna. This officer had a small quantity of food which he took in his pocket out on the street and offered it to a few children who were gathered together. Within a brief space of time 200 children came running from all directions, fighting for the small morsels of food. The officer was thrown down by the struggling mob, his uniform was torn to shreds and the man had to go to the hospital for treatment for a week. The children are so starved that they are breaking away from restraint and their inhibitions and are concerned only with finding food.
Danger of the Double Scar.
Miss Addams said that if America is to do something at this time she must break through her tradition of isolation. She said that great social and industrial problems are fronting these European countries and the population that we are expecting to solve these problems is a population that is facing the animal situation of living day by day with the paramount problem of getting enough food to keep them alive from day to day.
"To whom are these wretched people looking for help?" she continued. "To us, the greatest creditor nation in the world, to a nation with a surplus of food and clothing. If we don't find a way to do something, we are going to leave a double scar: a scar on the good will and integrity of this nation and a sore in the hearts of the people of the starving countries. The thing we are called upon to do is one of the most primitive and fundamental of things; it's just helping people to live. If we go back on the humblest of these people, we are going back on ourselves."
Suggests Specific Plan.
Miss Addams said that the League of Nations was concerned with settling political differences, but that it must not gloss over the human relations. She said that she did not come to offer any plan by which remedies to these pressing questions could be brought about, but suggested that in the League of Nations there exists an organization which, if given power, could make the necessary survey and work out the machinery by which the situation could be remedied.
Miss Addams said that she felt that she had a right to ask audiences to find some way out of the difficulties. She quoted the Frenchman who said that the human mind could develop ships and cables and then build up misunderstanding to foil the mechanical bridges. She made another plea that America abandon her policy of aloofness and do her share in the solution of a vital human problem.
In the questions which were asked following the talk Miss Addams said that the specific thing that an organization such as the City Club could do would be to appoint a committee, which could confer with other committees and then put their findings and recommendations up to Congress.
JANE ADDAMS, THE FOUNDER OF HULL HOUSE, IN READING
Nationally Known Woman Addresses Large Audience of Reading Business Men on the Needs of Starving Europe -- Answers Number of Questions
Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago, appeared before a large audience in the ball room of the Berkshire Hotel last evening and made a very sane and convincing appeal in behalf of the relief work now being conducted for the starving peoples in Europe and Asia.
For almost an hour she outlined in a candid manner the situation in various afflicted countries and based her appeal on the ground that America today has the greatest chance in its history to make itself the everlasting friend of the peoples of the world. She spoke of it as a rare chance and one that may never come along again.
"If America, with its [overabundance] of food and clothing, fails to come to the rescue, it will leave us with an everlasting scar," she declared. "If we help, we will bind the peoples of afflicted lands to us with hoops of steel."
The speaker made only a very brief reference to the work at Hull House in spite of promptings from various people in the audience to have a few words on her wonderful work in Chicago. In reply to various questions she made brief references to the work of women on the Chicago school board and the use of school houses as community centers.
AUDIENCE FILLS ROOM
Her audience was one of the largest that ever crowded into the ballroom of the Berkshire. There were more women than men. The balcony was crowded and many stood on the [mezzanine] floor adjoining the banquet hall throughout the address.
The occasion was arranged by the Chamber of Commerce. It opened at six o'clock with a dinner which was presided over by Landes F. Miller, president of the Chamber of Commerce.
In a few well-chosen words, Mr. Miller made reference to the movement to have Reading declared a second-class city. "The Chamber of Commerce took action in favor of second-class cityhood some time ago," said Mr. Miller. "Since that time there have been no dissenting voices and the action we took we still stand upon. A city is not better than the people make it and we hope to make Reading worthy of the new dress of second-class cityhood."
HEBER ERMENTROUT CHAIRMAN
Heber M. Ermentrout was then introduced as chairman of the meeting and in a few words he introduced Miss Addams.
Miss Addams was given a splendid ovation as she arose to speak. Everyone in the audience stood up and applauded vigorously. She announced that the subject assigned to her was "Feeding Europe and saving America," and explained that, inasmuch as many people in the audience were anxious to hear something about Hull House she would try to divide her time between the two subjects.
She told of the present attempt to raise $33,000,000 for the relief of starving peoples on the other side of the ocean and explained that congress is waiting to learn what the people think of the subject of European relief. The speaker explained that Congress with the proper legislation will be able to help enormously on the crying need of the world particularly in the matter of moving our surplus crops and clothing supplies to the countries which need them. There are many difficulties in the way, she said, and many of them can be eliminated with the help of legislation.
FOR CHILDREN ONLY
"The relief commission does not pretend to do more than take care of the children who are ill or those who are about to become ill from the effects of malnutrition," said Miss Addams. "The commission is trying to keep them alive until the next harvest. There will be no attempt to take care of the normal children even though they must suffer to a certain extent.
"I have seen some of the conditions in Europe with my own eyes and what you see with your own eyes makes an indelible impression on you. I went with Dr. Hamilton to Europe in the summer of 1919. We are making a study for the Friends' commission, of Philadelphia. The general impression students of the situation got at that time was that the food resources of Europe were so much reduced that, unless America [page 2] came to help, a whole generation of children would be permanently harmed because of undernourishment. They would lose all their mental vigor or 'pep,' as we call it in Chicago. I don't know whether you use that term here or not.
"We will leave incomplete the whole moral effort which we undertook when we entered the war unless we take care of the food situation in other countries today. We entered the war for the sake of humanity, but all of our effort will be lost unless we carry it through to completion with the relief work which now confronts us."
CONGRESS IS WAITING
The speaker then told briefly of how Congress is waiting for word from the people relative to a national loan which is to be used to send our excess food and wool supplies to Europe. She told of efforts of the wool growers of the northwest to have their excess manufactured in this country and of later efforts to have it sent to Austria and other countries to have it converted into clothing, but stated that innumerable difficulties faced them, including such matters as the tariff and rates of exchange. The cotton growers also considered sending their crop to Europe but ran up against the same difficulties.
"One of the chief troubles in trying to make the adjustments," said the speaker, "is the difference between our dollar and European money. The result is that America in now in the position of being commercially boycotted, not through any fault of Europe, but through our own fault."
