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MY TWO COUNTRIES
MY TWO
COUNTRIES
BY
LADY ASTOR
[Illustration]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1923
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
_First Edition_
AMERICA
I[A]
“_I can conceive of nothing worse than a man-governed world--except a
woman-governed world._”
I know that this welcome has nothing to do with me. Ever since I first
entered the Mother of Parliaments I realised that I had ceased to be
a person and had become a symbol. The safe thing about being a symbol
is this--you realise that you of yourself can do nothing, but what you
symbolise gives you courage and strength, and should give you wisdom.
I certainly have been given courage and strength. I won’t say too much
about wisdom.
My entrance into the House of Commons was not, as some thought, in the
nature of a revolution. It was simply evolution. It is interesting
how it came about. My husband was the one who started me off on this
downward career--from home to the House. If I have helped the cause of
women, he is the one to thank--not me. He is a strange and remarkable
man. First, it was strange to urge his wife to take up public life,
especially as he is a most domesticated creature; but the truth is, he
is a born social reformer. He has avoided the pitfalls which so many
well-to-do men fall into. He doesn’t think that you can right wrongs
with philanthropy. He realises that you must go to the bottom of the
causes of wrongs and not simply gild over the top. For eleven years I
had helped him with his work at Plymouth. Mine was the personal side.
I found out the wrongs and he tried to right them. It was a wonderful
and happy combination, and I often wish that it was still going on.
However, I am not here to tell you of his work, but it is interesting
in so far as it shows you how it came about that I stood for Parliament
at all. Unless he had been the kind of man that he was, I don’t believe
that the first woman Member of the oldest Parliament in the world would
have come from Plymouth--and that would have been a pity.
Plymouth is an ideal port to sail from or to. It has bidden “God
Speed” to so many voyagers. I felt that I was embarking on a voyage
of faith, but when I arrived at my destination some of the Honourable
Members looked upon me more as a pirate than a Pilgrim! A woman in the
House of Commons! It was almost enough to have broken up the House. I
don’t blame them, but it was as hard on the woman as it was on them.
Pioneers may be picturesque figures, but they are often rather lonely
ones. I must say though, for the House of Commons, they bore their
shock with dauntless decency. No body of men could have been kinder
and fairer than they were. When you hear people over here trying to
run down England, please remember that England first gave the vote to
women, and that the men of England welcomed an American-born woman in
the House with a fairness and justice which this woman, at least, will
never forget.
Different Members received me in different ways. I shall never forget
a Scottish Labour man coming up to me, after I had been in the House
a little time, and telling me that I wasn’t a bit the sort of woman
he thought I was going to be; and on being pressed as to what kind
of woman he thought I would be, said, “I’ll not tell you that, but
I know now that you are an ordinary, homely kind of woman”; and he
has proved it since by often asking my advice on domestic questions.
Then the Irishman--an Irish Member once said to me, “I don’t know
what you are going to speak about, but I am here to back you.” The
last was a regular old Noah’s Ark man, a typical English Squire type.
After two years and a half of never agreeing on any point with me, he
remarked to someone that I “was a very stupid woman, but he must add,
a very attractive one,” and he feared I was a thoroughly honest social
reformer. I might add that, being the first woman, I had to take up
many causes which no one would call exactly popular. I also had to go
against the prejudice of generations, but I must say their courtesy has
never failed, though my Parliamentary manners must have been somewhat
of a trial.
Now I must leave the more personal side and get to what it is all
about, and why we are here.
Some women have always been in politics, and not done badly either.
It was when we had the Lancastrian kings that it was said that kings
were made by Act of Parliament--they ruled by means of Parliament.
Then Henry VIII accepted the principle of the Lancastrians to rule by
Parliament, but he used that principle in an entirely different way.
He made Parliament the engine of his will, he pressed or frightened it
into doing anything he wished. Under his guidance Parliament defied
and crushed all other powers spiritual and temporal, and he did things
which no king or Parliament had ever attempted to do, things unheard
of and terrible. Then Elizabeth came along. It is true she scolded
her Parliaments for meddling with matters with which, in her opinion,
they had no concern, and more than once soundly rated the Speaker of
the Commons, but she never carried her quarrels too far, and was able
to end her disputes by clever compromise; in other words, she never let
Parliament down, and that is what I don’t believe any wise woman will
do, in spite of the fears of some of the men.
Now why are we in politics? What is it all about? Something much
bigger than ourselves. Schopenhauer was wrong in nearly everything he
wrote about women--and he wrote a lot--but he was right in one thing.
