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3. III Jeannette Rankin Talks More about her Lifelong Work for World Peace

Jane Addams and the Women's League for Peace and Freedom

Chall

I thought today we would talk some more about your role in the peace movement. Now you told me that you had started your work for peace many years ago, even before women's suffrage, and I wonder if you had been with Jane Addams, when she formed the Women's Peace Party in 1915

Rankin

Yes.

Chall

And where was that formed?

Rankin

In Washington.

Chall

What was the reason behind this?

Rankin

Well, you see, war had started in Europe, and it was a tremendous shock to American people that there was a war in Europe. A man from Missouri, a professor, had been in Europe, and he came home and wrote a book—I can't remember the name of the book—and told that there was going to be a war—I mean before, in 1914—but I'd never heard of it. In 1914 I was campaigning for woman's suffrage, and I was in a little town in Montana and news came. A lovely woman was my hostess, and we sat

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there and we couldn't believe it. And I was so disturbed that a thing like that could happen, and I'd have no warning of it. I thought I was the only one that didn't know that it was coming, but gradually found out that they didn't. And this book of this man was talked about a great deal.

Chall

I see. It was an important book that had been ignored by most Americans you think.

Rankin

Scorned. There wouldn't be such a thing as a war.

So, then I realized that I wasn't the only one that didn't know about it. I'll never forget the shock it was. And then in my speeches in Montana, I mentioned this war a good many times and said that was one reason women should have the vote. I didn't say we'd stop war, but we ought to know about it, and so on.

Chall

If you were shocked at the beginning of the war, does that mean that you found common cause with other suffragists, primarily, about that time to promote the cause of peace?

Rankin

Oh, no, it wasn't anything organized or talked about.

Chall

How did Jane Addams—you and Jane Addams and the others—then get involved in forming the Women's Peace Party?

Rankin

I don't know. Miss Addams called it, and she did everything. And this was in 1915. And then in 1919, they went to Switzerland—

Chall

Yes, Zurich.

Rankin

And I was definitely a part of that.

Chall

What was that like—organizing in Zurich in 1919?

Rankin

I think there were fifteen-twenty women from the United States that went. And Miss Addams—I borrowed the money to go—but Miss Addams always put me forward and used me, and she liked me.

Chall

She was much older than you?

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Rankin

Twenty years. And she knew I was more than a suffragist. For instance, we had a colored woman in our party, Mary Church Terrell—a very able, beautiful woman—and when we got to Paris, she put me in the room with Mary Church Terrell, and she was quite disappointed at some of the women who didn't want her.

Chall

Is that so?

Rankin

And do you remember that Jew in Sears & Roebuck— Rosenwald [Julius]—that had schools in the South for colored people? Miss Addams was telling him that I rode on the train with Mary Church Terrell. And she said he said, "Well she's one who really believes in doing what you believe." These other ones made speeches against racial discrimination; but that was fifty years ago.

Chall

I didn't realize that they were involved with the race problem at that time.

Rankin

There wasn't anything on earth that they weren't involved in!

Chall

So you were involved, when you set that up, with race problems and peace, and all kinds of other issues then.

Rankin

Well, there wasn't very much about race. Nobody knew about it. Did you ever read her Twenty Years at Hull House?

Chall

No, but I think I'm going to. That probably explains a lot about her.

Rankin

Oh yes. Once I met a man on an airplane from South Carolina and something came up about a woman President. I said that Miss Addams could have made a great President because of her knowledge of American problems, and he said that she also understood European problems very thoroughly.

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World War II—The First Stages

Chall

You have had a very long life of activity against war. Still people do, as you have pointed out, seriously question your vote against the war with Japan.

Rankin

I can't understand how thinking people can question the Second World War. It isn't what the issues are, but the methods of settling disputes—that war has nothing to do with the problem.

Chall

It's beginning to look that way more and more, isn't it.

Rankin

Well, that was one of the first things I learned about it.

Chall

Well you apparently had that attitude in the First War, but you were more convinced of it at the time of the second?

Rankin

Yes, because I followed Roosevelt's war activities. I spent one summer in Geneva studying the League of Nations, and you could feel every minute that they were putting down democracy in  Germany , and building Hitler.

Chall

Did you think the League was responsible for Hitler.

Rankin

No, no one thing. But the whole atmosphere of England and the United States. So that was in the early twenties. When did Roosevelt come in the first time?

Chall

He was first elected in Novembers 1932.

Rankin

And Hitler came in about the same time.

Chall

Yes, Hitler came in at just about the same time—he was appointed Chancellor I think at about that period [1933].