MERE SKELETONS
Miss Addams then spoke of seeing children at Lille examined by a physician. "They were scarcely more than skeletons," she said. "They were emaciated to the point of danger, that is, the point where they can no longer take care of their growth and life. We did little else except look at children wherever we went.
"One got the impression after seeing so many starving children that, no matter what country they belong to, something simply had to be done for them.
"We have more wheat in this country than we ever had before. There is a glut in Chicago. They are burning corn for fuel in the middle west. Here we have more food than we can use, while over in Europe they are starving.
"We hear of old people making suicide pacts. They think they ought to kill themselves in order to give the children a chance.
"Before the war Europe was importing one-fourth of the grain consumed for food and one-fourth of the fodder necessary to produce their dairy products. The war eliminated commerce with the result that Europe's food supply was cut in half. It means that each person who should have 3,200 calories in food each day, has been getting only 1,300 to 1,500 since the beginning of the war. The result has been that they are in such a state of depletion that the future looks black indeed."
UP TO BUSINESS MEN
"It is up to the business men of America to see that the oversupply of food and clothing here is sent to Europe. The business men have come forward splendidly whenever called upon and we expect them [page 3] again to rise to the occasion and they will do so if public sentiment is aroused.
"As bad as Europe is, it is nothing compared to Armenia and the near east. There the children gather up bones, crush them and eat the marrow. It is also authentically reported that one child was found eating the marrow out of human bones which she had dug from a cemetery.
"The people are near to cannibalism, and they may be driven across the border line. They are not anywhere near that situation in Europe, but the children of Europe are being driven to stealing. They are losing sense of inhibition and all the other things which civilization has built up around them. They are stealing from their own home for food."
WILL LEAVE A SCAR
"At present our farmers are beginning to talk about restricting the crops and this in face of the fact that the rest of the world is starving. If we don't help Europe, it will leave a scar on this country. The peoples in other countries are getting to know about our situation as to crops and clothing and, if we don't help them, it will leave a bitterness which will never be forgotten."
Miss Addams then turned to a few remarks on Americanization. "The trouble is we divide out 100 [percent] Americans from those who immigrated to this country. This tendency to divide the people of this country into two groups is most unfortunate.
"The people of Poland living in this country haven't heard from their relatives since 1914. They come to Hull House and beg for news. They want to send their money, but the banks won't accept it because of unsettled conditions in that country. In Russia things are even worse."
CONDITIONS IN ITALY
"Those who come from Italy are also worrying about their relatives. There is less food in Italy now than during the war. Italians in this country are worried about the situation there. They are making big wages, but they can't help because the food is not on the ground.
"If we understand the situations in the countries from which our immigrants come, we will better understand the people here. With very close relatives, in many cases wives and children in the old countries, they are worried and restless. This may be some of the unrest of which we speak of today. No wonder they are worried.
"We have a great chance to make friends with these people today. We could bind them to us with hoops of steel if we would display a common interest in one of the greatest human disasters which has ever faced the world. If we're going to Americanize them and understand them, we must learn something of their background. You can't expect to change them over completely into Americans with the touch of a hand."
AT HULL HOUSE
"For many years we have had classes in Americanization at Hull House. The people who have made the best teachers for us are those who knew something about the history and language of the countries from which their pupils came.
"We will be throwing away an opportunity we may never have again. When we entered the war, we declared that we were no longer separate and apart from Europe and the same is true today. If you are going to make friends of the people from other lands, you must have some method of approach that will be lasting and genuine."
ANSWERS QUESTIONS
Miss Addams then announced that she would be glad to answer questions. Before answering one, however, she spoke about Chicago's small park system, each with its buildings, swimming pools, shower baths for men and women and most of them with branches of the public library. She said the parks had helped to reduce juvenile crime and helped to bring out the cultural side of foreign-born people.
Former Councilman B. Frank Ruth wanted to know whether certain stories circulated about China to the effect that millions of dozens of eggs were shipped out of that country in the face of starvation, were true or not.
Miss Addams replied that it might be partly true. "The situation in China is chiefly one of transportation," she said. "The famine part of China is far removed from the rest of the country. In certain sections they have food, but the transportation difficulties to the famine district are almost insurmountable. What is needed there is an army which could lay a railroad in three weeks to the famine district. The people can be fed for a half a penny a day. The largest expense is getting the food to them. We have built railroads for other purposes. Why can't we build one to the famine district of China."
MISUSE OF GRAIN
Owen [Warner?] wanted to know whether it is true that some of the grains sent to Europe are used to make intoxicating liquors.
"I suppose that some of that may be true," replied Miss Addams. "But this country is in such a position that it [could] absolutely dictate any kind of conditions to Europe and have them carried out."
"Many people here would like to know about Hull House," stated Stanley Bright, former president of the Chamber of Commerce.
"That's a large order," commented Miss Addams.
"Hull House was started about thirty years ago. There are now thirteen buildings covering about a block and a half.
"The buildings are used by Greeks, Italians, and south Europeans. The [Slavs] also make use of them.
"We have a labor museum showing the various steps in the progress of industry. You could have the same thing here in this textile community."
THE YOUNGER GENERATION
Speaking about the younger generation of foreign-born peoples, she remarked that they tried to avoid having the women considered "queer and outlandish" because they wear shawls on their heads. "Sometimes it is the opposite," remarked the speaker. "It is the women who wear hats who are queer and outlandish." This provoked great laughter.
MAYOR STAUFFER'S QUERY
Mayor Stauffer then wanted to know how the women could best serve their community.
"You have a very wonderful woman's club here," quickly replied Miss Addams, and the answer met with hearty applause.
"The women should urge for playgrounds, baths, and also recreational centers."
"How can the segregation evil be met?" asked a man in the audience.
"When foreigners first come to this country, it is natural that they hunt out their friends and those who speak their language. The difficulty comes with the second generation when they aspire to move into more American circles. The second generation should be encouraged to come out of the settlement districts. Women's clubs could help by showing an interest in them. However, you can't force them [and] you can't patronize them."
HOW TO START
Rev. L. Griswold Williams wanted to know what first to do in establishing a community center.
"You will need means for recreation and education," replied Miss Addams. "There are many things, but no fixed program can be laid down. It depends entirely on conditions."
