June 11, 1927.
My dear Miss Addams:
I cannot thank you sufficiently for your kind cooperation in the matter of the open letter to the D.A.R.
I have little faith in a real conservative understanding a liberal or a radical, but liberals understand each other and do have faith in the right of individuals to have their own opinions. I hope that within the D.A.R. the liberal element will arise and suppress the pamphlets I am attacking.
If one organization had the legal right to sue another organization for libel, you would certainly have that right in connection with the pamphlet called "The Common Enemy." I believe there is no basis for such action and those who have prepared the pamphlet have known the law.
With your consent, I shall keep the reports you have sent me until it is quite certain that there will be no need of them for references in case of a comeback. I shall preserve them carefully and return them later. I should like to keep them for about two and a half months if there is no objection.
I am now handing in the completed article to Miss Roderick, the editor of The Woman Citizen, who will submit it to a lawyer to ascertain if there is any libel in it. I enclose herewith the part which concerns the League for Peace and Freedom and you. If there is anything in it which you think is not consistent with the facts, I shall be pleased to have you let me know at once. I want to be as well defended against counter attack as it possible.
I would like to say to you personally that nothing has interested me in the post-war peace movement more than the philosophy of the situation. I am certain that the world will sometime get civilized enough so that when a crisis arises (as I suppose such things will continually happen), wise heads will get together and say "We wish to change this situation -- what will be the best ↑[success]↓, least shocking to the public, most disarming, and most likely to bring in quick returns." They will thrash it out together and evolve some form of conclusion, whereupon all will go out and advocate that conclusion. If that had been the way at the time of the American Revolution or the Civil War, I am sure neither war would have happened. At present all the people who wanted to see war abolished and peace come went out and thrashed their views with the public. The result is that the peace people have been very disconnected and some have been rather radical and hysterical, and, of course, the worse things that have been said have been charged [page 2] to all. As it is, however, I can see the entire movement, left and right, converging on centers here and there of agreement, and I believe the peace movement at this time is so promising, so encouraging, so certain of triumph in reasonable time that the opponents are justified in having spasms.
Very cordially yours,
Carrie Chapman Catt [signed]
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