Rankin

But that wasn't that whole thing.

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Chall

Prior to that he was active with his brown shirts in building up his power.

Rankin

And the whole attitude was to help him and put down Stresemann [Gustav]. What was the name of the man before him?

Chall

In  Germany . I don't remember. [Hitler replaced Franz von Papen as chancellor.]

Rankin

It isn't important. But the minute Roosevelt came in, I was lobbying. And his first act was a war act. He suggested a huge sum of money (What seemed a huge sum at that time. It's not anything now.), two hundred million dollars to help the Depression, and that two hundred million was to go to the War Department—to help it.

Chall

Oh really.

Rankin

I'm not sure whether the whole thing was to the War Department. But in that was either forty or sixty million to buy gas masks that had been found effective in the First World War.

Chall

Is that so. And that was early in Roosevelt's term?

Rankin

The first thing he did.

Chall

I didn't realize that.

Rankin

And from then on, everything he did was a step towards war. And so I've felt that we had helped Hitler, thinking he would fight Communists, you know, and he started that way.

Chall

There were many people in this country who did think that if we allowed Hitler to be built up that he would fight the Communists for us. It was Anti-American-involvement but it wasn't a pacifist position.

Rankin

No.

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Lobbyist with the National Council for the Prevention of War

Chall

When you were working lobbying for the National Council for the Prevention of War, what groups were with you?

[Tape off]

[Interviewer's comment: At this point Miss Rankin asked that the tape recorder be turned off. She was reluctant to discuss her decade of work with the National Council for the Prevention of War because of the difficulties she had had with its director Frederick J. Libby. They disagreed basically about the tactics to use in promoting peace. In addition she felt that, although she had been for many years, a professional social worker, had actively and successfully campaigned for suffrage and for political office, neither she nor any woman on the staff was ever accorded equality with the men on the staff. Mr. Libby wouldn't consider her opinions, preferring those of the men, even though they had had less governmental experience; he expected to pay her less than the men for doing the same work, and wanted her to read testimony before congressional committees which had been prepared by someone else, but which she felt would make her look ignorant and foolish. From her experience as a congresswoman she believed that the Council's various approaches to Congress were incorrect.

Thus, these crucial years for American foreign policy were unhappy years

for Miss Rankin as she worked as a lobbyist for peace. In terms of this interview, only her realization that what she had to say about the period had historical significance, and that the interviewer did not intend to probe the

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politics and personalities of the National Council for the Prevention of War, prompted Miss Rankin to continue to talk for the record.]

[Tape on]

Well, let's just say that during the years from 1928-1938, when you worked for the National Council for the Prevention of War, you did it because you felt this was very important, even though you weren't too happy about the position. Could you tell me—

Rankin

This is the thing—all of the people were so vague, and in 1929, when Hoover was in, they signed the Kellogg Pact, and I thought, as long as we'd signed it, then the thing to do was to work hard for that. And Mr. Libby had a preacher named Watkins, and he got high schools to write essays on the Kellogg Pact and gave prizes and so on. It was a very dull program. While the children did it, there was nothing to reach the parents, and we needed people to endorse the Kellogg Pact, and that's what made me go to Libby and ask for a job. He had this nice, ladylike organization, and he said afterwards, if he'd known what I thought, he never would have hired me.

Chall

What would you have done? What did you want to do?

Rankin

I wanted to publicize the Kellogg Pact and to work on that. And he would say to me when I urged it, "Well you can do it," but I had to do all these other things; and the advantage, I thought—I don't know whether he ever thought it was that I could go to the congressmen and senators and ask them to do things that I had done, you know. Every new congressman and senator would talk to me, because I had been in Congress, and they'd heard about me. And I'd go to see , and I thought it was an advantage—to meet them and to say, "Do this," and "It doesn't matter if you do this or not."

For instance, when Truman was elected senator, I called him up, and he came and I said that I was against war. And he said, "Well I've always liked war. I felt we made all our advances in civilization from war."

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Chall

Oh. Well he was plain about it.

Rankin

Yes. And they treated me as a colleague more than as a lobbyist, all the way through. And I could go for different things. And we did work on some good things.

The Arms Embargo

Chall

What were they?

Rankin

We got a bill through, at the last, against selling arms to other countries—an embargo on arms. And I had a lot to do with it.

Chall

How did you do that?