He said, in speaking of women, “The race is to her more than the
individual,” and I believe that it is true. I feel somehow we do care
about the race as a whole; our very natures makes us take a forward
vision. There is no reason why women should look back. Mercifully,
we have no political past; we have all the mistakes of one-sex
legislation, with its appalling failures, to guide us. We should know
what to avoid. It is no use blaming the men--we made them what they
are--and now it is up to us to try and make ourselves--the makers of
men--a little more responsible. We realise that no one sex can govern
alone. I believe that one of the reasons why civilisation has failed
so lamentably is that it has had one-sided government. Don’t let us
make the mistake of ever allowing that to happen again. I can conceive
of nothing worse than a man-governed world--except a woman-governed
world--but I can see the combination of the two going forward, and
making civilisation, more worthy of the name of civilisation based on
Christianity, not on force--a civilisation based on justice and mercy.
I feel men have a greater sense of justice, and we of mercy. They must
borrow our mercy and we must use their justice.
We are new brooms. Let us see that we sweep the right rooms.
Personally, I feel that every woman should take an active part in local
government. I don’t mean by that, that every woman should go in for a
political career--that, of course, would be absurd; but you can take
an active part in local government without going in for a political
career. You can be certain when casting your vote that you are casting
it for what seems nearest right--for what seems more likely to help the
majority and not to bolster up an organised minority. There is a lot to
be done in local politics, and it is a fine apprenticeship for central
government; it is very practical, but I think that, although practical,
it is too near to be attractive. The things that are far away are more
apt to catch our imagination than the ones which are just under our
noses, and then, they are often less disagreeable.
Political development is like all other development. We must begin
with ourselves, our own consciousness, and clean out our own hearts
before we take on the job of putting others straight. So with politics.
If we women put our hands to local politics, we must begin with the
foundations. After all, central governments only echo local ones;
the politician in Washington, if he is a wise man, will always have
one eye on his constituency. Let us make that constituency so clean,
so straight, so high in its purpose, that the man from home will
not dare to take a small, limited view about any question, be it a
national or an international one. You must remember that what women
are up against is not what they see, but the unseen forces. We are up
against generations and generations of prejudice. Ever since Eve ate
the apple--but I would like to remind you, and all men, why she ate
the apple. It was not simply because it was good for food or pleasant
to the eyes: it was from a tree whose fruit would make one wise--“She
took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave unto her husband with
her and he did eat.” We have no record of Adam murmuring against the
fruit--of his doing anything but eat it with docility. In passing,
also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid
the blame on woman--however, we will leave Adam.
Ever since woman’s consciousness has looked beyond the material,
man’s consciousness has feared her vaguely; he has gone to her for
inspiration, he has relied on her for all that is best and most
ideal in his life, yet by sheer material force he has limited her.
The Western man has, without knowing it, Westernised the harem mind
of the East. I don’t believe he knows it yet, so we must break it to
him gently. We must go on being his guide, his mother, and his better
half. But we must prove to him that we are a necessary half, not only
in private, but in political life. The best way that we can do that is
to show him that our ambitions are not personal. Let men see that we
desire a better, safer, and cleaner world for our children and their
children, and that we believe that it is only by doing our bit, by
facing unclean things with cleanliness, by facing wrongs with right,
by going fearlessly into all things that may be disagreeable, that we
will, somehow, make this a little better world. I don’t know that we
are going to do this--I don’t say that women will change the world,
but I do say that they can if they want to. Coming, as I do, from the
Old World which has seen a devastating war, I cannot face the future
without this hope--that the women of all countries will do their duty
and raise a generation of men and women who will look upon war and all
that leads to it with as much horror as we now look upon a cold-blooded
murder. If we want this new world, we can get it only by striving for
it; and the real struggle will be within ourselves, to put out of our
hearts and of our thoughts, all that makes for war, hate, envy, greed,
pride, force, and material ambition.
II[B]
“_I seem a symbol--a sort of connecting link between the
English-speaking people!_”
I am not really afraid to speak here to-night. I was a little afraid
last night--I didn’t know quite whether New York audiences would be
as kind as Plymouth audiences. I see that they are much the same.
They forgive any shortcomings in the way of scholarly attainments or
oratorical orations when they see that you are speaking from your
heart. I usually do speak from my heart. It has been a safer guide to
me than my head, and here to-night it’s easy; for surely no people on
earth have understood a woman’s heart better than the English-speaking
nations.
Last night I told the Women Voters that I was not a person, but a
symbol; to-night I still seem a symbol--a sort of connecting link
between the English-speaking people, a frail link, perhaps, but a link
that is stronger than it looks. It is a strange thing that England’s
first woman Member of Parliament should have come from England’s first
colony. I doubt if the first English woman to land in Virginia was less
expected on these shores, than the first Virginian woman to land in
the House of Commons was expected on that floor. However, in spite of
having neither beads nor fire-water, the natives were amazingly kind to
that Virginian settler. It is all very picturesque when one thinks of
it historically, but it seems very ordinary when it is done. History,
I think, is more romantic to read than to make, and I apologise now
to future little schoolgirls for having added another question to the
endless ones which still haunt me when my mind turns back to the long
list of historical personages, varying from Lucretia Borgia down to
Susan B. Anthony.
