JANE ADDAMS PRAISES "BOB"
Settlement Worker Still Likes His Anti-Conscription Vote and Says So.
Japan's demand that the League of Nations protocol call for arbitration of domestic as well as international controversial issues, a demand which caused resentment in America because of the strained feeling existing over America's immigration policy, caused not a murmur of protest from Jane Addams, Chicago settlement worker and peace advocate.
"Certainly the protocol would be very weak without some such provision," Miss Addams told her audience at Detroit Central High School Monday evening, answering a query as to her attitude and that of La Follette on this question. "I feel that anything which breeds war or possibly can breed war should be submitted to neutrals and [nonpartisans] for discussion, even though it be a supposedly domestic question."
Miss Addams spoke in behalf of La Follette's third party candidacy for president before an audience of 1,000. Three-fourths of those present were women.
Lauds Conscription Vote.
So earnest was the speaker in her advocacy of peace, the principal merit she found in the La Follette candidacy was in the supposed virtue of sympathies in that direction. She paid glowing tribute to La Follette for his vote against conscription during the war.
Answering a query as to La Follette's stand on the Volstead Act, and his reported wet leanings, Miss Addams insisted he stands for enforcement of the law, and that should be a sufficient test.
Fearing that the gentle woman had missed a bet in failing to arraign Brigadier-General Charles G. Dawes, Republican vice-presidential nominee, for alleged banking irregularities, as "Fighting Bob" had done in his Detroit meeting, Edward Grece, Detroit La Follette leader, requested that she discuss this incident, and then found it necessary to coach her as she went along.
Notwithstanding the La Follette seaman's act has been severely criticized by Great Lakes shippers, who claim its drastic restrictions have placed them at a decided disadvantage with their Canadian competitors, Miss Addams found naught but praise for it. She based her conclusions upon expressions heard at an international conference at Geneva.
Filling the Dinner Pail.
To one other inquirer, who wanted to know what foundation there was for the Republican contention that the election of La Follette would bring industrial chaos and jeopardize his "full dinner pail," the speaker declared that despite the time-worn discussion, she didn't know exactly "what would fill a dinner pail and what won't," except that she thought the era of righteousness in national affairs promised by La Follette would come pretty close to filling it.
The La Follette proposal for a referendum on war was lauded amid cheers from the audience.
Considering peace as a world movement rather than a political issue, Miss Addams [addressed] the local branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in the General Motors building in the afternoon.
Miss Addams, who has just returned from a world tour, gave her [page 2] impressions of what women in various countries are doing for the cause.
Programs in Orient.
"In India," she said, "the women have aligned themselves with Gandhi in his [noncooperative] program for securing self-determination. In Japan, they are endeavoring to substitute moral prowess and mental energy for the militaristic movements and for the enlargement of the navy. In Japan, as elsewhere, the word 'Pacifist' is avoided and the term 'liberal' used in its stead, and it is the liberal, man and woman alike, who is against the war program in Japan."
"It doesn't matter where women work for peace as long as they work for it. Things must be shaped in the right direction; if they drift, they drift into war. There are 7,000 women in the [Women's] International League all working toward a better understanding of conditions in their respective countries in order to work out a constructive program for peace. With foresight and moral energy the women of the world can make war a thing of the past."
Seated at the speaker's table with Miss Addams were the following members of the [Women's] International League for Peace and Freedom: Mrs. Frederick Holt, Mrs. Nelson K. Whittemore, Mrs. Oscar Moon, Mrs. Walter Jobe, Mrs. Hugh Chedester, Mrs. A. J. Stewart, Mrs. H. H. Runo, Mrs. Herbert Prescott, Mrs. Emma Fox, Miss Caroline Parker and Miss K. B. [Jennison].
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