Rankin

I kept in touch with a young fellow (I can't remember his name) from Ohio, who introduced a resolution for an embargo on arms as a part of the Kellogg Pact— following that. He didn't mention it. But, I kept pushing him to do more and to do more. The chairman of the committee in the House was a Sam McReynolds from Chattanooga. And I thought I wanted to go into his district. When the bill came up—when this young fellow introduced it—Sam McReynolds fought it very hard. He did just what the President wanted him to do (which was Roosevelt). So I said to Mr. Libby that I wanted to go in his district and work. (I'm not getting it in sequence.) When it came up in the House, Congress was going to adjourn, and they wanted to kill the bill before they adjourned, but there was so much sentiment for it, they didn't know what to do.

And I was following this in the Senate. The committee was going to meet to pass it. And there was going to be a hard fight on the thing. And I slipped into the committee room and passed this young fellow and said on the way, "Pass it for six months." And then when they come back, they can change it. And so, in a few minutes the committee met, and they adjourned almost immediately, and they

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came out with all smiles, and they'd passed it for six months. And I never told Mr. Libby, because I would spend more time convincing him that in six months they could do it over—that I was helping them pass it. I couldn't explain, and I've never told it. This is the first time I've gone on record.

Lobbying in Sam McReynolds' District

Chall

Now I realize why it was taken up again in February of the next year.

Rankin

Yes. But the thing was that from then on, I went to Georgia when I was not lobbying in Congress. And while I was lobbying in Congress, I decided that I wanted to go into McReynolds' district and campaign. But I couldn't get an answer any time from Mr. Libby. And then we always had our annual meeting in the midst of the campaign. Instead of making people work, we talked about it, you see. And I had to go to Washington for this annual meeting.

But, I kept pressing it with Mr. Libby, and finally he said when I went back that I could do it. All it meant was carfare.

Chall

Were they concerned about mixing the pacifist educational tradition with what would be known as "dirty polities?" Was that one of their—problem?

Rankin

Yes. But they had—I used to have the hardest time with them. They had a paper in which they would call down the senators and congressmen, with nothing to back it, instead of working in their district. You never know when a man does a wrong thing, when he's going to turn over. And there's no need of talking about the man.

I said this to a Christian Scientist the other day. She was talking against Nixon. I said, "Why spend all this energy hating Nixon and talking about Tricky Dick, when you should be loving someone

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and building him up? Instead of going against Nixon." Well, she was a Christian Scientists and she could see it. I've never heard her say "Tricky Dick" since.

Chall

Not to you.

Rankin

No, and I don't think she thinks it. But, that's the kind of campaign that I can't stand. I'm not a Christian Scientist, but I know their philosophy.

Chall

Your campaign for peace is organizing the precincts so that people will, in turn, influence their congressman?

Rankin

Well this is what happened: I had a contact in Chattanooga, which was the biggest town in Sam McReynolds' district. She was a suffragist. Her name was Abbie Crawford Milton. And she was the one that got Tennessee to endorse woman's suffrage. The National Organization never mentioned it, because they came in and throw her out.

Her husband was George Fort Milton and he owned papers in Knoxville and Chattanooga and Nashville. She had me speak, and they gave me a big check when I was first elected. And she was such a wonderful person! And such a strong pacifists that we were friends until she died a few years ago.

So I talked with her—I think I went up and talked to her, about two hundred miles from where I was. I planned to go into his [McReynolds'] district. I'd speak in Chattanooga. And there were twelve counties there, two of them were high in the mountains and hard to get at. So I took ten counties, and I wrote ahead to the newspapers, the schools, and to anything I could think of there, and said that I'd be in whatever was the principal town at 2:30 in the afternoon, I think it was. And I'd leave the next morning and go to the next town. And I gave them my itinerary and so on, which meant that I'd arrive in each of those counties, and the newspaper could expect me, and any contact that I had.

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So. I told Abbie I'd be there the night before. And the next day she set me up—she had a lovely home. George Fort Milton was a great newspaperman. His son, who was very little younger than (Abbie was his second wife), was in Roosevelt's cabinet—George Fort Milton, Jr.

When I got there—in the morning, Abbie sent up my breakfast, and on the tray was a beautiful little steak and a huge grapefruit, and I ate it. And she said, "I knew you wouldn't have anything more to eat today." [laughter]

Chall

Did you attract people that way?

Rankin

And I talked to two or three high schools—that day, and went to a luncheon and talked to the luncheon, and did something else. And at 9 o'clock at night, I talked on the radio, which is a tense feat at best. I just went from one to another, and she'd arranged it.

The next morning I got up and went to this other town. And would go any place they'd let me. I went to the town where they had the "Monkey Trial" in Tennessee—whats the name of it?