"What do they do at Hull House?"
"At present they are fond of dancing," stated Miss Addams. "Sometimes I get tired of their everlasting dancing. We must always be careful not to let anyone thing run away with the place."
"What did the women accomplish on the Chicago school board?" asked another auditor.
"We are not particularly proud of our record," replied Miss Addams. "I was a member for three years. We pushed playgrounds. The schools of Chicago are well socialized. Some of them are open as social centers. But you can't make social centers unless you have someone to run them who is deeply enthused on the subject. You can't open the schools and say to the people 'come.' They won't come of themselves. There must be a great moving spirit in each social center."
[This] concluded the speaker's remarks for the evening and she thanked her audience for their attention. Miss Addams left the city immediately after the meeting. Some of her relatives living near this city came forward to greet her. They informed her that they were cousins. Miss Addams' ancestors settled in this county.
My dear dear Emily Balch
It is a perfect disgrace the way I postpone answering your letters. I think of all sorts of things that I am going to say and wait for a long clear morning to say them in. Of course such an uninterrupted time never comes so at last I am going at it, at the end of the day with no stenographer available so whatever mistakes there are in this letter, all of them will be mine. In the first place do let me explain that I have been speaking on behalf of the starving children literally all up and down the land. I am sure that it is the most useful thing that can be done just now and does modify public feeling. The young are fine in [their] response; I had an audience of four thousand at Ann Arbor who were really touching in [their] desire to see righteousness: in the State Universities of Wis. of Ohio, of Indiana, at Oberlin and so on I found myself much warmed and cheered! I spoke thirty times in January and while I have slowed down since then, I am coming back to my old thesis that the fresh start ↑of the world if it makes one,↓ will have to be made on the primitive line.
All this is partly by way of apology for my silence but you must know how cheered we have all been by your letters and the consciousness that the central office was filling a real mission.
Now I am going back over the correspondence file and answer the queries to the very best of my ability and if you will forgive this time I promise never again to act in this way. Neglecting you is a little like neglecting ones family, you are sure that it must be all right between "youse all" and push it off for exigent people, who will not understand. Do please give my love to Miss Cheever, I am so glad that she is in Geneva. [page 2]
1st
I debated a long time as to possibility of coming over this summer and finally regretfully concluded that it was impossible. I do hope that the Executive Committee will meet and that ought to possible in connection either with the International Suffrage [Alliance] in Geneva in June or in connection with the Summer School you are planning. It would probably be easier with the former but that of course can best be determined by you. The Scandinavian women have always come in large numbers to the Suffrage meetings. I had a very nice talk with Mrs Catt and I do hope that we can be well represented.
I should think that you ought to be authorized to make the appointment unless it is possible for the Executive Committee to meet first and thus make its own representation. The matter of expense I imagine could also be cared for by vote of the Committee, I give my vote for a reasonable expenditure for our fraternal delegates.
Second ---- Miss MacMillan's resignation.
It is not usual for an Executive Committee to fill vacancies during the time between meetings. I should be in favor of waiting until the committee in the summer. I am awfully sorry that Miss MacMillan felt that she must resign. Could she not be persuaded to reconsider, if she comes to Geneva for the Suffrage meeting you might have a chance to try before the Committee meets. Would Miss Courtney, Miss Marshall, or Mde Duchene consider it?
Third -- Ex.Com.1920--1
I see no objection to the proposals for new work being submitted to the National Sections as mere suggestions, [although] there is no doubt the proposals calling for the cooperation of the National Sections in a new undertaking of [page 3] of the International ought to be carefully considered. The suggestion of two Vice Presidents ↑giving their approval↓ in addition to the Executive Officer seems a good one. There is always an advantage in keeping the Sections in touch with each other and a suggestion for new work is often very revealing and stimulating.
Fourth -- The Possible Summer School.
The plan you outlined to Miss Royds seemed very interesting [although] it seems to me that our general funds ought not to contribute more than the general office expenses of [preparation] and promotion. Switzerland seems the natural place but of that you know better than any of us and the Austrian Tyrol or some such near by spot might be much more feasible. If the English Section wants it and takes hold of it, I am sure that it would go. I am afraid that few or none would come from the U.S.A. but we will bring the matter up at our annual meeting which we are going to hold in Chicago the last of April.
I was very sorry to telegraph against Frau Hertzka's coming to the U.S.A. on behalf of the Siberian prisoners. We consulted together about it and decided that the difficulties of securing a hearing were too great. As soon as the treaty question is out of the way in Washington we hope to make a determined effort for Congressional action on the matter and in the meantime are doing what we can with the American Red Cross who ought to act in the matter ↑preliminary↓ at once.
I suppose we were influenced by the [experience] of a very charming Austrian lady who came over to do some food speaking for Mr Hoover and who has not had the easiest time, [although] Austrian children are becoming comparatively popular. I will write more fully about this when I come back from Washington. [page 4]
I want to congratulate you on Pax et Libertas, it is very suggestive and I scatter all my copies with a right good will. I hope we can soon do more for subscribers and that will be taken up with more vigor at the April Convention. I know that we seem tame in our efforts but the mere urging relief for Germany takes more overcoming of opposition than seems possible.
The revision of the treaty movement is making some headway, [Keynes] book is being read even by the congressmen and is constantly quoted on the floor. I had a nice visit with the League of Free Nations People in New York. They are the best we have I think, [although] more favorable to the existing covenant than I can easily understand. I will send you some of [their] latest material.
I do hope that the winter hasn't seemed awfully long and cold and that the warmer weather in and of itself will make living conditions better
I think you have been wonderful in your courage and good spirits. I was so sorry to hear of Frau Kulka's death. She was so kind to us when we were in Austria and it was such a pleasure to see her again in Zurich. I am to Frau Miser. By the way my list of addresses of all the delegates to the Zurich Congress was lost in the mail when I sent it home by post. Do send me another some time. Please do not publish any of this letter, it is too scrappy and badly written. I will take my pen in hand for Pax soon. We had a very good meeting of the Fellowship in a Quaker College in Iowa the other day. Bishop Jones asked for you and was much for our future.
Always Devotedly Yours
Jane Addams [signed]
March 20" 1920
Help German Babes, Urges Jane Addams
Social Worker Says War Otherwise Was Fought in Vain.