I have been asked what my visit here was for. Cannot a person come home
without being suspected of deep and ulterior motives? I may tell you at
once, I am not on a mission to promote a better understanding between
England and America. No person, however keen about it, can do much in
that line. Things which are worth while are made by something better
than missions or treaties. They are made only by great ideals in the
hearts of the common people.
I don’t believe that trade agreements will succeed in promoting a
better understanding. But I do say that if the greatest commonwealth
of nations the world has ever seen and the greatest federation of
states the world has ever known cannot be brought together by some
common cause, some human hope and purpose, then I, personally, should
feel like the Queen of Sheba--the spirit would go out of me. I do
believe that these two nations are bound together by a common cause;
and that cause, one of human hope and purpose, is peace on earth and
good-will toward all men.
The Washington Conference was not a surprise to me. I knew that England
was not a militarist nation any more than America was, and I knew, too,
that once they talked things over they would see the utter futility of
building battleships against one another. America and England should
have the largest fleets because they will certainly use them more as
policemen than as fighting forces. After all, when England had the
greatest navy in the world she never used it except to keep the freedom
of the seas. I often wonder whether Imperialist Germany might not
have treated the Monroe Doctrine like a scrap of paper had her fleet
been the strongest in the world. However, I don’t want to go back to
an ancient grudge. It’s hopeless trying to go forward when you are
looking backward. It is a great mistake to keep such things alive; it
only means trouble, and surely there is enough trouble in the world now
without looking backward.
America, I am told, draws back with horror when she looks at Europe. I
don’t blame her. Certainly, it is a sad enough sight to make one draw
back. I cannot believe, though, that standing back is the right way to
help, and I don’t believe that any part of the world can go forward
in the truest sense while another part is suffering desperately.
The war has shown us that the world is really round and is part
interdependent. I am struck more and more by the way in which our stock
of moral good-will on both sides is still thwarted by the extent of our
misunderstanding.
This not only hinders the recovery of hundreds of millions of people
from all the mischiefs of war, but works new mischief of its own. I
am thinking now, not so much of America and Britain, who have had
their heart-to-heart explanations at the Washington Conference, with
an effect which ought to make their relations foolproof, in spite of
the small people who are so blinded by their fear or envy and hate,
that they would do all in their power to pull them apart. But I am not
afraid of them. I am only sorry for them. There is nothing more pitiful
than people who are moved by envy or hate, and there is nothing weaker
than people who fear. Envy and hate are the most blinding things on
earth; it is only people with vision who never perish. When I talk of
misunderstanding I am thinking of Europe.
I know that both America and England feel that Europe is not getting on
with the peace, that she still has large armies, still fights, and at
the same time cries out for help. Russia and France still have great
armies, and this naturally makes smaller states arm too. Of course it
is all desperately disappointing to some of us. We had hoped that this
was a war to end wars--I think it has ended the biggest wars, yet there
seem to be a few small private wars going on, and still a great deal of
fear and hatred left. I am sure that you will never end war with wars.
I believe that the safest and surest way to get out of war is to join
some sort of league of nations. That misrepresented and much despised
League has already prevented three small wars, it has registered over
one hundred treaties, has repatriated nearly four hundred thousand
prisoners--not a bad record for only half a league. I think it is
enough to make every woman in America want to join it in some form or
other, certainly any of those who have had sons in the war. It is the
memory of the anguish of the mothers and fathers who watched for four
years which gives me the courage to speak plainly here to-night. You
see, the anguish in a mother’s heart is felt in all other mothers’
hearts over the world, even though they be enemy mothers. If this is
true, mothers in any country can be members. I was told to be careful.
Why careful? Of what? I have not anything to say that could hurt any
one in America, and I only want to try and help the thousands of
people in less fortunate countries than America. Anyhow, I do believe
that America likes people to say what they mean and care about.