Chall

I don't remember the name, but I remember the Monkey Trial?

Rankin

And they were holding a revival service and I talked there, and I talked at colleges and I talked at little teas that the people were having. [laughs] I talked everywhere, and when I got through in ten days, I went to Washington for Christmas. I didn't send one card; I didn't do one thing for Christmas, but I worked in that district.

And when I went, I told them, "I'm from Montana. I'm here, because you have such an important state, and you can affect the whole country and the world." And they had the speaker of the House, Byrnes; they had Cordell Hull, and Mr. McReynolds. And I said, "You can decide these questions."

And then I told them that they should be very proud of the men they had, they were such good men.

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I talked against war and selling arms, and didn't mention how McReynolds stood on this. I just said he was a great man and a good man. I'm sure that one of McReynolds' men came to every meeting. One town in the South, we'd hired the hall and nobody came but a few men, and I was sure they had done it. And I told them how to write to him and suggested that they write—not telling how he stood on this. I knew that the people were against selling arms. And I knew that I didn't have to convert them to that. I praised their man the best I could. He was a good man, but he was under the influence of Roosevelt.

Well, Mr. Libby, after he heard I was going and had begun to work there, sent a young man in our organization, an Englishman, in, and he went to Chattanooga to talk to the unions. He called Mr. McReynolds, Sam, which no labor man would call him, and they were insulted, and they didn't like him. But they wouldn't consult with me as to what he should say or how he should do it. But they all knew so much better than I did.

Chall

How did it turn out?

Rankin

I got back to Washington—Congress met in January. I didn't go near Mr. McReynolds. [laughs] I was scared to, because I'd heard how mad they were. And finally, Mr. McReynolds introduced the bill, and we read it and read it to find out the joker, because it was just exactly what we wanted.

Chall

Is that right!

Rankin

And one day I met one of the women from McReynolds' office in the hall, and she said, "Oh, we've been wanting to see you to thank you for what you did in our district." And she was so pleased.

Wellno man that followed me could say I didn't just praise McReynolds. And that's why I knew what I was doing. One place, they hired a hall—did I say—and there was no one there. But everybody waited on me and put me up.

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Mr. Libby doesn't mention that in his book.

Chall

Did he even talk about the Tennessee campaign?

Rankin

No!

Chall

Nor why Mr. McReynolds may have changed his point of view.

Rankin

No, not a word. Just mentioned that I worked on it.

But I thought it was a wonderful demonstration of what could be done.

Once I was talking to Senator Nye, telling him what I'd been doing. I told him something about McReynolds. He said that he and McReynolds came over from the Philippines to this country on the same boat, and that McReynolds was of the same opinion when he came over that he'd been when he started; then he introduced this bill. I told Nye what I'd done. He said, "Well that's what did it." He knew it was the right bill.

So, that's why I was so unhappy. And then they'd get me to do such trivial things. Then Congress passed that bill, and Roosevelt never paid any attention to it. They went right on selling arms.

Chall

They found ways of revising the embargo from time to time, shifting the emphasis. Of course, the embargo was based only on arms—armaments. It was possible, I guess, to sell things like oil and scrap.

Rankin

They didn't sell oil; they gave it to them.

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Gerald Nye, Bennett Clark, and Other Anti-War Leaders

Chall

Can you tell me a little bit about Gerald Nye, since I'm sure you knew him? Were you active at all at the time he was making his investigation of the munitions makers?

Rankin

Yes. I campaigned for him the last time. [laughs] I was driving through North Dakota, and he came up in back of me. And here was a car with a Georgia license plate—he couldn't think who it was. [laughs]

But I went to picnics and to a lot of things. (I only remember the nice things.) I talked for him. He was a good pacifist, in the work. He was a very limited man I thought. But he was very good.

Bennett Clark, who was the Senator (who was the son of Champ Clark, speaker of the House), was the brains on that committee.

Chall

I see. He was on the munitions committee.

Rankin

Yes. Of course, we learned a great deal by that investigation. The one thing was that every time they'd come to a crucial place and they wanted the papers from the Archives, they had promised England they wouldn't give them.

Chall

Is that right? You couldn't get these papers—

Rankin

You couldn't get the facts. And that's why the thing sort of petered out, because they couldn't get the facts.

Chall

However it did make quite an appeal to people, whatever came out of it.

Rankin

Oh yes.

Chall

Do you think it was a result of the Nye committee that C. Hartley Grattan wrote his book?

Rankin

No.