"Hunger, grim and terrible, has dehumanized the children of Germany and reduced them to the state of savage animals guided only by the elemental instincts of self preservation. If the war was fought, as we believe, to bring democracy and civilization to Germany, the very objects of the war will be lost if we in America, blessed with plenty, do not extend to the German children that human affection, sympathy and mercy founded on traditional American good will."
This message was conveyed by Miss Jane Addams of Hull house, Chicago, philanthropist, sociologist, author, settlement worker, suffrage worker and leading American delegate at the International Women's Peace congress at The Hague, whom Colonel Theodore Roosevelt referred to as "Chicago's most useful citizen," and regarded by many as the most loved woman in America, to 2,500 persons yesterday afternoon who filled First Baptist church.
Every aisle, nook and corner of the church was utilized, and the church was filled before the time Miss Addams was scheduled to speak. Hundreds were turned away because of lack of accommodations.
Audience Spell Bound.
Miss Addams made a stirring appeal for the relief of German children -- all European children -- suffering from the ravages of starvation, which held the assemblage spell-bound throughout her talk. She spoke under the auspices of the American Friends Service committee, a Quaker organization that is [cooperating] with Herbert Hoover to bring succor to the children of our recent enemies. The committee has agreed to bear its own expenses both in America and in Germany and to furnish the necessary workers, while Mr. Hoover's organization will act as purchasing agent and transport all food, clothing and relief supplies from the United States to the point of distribution in Germany free of charge.
Hand-clapping greeted Miss Addams when she stepped upon the platform, but when the speaker, serious, the personification of kindness and mercy, began her message -- a message resulting from her visit to the European war-ridden countries -- an unusual silence fell over the audience.
Largest Death Rate.
"The largest death rate in Germany, a death rate such as that country has never before experienced, is among those between the ages of 13 and 20 years old -- the young people who soon will have to decide the delicate social and economic problems of the German people," Miss Addams said. "Goaded by hunger, reduced to the most terrible stages of starvation, these young folks have caused the greatest epidemic of crime imaginable. They will be utterly unable to cope with the problems that confront Germany, and democracy and civilization, which we said we were bringing to Germany, will be impossible of realization."
"Tuberculosis, brought about by hunger and malnutrition, is making its ravages among the German children [page 2]. Forms of tuberculosis have made their appearance there, which have never been known to medical science and is baffling physicians. Physicians believe that only supernutrition conducted for a period of three or four years will bring these children back to somewhat normal condition.
"The most critical time is the present when last year's crops are consumed and the new crop has not yet come in. The largest death rate in Germany occurred last spring. We must assume the responsibility of feeding these children until July. America has not borne her share of taking care of Europe's starving children as measured by the relief work done by Switzerland, Holland, Denmark and other neutral countries."
Plea for All.
Miss Addams did not confine her appeal to the starving children of Germany, but also made a plea for the starving children of all European counties and the Near East.
"The condition is similar in all European countries which were belligerents in the World war, and some of the countries of the Near East," Miss Addams said. "But there is at least a little satisfaction in the knowledge that something is being done -- far from sufficient -- to alleviate the suffering in the countries except Germany."
Miss Addams described her first impression of the famished children of Europe, those of Northern France, which brought home to the audience a vivid picture of these little mites.
"The first actually starved children that I saw was in Lille," Miss Addams said. "I visited a schoolroom where children suspected of tuberculosis were being examined by a physician. The children were between the ages of six and 10, and were filing in stripped to the waist. The sight of these human skeletons, bones only, covered by skin, lifeless, the eyes deathly, too weak and frail to show any semblance of emotion, is something which I cannot remove from my mind.
Many Tuberculosis Victims.
"The same condition prevailed in all the cities of Northern France which I visited. Forty [percent] of the school children of Northern France, I was informed, were suffering from tuberculosis, and of the remaining 60 [percent] a large number were suffering from other diseases caused by starvation and malnutrition.
"In Zurich, Switzerland, I saw 600 children on the platform of a railroad station, who had been brought in from Austria. There was none of the bustle about these children that is always associated with normal children, no exhibition of pulsating child life. They were too weak and sickly to exhibit emotion -- some sank down on the rough board through mere exhaustion. It was a very depressing sight to see an eight or ten year old boy, unnatural and dull looking, being carried in the arms of a Swiss woman.
"These children were all taken into private Swiss homes and given all the food the Swiss people could spare. French, Italian, Austrian and other children were taken care of in Switzerland in this manner throughout the war. The same was true in Holland and Denmark. While the adults of those neutral countries were living on rations, depriving themselves of food, the children of the belligerent countries were given the best.
$5 a Plate.
"America has not shown such a spirit of self-sacrifice. I recently attended a banquet served in Biltmore hotel, New York, at which $5 a plate was charged. After this $5 banquet pictures were shown of the starving children of Armenia, where the suffering has been as great, perhaps greater, than in any other country.
"America must bring relief to the starving children of all countries. There must be no nationality banned. The staving moan of a child represents only one thing, a call for aid which knows no bounds. America must give food to all hungry children, in France, Germany, Austria, [Romania], Italy, [Czechoslovakia], Armenia, Poland, Lithuania, Russia and all other countries where the children call."
Last night Miss Addams spoke in People's church, St. Paul, after which she returned to Chicago.
Striking a democratic note with her statement that all residents of America are actually immigrants or are comparatively recent descendants of immigrants, Miss Jane [Addams], of Hull house, Chicago, opened her Americanization address Saturday afternoon at the Elks’ temple before the members and guests of the Progress club. The appearance of Miss [Addams] in South Bend under the sponsorship of the civics and philanthropy department and the general club has been devoting an enthusiastic interest.
Miss Addams contended that the logical and human way to approach the recently arrived immigrant to whom our language is incomprehensible and to whom our manners of living and industry are often appallingly strange, is to regard him in all our interests with him as an adult of equal intelligence. In speaking further of the matter of instructing the foreigner in the rudiments of the English language, Miss Addams emphasized the stupidness of the old first reader methods of teaching adults the primary methods of reading English, for, she explained, the adult foreigner man or woman, has little keen interest in the fact that the cat sees the rat or other inane phrases. What he or she does want to know and what he should be taught is the association of the things in which he has an interest and the names of those things, by such a procedure he will learn in a natural way. As an example of her meaning Miss Addams asserted that the women in the cooking classes will take a more appreciative interest in learning the names of the utensils with which she is to work if she can actually handle them and use them than she will if the instructor simply writes on the blackboard, "This is a pan," without exhibiting the utensil. The development then of the intellectual life of the immigrant must be that of consistent evolution.