No one could say that America does not care about Europe. Look at
the way the American Relief Committee is helping Russia. It is the
admiration of the whole of England; often I have heard it referred
to in the House of Commons. Yet I don’t believe that the greatest
philanthropy in the world can add much to the permanent reconstruction
of the world, and that is what the world needs more now than
anything--reconstruction. It is all very well to hear people talk
of European entanglements, but the world is already tangled, and
we have to think of a plan to disentangle ourselves. No one could
think that English fathers and mothers--with nearly eight hundred
thousand sons who will never return--would want to join in a League
which would entangle them or any one else in war. The English know
enough about wars never to want to fight or to see any one else have
to fight. These mothers and fathers think, as I feel sure the fathers
and mothers of America do, that the safest and sanest way to get out
of wars is to join some sort of association of nations for peace. The
Washington Conference shows us what can happen when great countries
with great ideals get together. The difference between people with
ideals and people without is simply the difference between Pagans and
Christians--a Pagan is a man whose standard of right does not extend
beyond his own interest. Now we Anglo-Saxons rather pride ourselves
that our civilisation was built on Christianity. If that is the
case, there is no doubt that a lot of Pagans have slipped in among
us--perhaps they have also been proselytising. Don’t let us proselytise
too far, don’t let us forget the faith of our forefathers. It must have
taken a tremendous faith mixed with a double dose of courage to have
crossed the Atlantic in a shell of a boat--yet they did. They were not
Pagans. Civilisation has been nearly destroyed by Pagans. We cannot
give them a second chance. It is wonderfully helpful to look back
and see the kind of men in all countries who have made civilisation.
They were not men who carried a grudge, they were not men who hated,
but men with an inner consciousness of what man really is capable of,
men who realised that life is redeemed only by a purpose bigger than
themselves, and a love which passes all understanding.
III[C]
“_We must put into public life those qualities which women have had to
put into their home life._”
It seems a strange thing to be here--but my life is a little like that
of Alice in Wonderland. It gets curiouser and curiouser. When I sailed
from Plymouth to the House of Commons, I may tell you frankly I didn’t
half realise what the voyage would be like. I soon discovered that it
was the kind of voyage which would take the spiritual faith of the
Pilgrim Fathers and the courage of Sir Francis Drake. They both sailed
from my port, and I have had to use both their courage and their faith.
However, I think women possess both courage and faith. When I speak of
women I don’t mean every woman, I mean real women, women who care about
real things--the sort of women who have not only borne men, but have
given them such unselfish love that the world has seen, through them, a
bit of what the love of God is like.
Now, if we possess courage and faith, it will be no use to us unless we
use it. Faith is like a belief--it is only helpful if it leads us to
knowledge. Belief in God will only help us if it leads us to knowledge
of God.
So we women must turn to account some of this courage and faith. We
must put into public life these qualities which women have had to and
which they have rejoiced to put in their home life--unselfishness,
cleanliness, and kindness. The world needs it. I don’t suppose the
world as a whole was ever more in need of kindness than it is now.
We need not ask ourselves why the world needs help. You have got to
cast your mind over the world and you will get the answer. Europe
partly devastated and still hating. Russia starving; Capital and
Labour, like nations, almost as far apart as ever before. I suppose
this must be the aftermath of war. You can’t let Hell loose on earth
for four years, and expect to find Paradise at the end.
Yet when I speak of war, I don’t mean that it was all hell. There was
one aspect of war which was better than anything I have found in the
aftermath of war. There was a sort of kindliness and pulling together
among all classes of the population, and one felt that at last a
Brotherhood of Men was coming about. At least, that is how it was in
England, and I feel certain that it must have been the same over here.
A common purpose shared by a whole nation, if that purpose is one of
sacrifice, idealism, and helpfulness, is a wonderful thing. Think what
a common purpose shared by many nations--a purpose with an ideal and
helpfulness and a sacrifice of self--would be. This is what the war
should have left--and even though, I admit, it is not obvious, I cannot
help believing that that common purpose remains--remains anyhow in the
hearts of those who suffered and in the hearts of those who care.
I cannot speak for the women of Europe, but I think I can speak for
the women of England, and I say that they, through suffering, have
determined that so far as within them lies, there is no sacrifice
too great to make for the cause of peace. I have seen the women of
England when they were determined. I have seen them tried and not found
wanting. I can tell you it was a glorious sight. You may read diaries
of the war which tell of dinner parties and plenty in London; but that
no more represents the women of England than a night dancing-club in
New York or a red-light district in some city here represents the women
of America.
I will tell you what the spirit of English women was and is: The Bishop
of Exeter, Lord Robert Cecil’s brother, had two splendid boys killed
in the first three years of the war. The last year of the war 2,000
American Submarine Chaser sailors were stationed in Plymouth, which is
in the Bishop’s diocese. His wife, Lady Florence, did everything she
could to make these American boys less lonely. She had as many as she
could for Christmas, and hardly ever was her house without some of
them. About January, 1918, just before one of the fiercest battles,
she said to her sister: “I don’t believe I could go on if Jack (her
last son) was taken.” The next morning a wire came saying Jack was
killed. This was on a Monday. On Thursday, Lady Florence had planned an
afternoon party for your sons--those gallant submarine chasers. When
she arrived at Plymouth, and I saw her white, stricken face, I begged
her not to have the boys--they would just remind her of Jack as he had
been. She looked at me with eyes I can never forget and said: “But,
Nancy, they too are far away from home, and we must do all we can.” The
party went off and the boys, never guessing her sorrow, were charmed
as usual with the Bishop and his wife’s cheerful kindness. That night
I walked around to the American Y. M. C. A., and in talking to some
of the boys told them of Lady Florence’s sorrow. One boy, with tears
in his eyes, broke out: “Oh, why did you let her do it?” Then he said:
“If ever any one speaks ill to me of England, I don’t feel that I could
keep from killing them.” That, friends, was the spirit of the women of
England. Suffering only made them kinder and braver, and that’s why I
love and admire England.