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Chall

Did you know him, the author of The Deadly Parallel? That was used a great deal between the wars to prevent another war from coming into existence, and I thought perhaps you had been aware of the use to which that book was put.

Rankin

I may have—at the moment I don't recall.

Chall

You knew the Beards [Charles and Mary].

Rankin

Very well, and he stood by me always—

Chall

Now they were strongly opposed to getting into the war too.

Rankin

Oh yes. And he wrote about it after—I've forgotten the name.

Chall

Let me just pull a few names out, because I want to go back to some of the others. Did you know Stuart Chase or his writing?

Rankin

Yes.

Chall

Now he felt that we could stand behind our own isolated borders here, that we really didn't need to trade or have any contact with other countries.

Rankin

Yes.

The Roots of Miss Rankin's Pacifism

Chall

Did you feel that we were that impregnable—?

Rankin

Yes. And then I felt always that it was just a stupid, poor way of trying to settle a dispute. Because I was always conscious—The people in Montana; when they first came there, had no laws and no courts and no enforcement officers, practically. And when two men had a dispute, the man that was fastest on the trigger was right.

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And more people came in; they established laws and the courts, and the same men who had been there when they had to pull the triggers were the ones who made the laws. It wasn't a change in human nature, but a change in their teachings. [ Benjamin Kidd, The Science of Powers, 1918 ]

Chall

In the method.

Rankin

In the method. We never had a gun. Father was in one battle, when they had a fort in Missoula, and they told the men to get their guns and go, and that the Nez Perce Indians were coming and going to heat it up.

Father wasn't married; he was a young man, and he took his gun. And they went about ten miles, up the river, and there was a branch came down, a couple of miles up there, where the road was just a trail between two rooks, a mountain on one side 9000 feet high and a hill on the other. The captain said that they'd wait there until the Indians came. The Indians came down and he went over through this pass and talked to them, and then he came back. He said the Indians could come through if they would give up their guns. And they said they were going hunting—they needed their guns. And so he came back and told the men that at four o'clock they'd attack.

And so they went to sleep knowing this. And at four o'clock when they got up and went through there were no Indians. The men were so disgusted. Most of them didn't want to go and didn't think the Indians were a bother. They always called it, "Camp Fizzle." [laughter] Father used to tell about this.

Then they went up where there was a mission and a few people—the Indians did. And some white man gave an Indian boy some whisky and he ran around, you know. But they went on up and they called that "Camp Scallawag." And they went on up to Rosses' Hole; the Indians were camped, and the soldiers with a few of the natives stood on the hill. And in the morning, when the medicine man came out of the camp, they shot him.

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Chall

Is that so.

Rankin

And every one that came out, they shot. It was the most disgraceful thing you can imagine.

We were raised with that. And we were raised with Indians all around. And when they got drunk, they swore and cavorted around. But they never bothered us. And there were three or five Indians hung for something. And I remember we were playing. I don't remember the year. We went up on the hill. I can remember we were trying to frighten ourselves saying they'd come and get us. We knew they wouldn't but we pretended they would. And it was just a game. I'm sure we all knew it was a game, that the Indians would never attack us. We'd see the Indians passing day after day. They were friendly but we were so dumb.

Chall

When did you arrive at your position of pacifism?

Rankin

Well, I didn't have anything else.

Chall

Were you consciously a pacifist at one time, and not consciously so at another time? Was there a sudden—

Rankin

No.

Chall

Was it the First World War that made you a conscious pacifist?

Rankin

Oh no! I grew up knowing that the military was a crooked thing.

Chall

Because of what you'd seen in the Territory?

Rankin

My father sold them lumber for the—

Chall

The barracks?

Rankin

They had log barracks. Then he sold them lumber after he was married and had a saw mill. He said they were the stupidest men he'd ever worked for. I mean, he'd had this experience, and he felt they were too stupid for words.

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Chall

So, it was just a part of your growing up that the military shouldn't gain too much power, and that it wasn't the way to solve problems—by shooting?

Rankin

Yes. And they talk about these cowboys having guns. My brother had ranches, and he wouldn't allow a gun on his ranch. Sometimes they'd let a man use a gun to shoot coyotes or something.

Chall

Otherwise no guns.

Penal Reform

Rankin

No guns. And I never could believe that punishing people was any good.

Chall

You didn't believe in the prison system either, I take it?