In connection with the Americanization work Miss Addams spoke of the food conditions existing in Europe and what America should do to alleviate the suffering of the starving children of the 20 countries which are dependent upon outside aid for their entire sustenance.
After attending the peace conference last summer in Pairs it was part of Miss Addams' program to visit five of the nations of Europe which were suffering from the effects of the war. Three of the countries had been belligerents and two neutral. Quite the most distressing conditions of starvation apparently existed in devastated France, particularly at Lille, where Miss Addams and her companion, Dr. [Alice] Hamilton, saw 600 skeletonized children who were being treated by the American Red Cross, some for starvation and many for tuberculosis. Similar conditions were existent in other localities in Europe and the near east. The feeding of the children of Europe is most essential if the work of reconstruction is to be carried on with any degree of efficiency by the future generations.
In conclusion Miss Addams urged the women of the city to use their influence in the passage of the fifty million dollar food bill now pending in congress which provides for the purchase and shipment of American food stuffs to the 20 starving countries of Europe and the near east. "These countries must have aid until the next harvest is garnered." Miss Addams asserted.
Miss Jane Addams spoke to a crowded house at the evening session on "The World's Food Supply and the World's Politics." Miss Addams recounted her experiences as a member of a Commission appointed for the purpose of investigating the food conditions in Europe. She said: "No matter what great problems were up before the Peace Conference at Paris, whether it was the question of Shantung, or the Jewish situation in Poland, or Palestine or Fiume, the one great question with the masses of the people of Europe was food. That stalks like a grim specter over the land. One felt that out of it the food problem was paramount. The whole great black shadow -- the lack of food, was worse to the populations of Europe than the destruction already wrought. We must first take care of the starving children of Europe. What good does a republican form of government do for a nation if her children are [malnourished]? War for children always translates itself into the question of food. One gets the impression while over there that the limit of endurance has been reached.
"The appalling fact that now confronts those nations is that the death rate among the young mothers of the nations is ascending in leaps. During the war it was the greatest among old people and children. The mothers denied themselves food that their children might live and now our neighbors across the waters are paying the penalty of losing these mothers."
"Europe is expecting us to give them help -- help which we alone of all nations can give. The children and mothers must have what is called 'super-feeding.'
"Another question confronting America is, that she herself must give great heed to the proper feeding of her own children."
JANE ADDAMS TELLS OF CONDITIONS IN EUROPE
Says Entire Generation of Children Has Been Stunted in Her Address to Teachers.
Deplorable conditions among the children of the war-ravaged countries of Europe were described by Miss Jane Addams of Hull House, Chicago, before the Missouri State Teachers' Association at the Coliseum, in the first of three addresses delivered by her this morning. She spoke afterwards before the Negro Teachers' Association, and at noon addressed social service workers at the American Annex.
Having visited Europe last summer, Miss Addams said that in the central countries and in the occupied regions of France it is impossible to tell a child's age by its appearance. Children of 14 look to be only 9, she asserted, and an entire generation has been lowered and stunted in growth. She told of a great hegira of children to Switzerland, Holland and Sweden for the purpose of obtaining proper nourishment, and of seeing some of them, stripped for medical examination in Zurich, looking like "lines of little skeletons."
Old People Make Sacrifice.
In Germany, she related, mothers are constantly confronted with the alternative of sacrificing their children or their aged parents in dispensing the family stores of food, the old people often volunteering to go without sustenance for the sake of the children. There is a widespread rumor, she continued, that the old people of Vienna have agreed to kill themselves this winter if food conditions do not improve, regarding their own lives as having been spent, and determining that the young generation shall not perish.
How children in Germany are in some cases reverting to savagery under the sufferings of famine was illustrated by the speaker with an incident related to her by Gen. Smut. He was in a little village in Germany in July, she said. His aid de camp went out for a walk, carrying in his pocket a few sandwiches. Two emaciated children begged him for food, and he gave them the sandwiches. Word swept through the village, and in a short time a crowd of children gathered, who threw themselves upon the officer, bore him to the ground and tore his clothing off in a frantic search for food. He was so severely injured that he was sent to a hospital.
"The greatest work in Europe today," said Miss Addams, "is that of keeping the children alive. The American people should support with all their means the Red Cross and the Supreme Economic Council, which are trying to remedy conditions. Herbert Hoover is chief of a movement with headquarters in New York, and offices in nine European countries, which supplies one or two meals a day at least for 4,000,000 children. It has a fund of $22,000,000, which is being increased by the Governments under which the starving children live.
"The Women's International League at Zurich is scientifically feeding hundreds of children from Russia, Germany and Austria, and the mothers of Switzerland are [cooperating] with the league by taking the children into their homes. All available supplies of cheese and milk are being reserved exclusively for the emaciated children of the war."
Children Lose Gayety.
In Saxony she found that the children have lost all of their former gayety, and sat about listless with hunger. In Berlin the dish water from the hotels was being treated by a process for extracting the particles of fat floating in it, which were fed to children in hospitals. There will not be sufficient food in Germany for some time to come, said the speaker, but the children, to recover what they have lost, must be super-fed. Physicians differ, she reported, as to whether with the best of care and the most plentiful nourishment they can ever regain a normal state.
In this emergency, she concluded, Europe is learning invaluable lessons concerning scientific feeding, and she hoped that America would not lag behind. The teachers of Missouri, she said, may do a great work in teaching proper dietetics, and should give as much attention to the physical as to the mental growth of the children in their care.
FOOD, HOUSING EUROPE’S NEED
Adequate Shelter Is Greatest After-war Problem. Says Jane Addams.
Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago, most famous of American settlement workers, Sunday afternoon, told the Social Workers’ Club, of Detroit, of the terrible conditions of child life in war-shocked Europe, in an address in the Jewish institute, East High Street.
