Bio of Carrie Chapman Catt--Intro and Chapter 1

Chapter 17

The fight for women’s voting rights in the U.S. was over, but Carrie’s life as a political figure was not.  She would continue to work in the international suffrage movement, she would help to guide the early years of the League of Women Voters, but most of all she would devote herself to the cause of world peace.

            Carrie chose MaudWoodPark to be the first president of the League of Women Voters.  Maud had worked closely with Carrie and had played an important role in getting the suffrage amendment through Congress.  Under the leadership of MaudWoodPark and later presidents, the League became an important voice for good government.  From the 1920s up to the present time, voters have relied on the League for valuable information about political issues.

            At the League of Women Voters convention in 1921, Carrie made a powerful speech in which she poured out the pain and anger she had felt about the millions of deaths caused by the World War.

The people in this room tonight could put an end to war.  Everybody wants to and everyone does nothing. … God is giving a call to the women of the world to come forward, to stay the hand of men, to say, ‘No, you shall no longer kill your fellow men!’

            The audience wept silently during her speech, and then rose at the end to applaud and cheer for Carrie’s call to action.

            Carrie worked for suffrage in Europe and South America for the next few years, but in 1923 she resigned as president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, having served in that position for 21 years.  Now she was free to put all her efforts into the peace movement.  She began by traveling around the United States making speeches about outlawing war.  Some people accused Carrie of being disloyal to her country, but she fought back strongly with articles and more speeches to point out the mistakes of the people who attacked her.

            Carrie organized a series of conferences on “the Cause and Cure of War.”  Carrie wanted the conferences to reach out to conservative groups and to women who did not yet have strong opinions on the subject of peace and war.  Some of the speakers were military experts and prominent public officials.

            At the second conference, held in 1926, one of the speakers said there might be a war between the United States and Mexico because of a dispute between American oil companies and the Mexican government.  Thanks to the work of Carrie and other people in the peace movement, the United States government started discussing the problem with the Mexican government.  Eventually the two countries reached an agreement and war was avoided.

            In 1928, the third conference in the series was held.  Carrie warned that many people were talking and thinking about “the next war”.  She supported a proposed treaty in which the strongest countries would agree that there would be no more wars.  The treaty was adopted in 1928, but there was nothing in the treaty that would have any practical effect on countries that broke the treaty.  The treaty was a failure.

            Under Carrie’s direction, the Committee on the Cause and Cure of War became one of the best known of the organizations that were working for peace.  In 1930, the Committee collected 12 million signatures on a petition supporting a proposed Naval Disarmament treaty.  The treaty was adopted, but the major countries almost immediately started ignoring the treaty by building more warships.

            In the 1930s there was a great economic depression around the world.  A large number of banks and other companies went out of business.  Many people became angry and disappointed because they had no jobs and no money.  Some of them believed other countries were taking away their jobs.  Many countries were building up their armies and navies.  People feared that there would be another war.

            Carrie and her committee supported the idea of a World Court, which they hoped would settle disputes between countries without war in the same way that courts in civilized countries settle disputes between citizens.  Carrie joined with Elihu Root, an old suffrage opponent, in lobbying the U.S. Senate to approve membership in the World Court.  The Senate did not listen.  The World Court was crippled by the refusal of the U.S. to participate.

            Even when Carrie was in her late seventies, she was still a vigorous and effective speaker.  She stayed active in the “Committee on the Cause and Cure of War” and continued to argue for peace even after all hope had gone.  The committee held the last conference in 1940, after the Second World War had already started.

            During the war, Carrie wrote letters warning about the terrible things that were being done to Jewish people in Europe and she tried to help war refugees.  As the war was ending, Carrie, like her friend Eleanor Roosevelt, supported the creation of the United Nations.