Rankin

No. The funny thing that I did when I was in the School of Philanthropy—was to come home when they told us to visit the jail. So I went down to the jail. The sheriff lived about two blocks this way, and the jail was about five blocks this way. And he always passed our house. And everybody knew him, and father knew him, and I know him and I had worked for him. But, we were all one big family. So, I went down to the jail and wanted to see him. And it was just after the Fourth [of July], and he had a lot of people in jail. And they had to put the women in with the men in that part of the jail. And he offered to let me know when I could go in. [laughs] And so I did. And the reason they were crowded in the jail, was because the deputy sheriff's family lived at the jail and took up so much space. They were crowded for the prisoners.

And I wanted to make the family move out. So I talked to the women and talked loud. Then I went to the courtroom. Of course the judge was a family friend, and his children played with my sisters and brother and the prosecuting attorney was the same. And when this came up, the judge said, "What

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about these jail conditions?" And he said, "Oh that's just Jeannette Rankin." [laughter] And the judge said, "Well then why are all the good women in town telephoning me about this?"

Chall

Oh really.

Rankin

And they put the family out.

Chall

Oh they did. So you won that one. You had a way of gathering your women around you.

Rankin

Going at it from the bottom up.

Chall

Yes, that's the technique.

The League of Nations and the World Court

Chall

I want to ask you some more questions about some of your anti-war work. Can you tell me what you did during the controversy over the League of Nations? Where were you, and what were you doing, and what did you think about the League of Nations?

Rankin

Well, you see, I was for the outlawing of war. Salmon Levinson and all the big people in the peace movement were for it.

Chall

For the outlawing of war.

Rankin

Yes. And the Kellogg-Briand Pact. And when that was up, I was very close to Senator Borah. And Kellogg was a good lawyer, but he wasn't much of a writer. And he told Borah that he would introduce the Kellogg-Briand Pact if Borah would do the writing. And so all the letters and so on went through. Well, in the articles of war, there was—Levinson—I knew him very well. He took his idea for the articles of war from our Supreme Court. You know, when they were writing the Constitution, they all knew that these thirteen warring, separated states were going to have disputes.

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And they didn't want war, so they said they had to have some way to settle these disputes. So, he [Levinson] looked up the history of the Court. And the Court was formed to pass decisions on disputes between the states and to make decisions about the Constitution. And Madison said that any force used against a state or a nation was tantamount to war, so they couldn't give the Court any means to enforce its decisions. That was the first great peace organization and the greatest peace gesture that we've ever made. It was the first time in modern history that a sovereign state would resign the right to settle its disputes, by law.

Chall

Now, the reason—one of the reasons, I suppose, that the Supreme Court of the United States works is because we have a Constitution and presumably, we have to function within its framework. Although we can interpret it and change our interpretation of the Constitution, that's the framework. In international law, what's the framework of the World Court?

Rankin

Well that was an excuse when they haven't got a League of Nations. They wanted the Court with power to enforce its decisions.

Chall

I see. World police power.

Rankin

And the opposition in the United States was not in Massachusetts. It was all over. They said that we didn't want the power to enforce the decision. And Borah put into the Articles of War, and in opposition to the League of Nations, that as long as they had a court to decide these things, and power to enforce it, that we shouldn't do it. And they put all the emphasis on Lodge, when he had nothing to do with the masses of people in this country. The people of the country and the nation were opposed to this war. And the English never could understand the outlawing. Lord Robert Cecil, or whatever his name was, said they were for the outlawing of war, and we should have a big army and everything.

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Chall

Well, of course in Europe they're concerned about wars because they had them frequently to settle disputes, and they don't feel as safe as we do.

Rankin

But they never settled them.

Chall

Yes, it would seem that way.

You were opposed then, I take it, to Elihu Root and his proposal for the World Court?

Rankin

Yes.

Chall

Because that was based upon a decision about police power and what you call aggression.

What about Mr. Shotwell.

Rankin

He was a professor at Columbia. Briand said to him, "How would you word it if you were outlawing war?" And Shotwell wrote those two paragraphs. And Briand accepted it and Kellogg accepted it.

Chall

And so Shotwell was the one who is responsible for writing what we know as the—

Rankin

The wording. He wasn't interested in what it meant.

Chall

You don't think Shotwell cared?

Rankin

No.

Chall

Why is that?

Rankin

He didn't have any decision powers but he knew how, if you were going to outlaw war, that these words would do it.

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Other Pacifist Leaders

Chall

What about Charles Clayton Morrison, who was also an anti-war leader?

Rankin

He had been a great pacifist with the Christian Century.

Florence Allen later became a federal judge. She was a lawyer and advocated the outlawry of war. Charles Clayton Morrison also advocated outlawry of war, as did John Haynes Holmes.