Now, what can we do--the English-speaking women of the world? And I
cannot help feeling that we have got most all of the women with us--but
what can we do to help the whole world on? We cannot live for ourselves
alone and get peace. We cannot even get happiness, and I doubt whether
we can get plenty. We must somehow rectify the mistakes of the stronger
sex when left alone, and we must do it soon.
When America came into the war, Europe saw the dawn of a new
hope--America in the war to end wars. When America went out of the
peace Europe was dumbfounded. Idealism took America into the war;
idealism did not take her out of the peace, no matter what politicians
say.
The League of Nations was started by America, and by an American.
Some seem to think only of the starter, and forget it was the high
purpose of his people who gave the impetus which brought the League
from America to Europe. When we go for a great ideal we go for the
ideal and not for the idealist. It’s a principle we should follow and
not be side-tracked by a personality. Let us see what the League, even
without America, Germany, and Russia, has done already. If we realise
some of its achievements we may be inspired to give it greater trust,
and add to its number of associated nations. The League of Nations,
quite apart from its political work, has active humanitarian sections
dealing with health, labour conditions, traffic in opium and drugs, and
the White Slave Traffic. Each one of these must surely find hundreds
of thousands of women backers in the United States. We want your help
inside the League to bring on backward countries, whether it be to
protect the world from war or from plagues, or to protect young girls
from what is worse than plagues.
But I have not come here as a foreigner to tell any one--be it man,
senator, or woman voter--what to do. You have invited me to an American
Convention. You have not asked me because I am an English legislator.
But you have invited me back to the land of my birth--to the Home of
my father, from the Home of my forefathers, and, like the returned
prodigal, you overwhelm me with love. Yes, it is true I have been
in a far country. I believe I have been fighting there for the same
ideals that Mrs. Catt has worked so successfully for here. I am deeply
grateful that you should have asked me to come and discuss with you
questions which interest all women.
As I understand it, you, in the League of Women Voters, are not
creating a new party--a woman’s party--to run sex candidates in
opposition to the Democratic and Republican party candidates. Some
people fear you want to do this. I am sure you are right not to do
so. I did not stand for Parliament as a sex candidate. I represent a
Division of Plymouth--one of the most important naval ports of England.
Thousands of my supporters are English sailors. But this does not
prevent me fighting, and fighting hard, for questions where there is a
woman’s point of view--questions of morality, the protection of young
girls.
Some men don’t like it. But the best men--a growing number of men, I
find--are supporting me.
You are right not to make a new political party. You are equally right
to try to lift and raise and improve the platforms of both the big
political parties by joining them. See that you send neither windbags
nor carpetbaggers to represent you.
The big contribution you can make to politics and national life is
to face and tackle the moral standard. Insist upon a single standard
of morality--not by lowering our standard; but by raising the men’s
standard to that of women. Do that in America. We are working for it
in England. If America and England do it, then all countries must
follow. In some countries women are still looked upon too much as
mere physical instead of mental companions. It is partly the fault
of the women. They will always be that until they get a higher sense
of companionship. The right-minded women want to be companions in the
truest sense of the word, and the right-minded men want to have them
so. It is easy enough to attract men; it is harder to help them. The
single moral standard not only helps women, it helps men; _it helps
nations_.
You cannot be material in your domestic life and be spiritual in your
national life. You cannot be material in your national life and be
idealistic in your international relations. Lust creates the spirit
of War; it is incompatible with the spirit of Peace. The material
man lives and dies. It is the spiritual man who never dies. So with
nations. No material nations, however powerful, have ever survived.
The peace which the world wants is not the peace which comes from
a smashing conquest--that sort of peace is apt to sow the seeds of
vengeance. I believe the women can help to bring to the world the real
peace--the spiritual peace--the Peace which passeth all understanding.
Always remember St. Paul’s words; they apply particularly to women:
“God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and
of a sound mind.” We can only bring this spirit into world politics if
we have got it in our hearts. Let us prove to all nations that we are
not only talkers, but doers.
