Hull-House Residents Protest.
The charge of communism and anti-National Sentiments Repudiated.
In a recent speech before an organization of women, Capt. Ferre Watkins, [commander] of the Illinois department of the American Legion, attacked Hull-House as a rallying point of radical and communistic movements and charged that the settlement leaders are trying to sell out their own country to some internationalist scheme for purely selfish reasons. The same superheated part [illegible] ↑He also↓ denounced Miss Jane Addams, the head of Hull-House and as an opponent of ↑every form of legitimate↓ national defense and one of the leaders who are "selling out their country."
We, residents of Hull-House, are not "leaders" in any movement, but plain workers, but we feel that the recent assaults upon Miss Addams and Hull House are too vicious to be totally ignored. Miss Addams needs no defense ↑at our hands,↓ for no sane person will credit the utterly silly and puerile charges leveled at her by Capt. Watkins. But we enter emphatic protest against the statement that Hull House is a rallying point for every radical or communist movement. Hull House believes in free speech and free discussion, but it is not in any way committed to communism or any other form of radicalism. There is only one independent socialist among the residents; none of them is a communist or revolutionist; many of them are republicans, progressives, democrats, prohibitionists, individualists. The residents of Hull House carry on no [propaganda] ↑whatever;↓ they teach classes; they direct clubs; they do what they can for the neighborhood in the way of aid, advice and instruction; they produce plays and supervise other recreational activities.
Those who think ↑say↓ Hull House is a center ↑of radical↓ or revolutionary activity are woefully ↑either↓ ignorant or reckless and irresponsible. In either cause, their ↑false and slanderous↓ statements should be resented and rebuked by all the intelligent friends ↑and supporters↓ of Hull House.
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