Chall

John Haynes Holmes was part of the FOR organization wasn't he? [Fellowship of Reconciliation]

Rankin

Well, he had his church. He was a person in himself. I wish I had his letters that he wrote me.

Chall

Didn't you once tell me that he and Nevin Sayre both wrote you letters after your second vote against the war? And commended you for your vote?

Rankin

Yes. I remember what he said—that if he'd ever been told that such a thing should happen that I'd be in there the second time and voting [against] he'd have said it couldn't be!

Chall

Yes, it was incredible. [laughs]

I was interested of course that the FOR monthly bulletin never mentioned your stand against the war, even though they were pacifists and opposed to the war. They didn't publicly commend you for your courage, if nothing else. It was silence; It was all silence.

Rankin

They don't know what I'm going to do next. They were just a total waste!

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Chall

What's the approach of FOR people and others? How do they expect to bring about pacifism?

Rankin

Praying.

Chall

By praying. You believe in the power of prayer, but that it will not end wars. Is that right?

Rankin

Yes. Governments make war. I should say that in every other sentence—governments make war. And you can't get rid of war without—

Chall

Now speaking of government, you once told me that you really never had a chance to vote for a President who had your point of view. What did you think of—?

Rankin

I voted for Norman Thomas.

Chall

I was going to ask you about Norman Thomas. You believed in Norman Thomas.

Rankin

Well, I believed in him better than anyone else. I never worked as a socialist. I always felt that we can change certain fallacies in our government, and that would get us there—

Chall

Did you say change "fallacies" or "policies"—?

Rankin

Fallacies. Isn't that right?

Chall

Yes.

Rankin

That word.

Chall

That word is right, but I wanted to make sure I heard it right. [laughs]

And Norman Thomas was also a pacifist—

Rankin

And then he fell down at the Second World War.

Chall

Where was he during the Second World War?

Rankin

In New York—sick.

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Chall

Now, did you vote for him when he ran from time to time after the war?

Rankin

Oh, I don't remember whether—

Chall

How about people like Eugene McCarthy in the last election?

Rankin

Oh I worked for him. And then I contributed to his campaign; the only one I ever contributed to.

Chall

So there have been a few men, from time to time, who spoke—on a peace platform.

Rankin

When—Emily Balch was a suffragist, she lost her job in Wellesley College because she was so radical.

Chall

Because she was so radical?

Rankin

Yes. The College women didn't approve of her.

Chall

What was her radical approach. I mean, what was so radical about Emily Balch?

Rankin

She was a good suffragist, a straight thinker, and a pacifist. They didn't admit she was fired because she thought sanely and spoke her mind, but they never do.

Well—and then when I voted against the Second World War, she wrote me and praised my courage and said she'd changed: she was for the war. And they gave her a Nobel Prize. After she'd changed, not before.

Chall

Did you keep in touch with the women in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom for years after you had helped and were present at the beginning?

Rankin

I did a little more for them, but I wouldn't go on because they just wanted me to go and speak, and then go and speak and—and no organization, no purpose, no definite thing. And they were hard [up] for money and they wanted me to work—part-time, and get a part-time job, and do the rest on my own time.

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Chall

So that—did you work with them prior to joining Libby's group?

Rankin

Yes, for a short time.

Chall

And where did you work—in this country?

Rankin

Oh, I didn't work. They had me speak here and there. And they've never had a docent program! I wrote to them the other day. They're going to have a meeting in Los Angeles to discuss the Russians. In November, when they should all be working for peace right now. And they want to discuss the Russians! They don't know a thing about the Russians. And someone has written a book—

Chall

Did you know Dorothy Detzer and Mercedes Randall, and these women who worked for WILPF for many years?

Rankin

Oh yes.

Chall

Were they capable ladies with a different point of view from yours on how to organize for peace, is that it?

Rankin

Yes. I wanted to work for peace, they wanted to play "Lady Bountiful" and give away food. Hungry people need to be fed, but "not by bread alone." I wanted to do grassroots organization and education for peace: social change is only effective if supported by the bulk of the people. Dorothy Detzer I think lives in Carmel.

Chall

Let's see, I have the names of some women who were very active in FOR—I can't find them now.

Rankin

Nevin and Kathleen Sayre—he was the head [of FOR] and we were very great friends. I think I had a letter from Kathleen not very long ago.

Chall

And what about—I think it was Muriel Lester, who was a very active woman?

Rankin

She was good.

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Chall

She went all around the world and reported back to FOR on what was taking place, according to their bulletins.