IV[D]
“_The most practical thing in the world is common sense and common
humanity._”
I do not know who has been kinder to me since I got home, the public or
the Press. I do know that if the Press had not been so kind the public
would never have been. I knew that when I came home there would be some
personal friends and relations who would be glad to see me, and then
I knew there would be some people who, because of my political views,
would be glad to see me. But I did not expect what I got. I did not
expect this tidal wave of welcome. You have swept me off my feet.
When a person leaves his or her own country and goes to another,
naturally there’s apt to be a prejudice against them in both countries.
I felt it myself. Then when that person--I can’t say unfortunate
person--happens to care deeply about both countries, and even more
deeply about things concerning all countries, her task is not made
easier. It’s easy enough to take the easy way in any country. It’s not
always so easy to take what you feel is the right way in any country,
but here I am--a proof to all countries that England and America will
give you a chance if you can prove to either of them that what you
are striving for is something which will hurt no man, woman, or child
of any country, but which you earnestly feel is going to help all
countries.
Now you will ask--What is this pearl of great price? What does this
woman think will help all countries? I’ll tell you what is the pearl
of great price that I am striving for. I am striving to take into
public life what any man gets from his mother and most men get from
their wives if they chose wisely. The kind of thing you have had in
your home life, the kind of thing that has made it possible for you to
be here to-day is the unselfishness, the courage, and the vision and
the clean love of your mother. That quality has done more than anything
in the world to make up civilisation. Men know that and we women know
it, too; and we feel that if we can get a little of that into public
life, that is our only contribution. That is the only thing we have
got. We are not coming just as women. Women are of no more use than
men. It is what we bring that is going to be useful, and a great many
of us think that we have more moral courage sometimes than men. Women
know that physical courage is easy enough but moral courage takes a
bit of doing. We feel that we have got moral courage, and we know that
we have got a clean love, and we know that we have got to be unselfish.
If we were not unselfish you would not be here. That is the mothers’
contribution to life. We are bound to be unselfish, and we think we
have got a great vision. It is that which we ask you to accept. That
is all we want to do. We don’t want to go into politics because of
ourselves.
We realize, as we realized when we raised you, that to make you perfect
we have to do a great many disagreeable things; but we never flinched,
and your mothers never flinched. They spanked you when you needed it,
and they loved you when you needed it, and they sympathised with you
when you needed it, but a really good mother never flinches from what
is disagreeable, and we are not going to flinch now. We are ready to go
into the political arena, and “arena” well describes it. There are many
stout old Pagans prancing around in it still. However, we are willing
to go in. We are willing to do our bit if you will let us help. Don’t
be frightened at us and don’t discourage us too much. We know that your
public life, just as much as your private life, needs this mothering
thought. When you are blundering around, sometimes a woman sees as
quick on public things as she does on private. You men think we women
talk so much. It is true, we do; but even then we don’t tell you half
we know.
You’ll be saying this sounds nice and uplifting, but we must get down
to practical politics. What are practical politics? The politics that
lead to war are not practical, and the same things that lead to bad
politics lead to war. The most practical thing in the world is common
sense and common humanity. It is the world’s great need to-day. Leaving
aside the vision of what a world needs, what we need is confidence,
coöperation--and I would like to add another--conferences. I know it is
not a popular word in America, but you need conferences. We have tried
others and they have failed. Also, we have got to get to work. The
world wants work. What’s the most practical way to start work? Trade.
Establish confidence--first, confidence between Capital and Labour,
then confidence in your government, then confidence in other nations.
The Washington Conference showed that coöperation and confidence were
the watchwords of progress. The employer must realise that he’s dealing
with a human being, and the worker must realise that the employer has
got some quality which he needs and lacks, otherwise the scales might
be weighted the other way. These seem to be the essential facts which
Capital and Labour should not forget. They were forgotten in Russia
with dire results. The fault, though, began with the employer class
in Russia. Don’t let us forget that. Then after getting Capital and
Labour together, we must get trade. The only solution for unemployment
is employment--for the workless, is work. In the modern world no big
nation can get work for all unless it trades with all. The best way to
trade with all countries is to know all countries, and that’s where the
Press--you, gentlemen--come in. Bring out the best in all countries,
get understanding, confidence, good-will. You cannot have international
trade without international confidence. Russia proves this. Good-will
is good business. It is for the Press to unite countries for trade and
prosperity and peace.