She told of thousands of children become criminals through a lowering of moral character induced by years of under-nutrition; of mobs of girls and boys not yet in their teens become savage enough to attack and seriously injure a man supposed to be in possession of food, and of half the erstwhile school populations of many towns and villages kept at home and in bed because they lacked strength to walk.
Food Situation Critical.
Miss Addams spoke of the food situation in Europe and its relation to social service. Taking each country separately, she told of the conditions she had found, developing the idea that the war had set up certain mental and material processes that made a radical change in the treatment of the poor absolutely necessary.
Whether this change will be brought about, as George Bernard Shaw predicted to Miss Addams, by governments taking over many of the activities handled by social workers before the war or by an extension of social work by the old agencies, the speaker refused to predict.
“Housing has become perhaps the greatest problem abroad,” said Miss Addams. “No matter where you go or what you discuss in England, France or other countries in Europe, you are certain to come around to a discussion of the housing situation. It is estimated that there are now 1,000,000 families in England without homes -- that is, living on other people -- and this condition is aggravated by the fact that the English working class will no longer be satisfied with pre-war standards."
“The war made it necessary for the government to step in for its own protection and fix a standard of living and housing for these people, and the minimum once so fixed will be impossible to reduce.
“In Belgium and Northern France, the American relief organization fed 10,000,000 people, and fed them so scientifically that the pre-war death rate in these regions was materially reduced. These people are not going to be content to be less well cared for in the future.”
WOMEN'S PART IN THIS NEW WORLD
Every Worker Must Remember She Is Valuable to Economic Life of the Nation.
ASSIST IN FOOD PRODUCTION
Should Utilize Household Experiences, Employ All Their Human Affection and Exert Whole Capacity of Understanding.
By MISS JANE ADDAMS.
During these eventful days when the awakened minds and aroused consciences of the entire civilized world are turned towards measures of reconstruction, it is well for women to ask themselves what distinctive part they will bear in this tremendous undertaking which involves not only the welfare of all living women but the future of their children.
It is obvious that the women of America have a most advantageous position in this task. Women in this country have always had a unique freedom from traditional restrictions and unusual opportunities for higher education in schools. American women have become organized into social and educational clubs, into mutual benefit societies, into religious and nationalistic groups whose membership counts into the millions. Many of these organizations reflect the cosmopolitan composition of American society and all of them register the relatively high intelligence and independence of American women. The courses of study in some of these organizations, as well as their cosmopolitan membership, have prepared thousands of women to take a disinterested, far-sighted view of public affairs. In those states in which women have been voting and in many other states through their suffrage organizations, women have long been studying political questions. At this tumultuous moment when the fall of Russian and German autocracy has so momentously changed the world outlook, it is hoped that these women have a sense of historical perspective, and that they may be able to capitalize our political history for the benefit of other nations, urging the experience of this country in the abolition of legal barriers between the several states, the giving of equal rights to all citizens, the establishment of a federal supreme court, and the necessity of federal control over the common highways of commerce.
It is also hoped that they will be able to hold fast to that good will so desperately needed for the healing of the nations, by remembering the valuable contributions to American life made by people who have emigrated here from every country in Europe. Already a desire to help nations less fortunate than our own has expressed itself among women in many ways. While congress has been advocating a restriction of immigration for the next four years, I have heard American women urge that women’s organizations of various sorts might well offer to take care of war widows with little children who wished to emigrate to the United States, by guaranteeing to the government that such family groups should not become public charges. Women would undertake such a task in all humility of spirit, realizing that the United States has been subjected to the strain of war for a shorter time than the other powers. [page 2]
Women Have Had Much to Do.
The women responsible for 22,000,000 kitchens who were asked during the war to modify their accustomed ways, to make a technical study of resources to conscientiously conserve food, will be obliged to continue such effort if the world’s immediate needs are to be met. Fortunately thousands of American women have so stretched their sympathy and sense of responsibility to include the care of children in Belgium and in Armenia, that they can never again become indifferent to them. These women have also realized that if at the end of the war, whole populations are left depleted by malnutrition and their national vitality thus permanently lowered, such nations will be able to make little use of the great gifts of political freedom and self-determination which the success of the allies promised to place in their hands.
It has not been easy to do any of these things; to make radical changes in well-established habits requires nothing less than a genuine incentive and a driving motive. These were supplied during the war by the patriotic sense of responding to national needs; they must be continued by the conscientiousness of participating in a world-wide endeavor.
The position of women in American industry has been much freer and [page 3] more democratic than in any other country ever since the earliest entrance of women and girls into the New England textile mills. Although our states differ enormously in their industrial legislation, certain of them have enacted laws securing a one day’s rest in seven, abolition of night work, Saturday half-holiday, an eight-hour day and a minimum wage for women in the lowest paid industries. These standards safeguarding the health of working women are constantly being advanced by the women in industry service in the department of labor, created during the war, as were the federal employment bureaus, which have women’s departments.
Of the eight million women engaged in gainful occupations at the opening of the war, less than two million were in agricultural pursuits, until many more took the places of the men who left the farms for the trenches.
Cultivated Back Yards and Lots.
In addition to these women who went into actual farming and dairying were the many women who in the spring of 1917 cultivated two million back yards and vacant lots, so that the first war crop of potatoes showed an increase of a hundred million bushels over that of the previous year. In response to the urgent plea that the United States must produce enough food to make up the bitter deficiencies of the devastated countries of Europe, the latent capacities in our immigrant colonies were utilized through community gardens, and women everywhere were stimulated by the example of the women’s land army. Did the great success of these activities make clear once again that food above every other product responds to individual attention and is greatly benefited by being treated in small quantities? Do we need “integration of function” as economists say, in our food production, and are the children’s war clubs for raising pigs and bees and poultry not only valuable because they increase the amount of food but also because they introduce the best methods? The change which took place in American agriculture through the wider participation of women during the war may result to our lasting benefit. [page 4]
American women at this crucial moment must therefore show no signs of spiritual exhaustion. It has been their part in the war to nurse, to feed and to keep alive the forces of social regeneration at home. In carrying on these perfectly normal activities day by day these women have gradually discovered that no child in Serbia could be kept from starvation, that no Red Cross supplies could reach Mesopotamia save through international administration of food or through the [inter-allied] control of shipping resources. It has been the most natural possible approach to the problem of world organization. Quite as women entered into city affairs when clean milk and sanitary housing became matters for municipal legislation, and into state activities when the premature labor of children and the spread of tuberculosis became issues in a political campaign, as women were interested in federal legislation when pure food regulations and other such matters were being considered, so they now may normally concern themselves with international affairs because these are now dealing with such human and poignant matters as the rescue of women and children from starvation and the safeguarding of living standards for large devastated regions. To help make secure America’s place in the new world is probably the most compelling challenge which has been made upon woman’s constructive powers for centuries. To meet it adequately, women must utilize their household experiences, much employ all their human affection and must exert their whole capacity of understanding.
