Statement on Captain Watkins, November 11, 1926 (excerpt)

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CHARGES ABSURD, SAYS JANE ADDAMS

Denies Hull House is Headquarters of Radicals and Communists.

By the Associated Press.

CHICAGO, November 11. -- An attack on Hull House as a radical and Communist headquarters by Captain Ferre Watkins, commander of the Illinois American Legion, has been called "utterly false, unwarranted and Absurd" by Miss Jane Addams, founder of the settlement.

Capt. Watkins, who succeeded to the position of Howard P. Savage, new national commander of the Legion, charged in an address yesterday to the Illinois Federation of Women's Club that "Hull House is the rallying point of every radical and communistic movement in Chicago.

"The leaders of the settlement are attempting to sell our their country to some international scheme from which they vainly hope to realize great things for themselves," he said.

Denial by Miss Addams.

Miss Addams specifically denied having made statements which Capt. Watkins attributed to her when he said: "Jane Addams told in a public meeting how she hoped through influences at the White House to strip the uniforms from our cadets at West Point, to deprive our colleges of military training and leave America undefended, relying on the good will and tolerance of the rest of mankind for immunity."

To this the Hull House leader replied: "While I have always been opposed to compulsory military training in our schools, I have never intended nor desired to interfere with the Government's program of training men for service as officers in the defense of the United States."

Capt. Watkins said that the Legion hated war "as no other organization does," but that it demanded "willingness to defend the flag," and that it was "vowing that the red hand of Moscow shall be snatched from our children at least."

"We don't fear the acknowledged radicals. The danger lies in organizations like the Women's International League for Peace, in our churches, the schools, the women's clubs. Your clubs, the churches and higher schools are the focal points of the Red attack," he declared.