Governments depend for their views of foreign countries, upon their
ambassadors. Ambassadors get to know foreign governments. Foreign
correspondents are unofficial ambassadors for the people. The Press can
supplement official channels of communication by telling the people of
each country not only about the governments but about the peoples. They
can get the news and spread it quickly. They can get it to the man in
the street. I know many of the American foreign correspondents. And
I have heard frequently about the others. They are most able men, a
credit to the American Press. They are trustworthy. That is the opinion
formed by the people who know in England. I am glad to be able to
repeat this opinion here to-day. If the Press wants to unite countries
it can. If it wants to disunite them, it can. But the Press is just
like a person in this. If someone tells you constantly of another’s
shortcomings and faults and extols his own virtues, you begin sooner
or later to avoid that person. You feel, “Well, hang it all, he’s not
quite so bad as that anyhow. I don’t like always hearing of people’s
failings. I like to hear what’s nearest the truth about them and then
I can judge whether I like them or not.” So it is with the Press; if
it gives us accurate, fair news, we can judge for ourselves whether
it’s white Press or yellow. We even see that people aren’t so stupid
as they look. Thinking people find out that facts based on prejudice
cease to be facts. Mr. Davis told you all of this in a far better style
and manner last year. The world has progressed a little since he spoke
to you. We must be grateful even for this little. We must be deeply
grateful for the Washington Conference.
I believe the whole world longs for peace. But we never get anything in
this world and we certainly never get to heaven without striving for it.
America wants peace. America started the League of Nations. All Europe
looks to America, not for large armies, not even for food, but for a
great moral lead.
Lead us toward peace. Help us! Help us! Don’t just look on our
faults--help us to be better! Gentlemen, if we know the better way--let
us see to it that we take it.
Once more I beg of you to remember your power. If only your motto could
be to unite the world, send no thought which would not bless or cheer,
purify or heal--then we should, as the soldiers say, “get on with the
peace.”
V[E]
“_I fear bombs in politics far less than I do apathy._”
I am here as a sort of dual personality. When I speak to the League of
Women Voters, I am speaking as a woman interested in women the whole
world over. When I am asked to speak as a Member of Parliament to men
and women, then I must speak with the full responsibility of a Member
of Parliament, from the most up-to-date and glorious constituency in
England, namely, Plymouth.
It takes a good deal of prayer to keep me humble. To be born in
Virginia and to represent Plymouth, is enough to turn a stronger head
than mine. The Good Book tells us to love all men, also the greater
the loving the greater the life. I am fortunate in loving two great
countries, but their greatness will be tested by their attitude to
lesser countries. To-day I am speaking as a woman and not as a Member
of Parliament. The League of Women Voters, I realise, is not the only
political league of women in America, but it has the merit of being
non-party. I, as an outsider, could not come over and speak here as a
party politician, but I come as a woman, speaking to non-party women,
interested in something bigger than any party.
When entering Parliament nearly two years ago, I went as a party
candidate, a Coalition Unionist. The Coalition was a combination of
Unionists and Liberals and Labour, who wanted to coöperate and felt
that Lloyd George was the best man to win the Peace, as he had done
more than any single statesman to win the war. When I got into the
House of Commons I realised that as for certain problems, such as moral
questions which are of vital interest to women, no political party
cared sufficiently or realised how much women cared. As a result,
Liberal and Unionist and Labour men often put such questions in their
programme, but more often they sat down when the time came to stand up
and fight for them.
It is my honest and convinced belief that there are some questions
vital and international, which women see with a more unclouded vision
than men, questions which only women will fight for. That is why I am
so keen about helping women voters, not only in England and America,
but in all countries. There are things bigger than parties, even bigger
than countries, though neither party nor country likes to think that
anything is bigger than itself.
If only we, the new-comers of political life, can keep that greater
vision of bigger things before us, then the world will become more the
sort of place one dreams of and less the kind of nightmare one dreams
in.
Can we change it? Are we really different from men? I hope so. If
we were like men, then there would be no use giving us the vote.
It is because we are different that we hope to help, and yet women
are like men in this. They vary! The women who attend prize-fights,
the woman who keeps her husband’s nose to the grindstone because of
her personal demands and vulgar ambition to outshine and out-do her
next-door neighbour, are just as hampering to real civilisation as
the old-fashioned bar-room loafer, and more so. That old-fashioned
bar-room bum was so obviously a warning to all--the ambitious, selfish
wife or daughter is not so obvious; often she’s for a time most
attractive, yet the man whose soul is striving and who finds himself
tied down to one of these women will tell one that their charm soon
turns to dust and ashes. So when I speak of women I only mean real
women, and real women are the women who care for real things. After
all, it’s only people who care about real things that have got us
on as far as we are--not very far I’ll admit--yet we are advancing.
Crass materialism is going. The war of 1914 was just a war of ideals.