Rankin

I met her and knew her slightly, when I was in Geneva one summer, and studying the League of Nations. And when I suggested that they change the Treaty of Versailles to keep Hitler out, they treated me as if I'd said, "Let's take off our clothes and roll in the street." [laughter]

Chall

How did you feel that we could have stopped Hitler?

Rankin

By not encouraging him, and encouraging the people of  Germany  to have their own government. England and the United States just pushed Hitler.

Chall

Until it was too late. Until he was ready to turn on England and the United States.

Rankin

No, until the military told them to, and they're both controlled by the military.

Chall

I see.

Rankin

The military have to keep their jobs. They can't keep them unless they have a war.

Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir

Chall

You know, your approach is one in which you say that there should be more women in Congress. "If half of the Congress were women, we wouldn't have war" is one of the statements that you make. There are many people who, in response to that idea, say, "Look at Mrs. Gandhi and look at Golda Meir,"—

Rankin

They don't know a thing about Mrs. Gandhi!

Chall

And then they feel that that indicates that women are just as strong for war as men.

Rankin

She settled that war. She didn't spend ten years working on it, like we have in Vietnam. She went

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in to settle it. And they don't know anything about her! I know very little, and I spent five winters in India; I know Mrs. Gandhi and I'm proud of it, and I knew Nehru very well. Nobody reads about India. I get the India News every week. From my sister—I have such a way of moving around.

Chall

So that the fact that these two women happen to be heads of state of nations in conflict doesn't mean that women—

Rankin

We'd be at war in Israel if it wasn't for Mrs. Meir.

Ending Warfare

Chall

How do you think we're going to settle disputes between nations?

Rankin

By controlling our governments, and electing a president that is not a puppet of the military. Now, Nixon doesn't do a thing that the military doesn't pull the strings that he does. He's responsible to the military. They elect him, and he's responsible to them. I want the people to elect the president. And have him responsible to the people. and the people responsible for him. And I want multiple-member districts, so that Congress can represent more than the military or the industrial establishment.

Now that book [O Congress, by Donald Riegel], as superficial as it is, recognizes that there's something wrong with the Congress. Now, in Georgia—I can talk about it because I know it doesn't matter—in Georgia we have ten congressmen. They only represent one idea, and that is to get elected. We could just as well have one congressman and give him ten votes. The people aren't, represented.

The only safe thing in the country and the world are the people themselves. We have a male Congress. I hope that every time we get a chance we lose a male congressman [laughter].

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Chall

What was your stand during the tense racial conflicts in the South, especially in Georgia, where Martin Luther King started—?

Rankin

Well I always supported him. And I've always been—in 1919, I told you about it—.

Chall

About rooming with Mrs. Terrell.

Rankin

Yes.

Chall

Does that make you persona non grata in the South, because you supported him for years?

Rankin

No! I'm [not a militant?]— They're still fighting me. But there are many people against war in Georgia, as there are in California. And I just stay with my kind.

Chall

Well, I think we've come around to the end of the tape.

Rankin

There was something else. Salmon Levinson was the smartest man that we had in the movement. You see, he was a brilliant lawyer, and he'd raised these wonderful sons and they took them to war. And he said there was something wrong with the rest of us, that we hadn't thought out a way to settle our disputes without killing young men. And then he started to study the Constitution. And he realized that we had worked out, in this country, a peace pattern that we paid no attention to, like the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court is such an emotional thing in the South, that I haven't talked much about it.

Chall

That's not an approach you can make in the South?

Rankin

You can use it if you had time, but no one lets you finish your sentence.

Chall

You are writing, and in your writing you bring up the Supreme Court as a model.

Rankin

No, we haven't yet.

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Chall

I probably just assume it then, from something that I read, that you and John had written.

Rankin

Maybe they take it as an assumption.

Chall

Please answer the last questions, the tape ran out: Is the assumption correct?

Rankin

Well, the Supreme Court makes decisions which affect lives—so people do get emotional about what they do. But we should also try to understand why the Supreme Court can function as it does—non-violently and without an instrument of coercion. Its decisions are followed because of respect for the idea of law and the common good. The Supreme Court is a human institution. It can change its mind. But the reason it is obeyed is because it settles disputes, such as those between the sovereign states, non-violently: people understand that a settlement through law and courts may be against the short-term interests of one party, but both parties maintain life and often liberty and the opportunity to pursue happiness—but the settlement brought by violence is the settlement of death, and all the issues are mooted. War and bloodshed settle nothing happily. J.R.]