Tendency to Experiment.
Fortunately the reaction from such vital and generous experiences -- as American women have lately encountered -- is a tendency to experiment, to modify and to change old conditions.
The world at this moment is under a sense of moral compulsion; there is a demand that mankind should “exert all his power of affection and all his clarity of vision in order to make a great, moral adjustment, which shall comprehend the world, and so far as possible end war.”
Once more it has been made clear that social passion transfigures and transcends all other emotions. Literally millions of men have subordinated their individual lives to a social idea which they knew could only be attained in a future lying far beyond their own participation. Men and women in a score of nations are cherishing memories of this heroic sacrifice of their own sons. No matter what a man’s frailties otherwise may be, if he has been willing to risk death in the services he has chosen, that fact consecrates him forever.
Under such widespread influence every human and governmental institution is being challenged to reveal its finer meaning, and it is for women to make the world forever discontented with their former achievements.
Series 1922, A 9, B 8
ANNEX
April 1922
Among Resolutions on Economic policy we have passed the following:
Hague: 13, Commerce and Investments.
a) The International Congress of Women urges that in all countries there shall be liberty of commerce, that the seas shall be free and the trade routes open on equal terms to the shipping of all nations.
b) Inasmuch as the investment by capitalists of one country in the resources of another and the claims arising therefrom are a fertile source of international complications, this International Congress of Women urges the widest possible acceptance of the principle that such investments shall be made at the risk of the investor, without claim to the official protection of his government.
Zurich: 1. On Famine and Blockade.
This International Congress of Women regard the famine, pestilence and unemployment extending throughout great tracts of Central and Eastern Europe and into Asia as a disgrace to [civilization].
It therefore urges the Governments of all the Powers assembled at the Peace Conference immediately to develop the interallied [organizations] formed for purposes war into an international [organization] for purposes of peace, so that the resources of the world -- food, raw materials, finance, transport -- shall be made available for the relief of the peoples of all countries from famine and pestilence.
To this end it urges that immediate action be taken:
1) To raise the blockade, and
2) If there is insufficiency of food or transport
a) to prohibit the use of transport from one country to another for the conveyance of luxuries until the necessaries of life are supplied to all peoples.
b) to ration the people of every country so that the starving may be fed.
The Congress believes that only immediate international action on these lines can save humanity and bring about the permanent reconciliation and union of the peoples.
4. League of Nations.
g) Free access to raw materials for all nations on equal terms.
f) Universal free trade.
g) Adoption of a plan of world economy for the production and distribution of the necessities of life at the smallest cost.
h) Abolition of the protection of the investments of the capitalists of one country in the resources of another.
12. Economic.
a) Free trade should be established; trade routes by land, sea and air should be opened to all nations on equal terms.
b) Concessions in undeveloped countries should be under the control of the League of Nations, and withdrawn if abused; the right to protect investments of capitalists of one country in the resources of another should be abolished.
c) Production and Distribution. Such methods of production, trade and transit should be adopted as should insure a just distribution of the necessities of life at the least cost. [page 2]
Vienna : I. 12. Free Trade and International Economic Action.
1) This Third Congress of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom recommends the National Sections to urge upon their governments a free trade policy, the abolition of all trade boycotts and the pressing need for international cooperation, especially for the purpose of creating credit in order to avert a further [breakdown] in world trade, and to restore productive and purchasing power in Europe.
3) In view of the present dislocation of production and distribution of necessities of life, this Congress records its conviction that regulation on this subject should be a matter for international discussion and agreement, in order that purely selfish aims may be eliminated from commercial policy.
My Dear Miss Addams
I do not understand that Austrian money is still being held up in the U.S.A. Mr. Proudfoot as lawyer has many cases and all have had their Austrian money returned to them. Our Mrs Julia Viditz-Ward, as above, received hers over a year ago, -- yes even more.
I am asking Mr. Proudfoot to look up her case for me and for you. He is leaving for Washington on Wed of this week, and will have the leisure to look it up. Of course he does the things as a helper not as a bus.
I will ask Mrs Ward to give the woman some attention by post to Salzburg and offer her some money, from our relief fund. I know just how these things haunt one when full of other duties. That is why I have kept myself out of everything else, and have just stuck to this awful job, of just bread for the hungry.
Would love to go to The Hague, and Mr. P. is urging me all the time to run away. Here’s a joke I have had my teeth removed and have delayed having them replaced so that I would not be tempted to go anywhere, until I have this agony of fall clothing campaign finished. The campaign last year fell through by the Committee voting it out of my hands into Dr. Koessler’s, and he proved too busy to do it. So this year I am doing it as a private citizen, not as a committee. Oh, they are threadbare over there, -- years of no clothes, -- so unsanitary and so terrible to their feelings. So keep myself wrought up, -- or I would be dropping it all, too. Nearly all the relief has ceased in Austria, and never were the conditions so bad. Fr. [Hertzka] does not report this, but she does not belong to the class that is suffering. Just sent off bundles to all my personal friends. Hope some of them may be sent to The Hague. If you see them give them my love. We are now helping over 3000 families, -- in Austria. Only a drop in the bucket, but some job for one pair of hands.
Lovingly yours,
Andrea Hofer Proudfoot [signed]
Nov 6, 1922
GREAT AUDIENCE HEARS TALK BY JANE ADDAMS
Foremost Social Worker Tells of Conditions in Europe, of Homeless Families and Starving Children.