Germany said might was right--we are mighty--we must expand--we must
govern the world. The Kaiser with his God’s help led a misguided and
misdirected people up against the Democracies of the World, who,
though they don’t live up to their ideals, have at least got beyond
believing in the Divine Right of Kings. King John of England found
that out in 1214, and the Constitution of America was based on laws
which men fought and died for in England long before they set sail for
other lands. I am told that I have forgotten that Columbus discovered
America. He discovered it, but some have forgotten that he didn’t
settle it. It’s well to remember those first settlers. It’s always well
to remember unselfishness, courage, and determination, and people who
gave up all for a high ideal. Now I don’t come from Puritan stock; we
in Virginia were almost comfortably settled before the Puritan Fathers
set sail--and they meant to land in Virginia! Yet no one can look back
on that gallant band of men and women without admiring and almost
reverencing them. Those are the kind of people who make Civilisation,
people who subordinate the material to the spiritual. They may be rare,
but they are the light which shines in darkness. Throughout history
Materialism has wrecked Civilisation. Now I maintain that women, just
from their very natures, must have more vision than men. Why is it
that you have just had a Mother’s Day, not a Father’s Day? Isn’t it
because of the subtle unnamable something about a mother which men and
women feel? It’s well for a nation to have a Mother’s Day; it’s well
for those who celebrate this day to stop and think what kind of man or
woman their mothers would like them to be. As a mother, I know that
above all things, what we desire for our children is clean-mindedness
and honesty. We know that if all our children had that, much of the old
world’s misery would dissolve and disappear.
Just take one thing which may seem small, but it’s of vast importance.
Do you believe that if women had been voting as long as men that we
should have allowed almost the most important people in the country to
be underpaid? I mean the teachers. Any woman who has children or who
deals with other people’s children realises what infinite patience,
tact, love and long-suffering it takes to train and teach children
properly. They also realise that they, the teachers and mothers of the
nations, are forming the mind of the nation. And yet _all_ nations have
left teachers in a rut for years and years, and allowed them to toil
for a mere pittance. If women had been voters and organised voters,
this would never have happened!
I urge the League of Women Voters not to disband and go into parties
yet awhile. Naturally, you must vote with parties, and later on
you will very likely get tied up like men into parties, but I don’t
feel that the time is ripe. As women we must have organisation to
educate ourselves, not on party lines, but on national lines. Raise
the programme of all parties; that is what you are doing now. I beg
you to keep on. The Democrats and Republicans will both try to catch
you. Don’t let them catch you napping. Don’t become just fodder
for political cannon. Form your programme and make all the parties
adopt it. Begin in your home towns, begin at once. Get your politics
straight. The only way to get cleaner and better politics is to come
out and work. In Chicago, we hear just now of bombs. Well, I personally
fear bombs in politics far less than I do apathy. If Chicago’s citizens
are thinking first and foremost of money-making, then the politicians
who represent them will be true to type. If they think first and
foremost of higher things, they will get better politicians. You and I
get pretty much what we deserve in life, be it political or otherwise.
I believe Chicago has a great heart as well as a great head. I always
mistrust people who make the most noise. Beware of men and women who
are out for themselves. That’s what keeps us all back--that awful
self. Yet these people very often frighten politicians. I am told not
to mention this or that subject in Chicago, especially the League of
Nations. Now, if there is one city in America where one should talk of
the League of Nations--surely it’s Chicago. Look at your population.
It’s a City of Nations in itself. When you welcome other nationalities
here, you want them to be good citizens. Do you believe that a man who
forgets his mother is a good citizen? I don’t. So it is with men if
they forget their motherland. The war is nearly over--we never want
another war. Some of us feel that if we could get a league of all
nations together, we would go a long way toward preventing another war.
And we are quite right in thinking it. The present League of Nations,
even without America, Germany or Russia, has prevented three minor wars
already, besides doing many other things. Just to-day we read in the
_Chicago Tribune_--“League Draws Silesian Thorn Out of Europe.” This
brings to an end a dispute which nearly led to war between Germany,
Poland, and other nations:
Germany and Poland, through the good offices of the League of
Nations, have ended their dispute over the rich Silesian coal and
iron basin.
They will sign a treaty of settlement providing for unified
administration of the great industrial district by a mixed
commission to-morrow afternoon in the presence of the council of the
League of Nations.
This is regarded as the greatest achievement of the League, with
the possible exception of the international court project, for it
brings to an end a dispute which nearly led to war between Germany
and Poland, precipitated a local revolution, almost split the Allies
asunder when Prime Minister Lloyd George and Premier Briand had their
famous controversy and has held back Europe’s industrial recovery
materially because of the unsettled conditions it caused.
Do you mean to tell me that the Germans and Poles in Chicago don’t want
a league which will help their countries? I don’t believe it. Don’t
forget also that the Irish, under the treaty recently made by Great
Britain, can be represented in the League of Nations. But it can never
be a real League until all nations are in.
So I appeal to all real citizens of my native country to urge upon
this, the greatest federation of states the world has ever known,
to coöperate with the greatest commonwealth of nations (the British
Empire) which the world has ever known.