The seriousness of the housing situation which all Europe is facing and its rows and rows of under nourished children were the two big things about which Miss Jane Addams talked to a capacity audience in First Methodist church Friday evening. Appearing on the program of the Charities and Corrections association convention, Miss Addams was a drawing card. Those who had never heard her were anxious to hear her. Those who had heard were only more anxious to hear her again.
Two Big Problems.
"After all, America more than ever must reflect socially and in its charitable activities what the rest of the world is doing and thinking" said Miss Addams. "I want to give you some of the impressions I received during my few months' visit in Europe recently. The feeding of people and the housing of people both results of the war are the big problems [just] now.
"England was shocked to discover so many of her young men unfit for military service as a result of malnutrition, etc. The nation as a whole felt the revelation as a challenge to its resources. It found millions of families so improperly housed that they did not even meet Government requirements. The housing problem in England is the housing problem everywhere else."
Houses Demolished.
"In France," said Miss Addams "there are miles and miles where there are no houses at all. There will be strips 250 feet wide where scarcely any houses will be found. They are beaten down to the very earth. Even the foundation stones have been used. I knew of one woman who desired to build her home on the same spot in which she lived and where her mother had been born. She could not even find a trace of the foundation of her home. Finally she located the stump of a pear tree which she remembered had stood in her neighbor's garden. By counting off the steps and remembering bit by bit the ground as it used to be, she was able to start her home in practically the same spot it had been before the war.
"One difficulty in rebuilding the devastated region of France is the [objection] of the villagers. They want homes exactly as they were so that when the restitution commission comes around they may obtain their money. This is being overcome in some instances by building shell houses now, and after the commission has made settlements rebuilding about this shell.
"But houses are going up, more beautiful and more commodious than before. Houses are too expensive to up uncomfortable ones."
Children Had Appeal
That the starving children which Miss Addams saw in Europe made a profound impression on her was shown in the vivid pictures which she painted for her hearers. She said that under the United [States] food administration the children of Belgium had had less illness during the last year, in spite of the fact that they had been moved about more.
"There is still a large amount of tuberculosis and rickets in children between the ages of 13 and 16 years. But they are carefully giving these children an extra meal -- a thing our children generally take care of themselves -- and are bettering conditions.
"I saw some children in May, six months after the armistice was signed, whose little bodies were so emaciated that you could count all their ribs. Their shoulder bones stuck out like wings. The doctor who was examining the long procession of them the morning we were visitors there had lost his voice as a result of shell shock. As he examined the children he would speak to them in a whisper and they would answer the same way, thinking it a game. The long line of little, thin, whispering children is a sight I cannot soon forget."
Too Tired to Play.
Miss Addams told how Switzerland had cared for starving children of France on one side and of Serbia and Austria on the other. "I saw 600 children in Vienna absolutely too listless, too worn out to play. They showed no interest in any thing. Many of them had to be put to bed in order that they might not become deformed from standing on bones not nourished enough to bear their weight."
The speaker told of an officer who carelessly proffered a sandwich to a child. In a few minutes children were swarming on him from all sides. Two hundred were clawing at him, tearing his clothes in a vain attempt for another sandwich. He was injured so that he had to be taken to a hospital.
"It is queer, but all time I was in Europe, I thought of frogs" said the speaker. She told of a summer spent in the University of Wisconsin where she was giving a course of lectures. A man giving a course of lectures on biology showed her some experiments he was performing on frogs.
"In one jar he had little frogs, pollywogs, we called them as children, which he was stuffing. In another jar he had frogs of the same age, which he was starving. In a short time after they were full grown he reversed the order. The stuffed frogs were starved, but no matter how he held down their food, they remained jolly and frisky. The starved frogs he attempted to stuff. But no matter how much he fed them he could not induce them to frisk about and act like normal healthy frogs should.
"When I was seeing those rows of under nourished children I found myself wondering if they could ever be brought up to normal, if the results of these years of malnutrition could ever be over come."
Nationality Doesn't Count.
Miss Addams touched briefly on conditions in Germany. "Germany is not worse, nor as bad as Austria," she said. "Starved children in Germany seemed typical of starved children throughout Europe. When one sees a starved child one cannot remember or think of his nationality."
She told of the lamentable conditions existing in the Saxony province where before the war chief living consisted in making toys. She told too of the conditions existing in the industrial cities where there was no work. "I saw long lines of women waiting at the kitchens established by the city, waiting to get food for their children -- always for their children. They told me that the hardest time of all was when the children went to sleep at night. Before they slept they cried and whimpered fretfully because they were not satisfied. Even after they slept they continued to whimper like a sick child in its sleep, all because there was not food."
The end of the war to the children, as Miss Addams found, was a time for food. They were always told that after the war they would have chocolate, ice cream and all the things their growing bodies craved. "I imagine they came down the morning after the armistice was signed, expecting to see the breakfast table loaded with ice cream and other delicacies, they had done without for so long."
Send to Europe.
In closing Miss Addams urged that America see to it that her own children are always properly fed and secondly that she send all the food possible to the starving children of Europe.
Capt. Paxton Hibben
American Representative of the Russian Red Cross
will speak on
"NEW RUSSIA"
at the
GREAT NOTHERN THEATRE
21 W. Quincy Street
Sunday, November 12
2:30 o'clock P.M.
CLARENCE DARROW, Chairman
A Harvest Pageant will be presented following the address. Capt. Hibben has just returned from Russia, where he spent six weeks in Moscow after visiting 78 villages in the famine district. Do not fail to hear his first-hand report.
Admission 25 and 50 cents, including war tax
TICKETS MAY BE HAD AT:
October 30, 1922
My dear Miss Addams:
Paxton Hibben, recently returned from Russia, will be in Chicago for a few days early in November. Friends interested in hearing his first-hand report of the Russian situation are planning to dine with him on Friday evening, November tenth, at the City Club, 315 Plymouth Court, at 6:15. We hope very much that you and your friends can be present.
Captain Hibben spent six weeks in Moscow, after making a complete tour of the famine districts, visiting seventy-eight villages. He will speak on "Russian Rehabilitation."
The dinner will be $1.50 a plate. Will you please let us know whether you can attend, and the number of reservations you wish, enclosing check for same? Send this, with the enclosed card, to Mr. E. C. Wentworth, 8 So. Dearborn St., before November eighth.
Cordially yours,