PREJUDICE and REASON
some Australian Women's responses to war
two women, two organisations, two journals during WWI
FRONT PAGE - Index
11-13 PREQUEL
11. Two Women, Two Organisations
13. Our Herstory Before WWI
17-18 INTRODUCTION PART 1
WOMEN SUPPORTING WWI
18. The British Empire on Trial
19-20 THE AUSTRALIAN
WOMEN’S NATIONAL LEAGUE
19. AWNL - Federal Platform
20. Do Not Seek Place or Power
21-22 AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S
NATIONALLEAGE 1914
21. The Empire on Its Trial
23-28 AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S NATIONAL LEAGUE 1915
23. World Domination
23. The British Empire on Trial
24. Patriotic Meetings
26. Fight or Work Campaign
26. Patriotic Resolutions
27. What the AWNL has Done
27. Enemy Within the Camp
28. Christmas of Faith and Hope
29-39 AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S NATIONAL LEAGUE 1916
29. Appalled
Tades Hall Council
30. Appeal to the Women
30. The Striker and the Shirker
31. I Didn’t Raise My Musket
32. The Prime Minister in England
32. Australia’s Honour at Stake
33. Strikes are Rife in Australia
33. Empire Day Demonstrationl
34. Petition for Conscription
35. 22,000 Signatures Five Days
36. Australia or Germany
36. League Appeal to Women
38. Defend the Empire’s Trade
39. Woman’s Influence
40-43 AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S NATIONAL LEAGUE 1917
40. War Savings Patritic Scheme
41. The War Drum of Unionism
41. Australia Finances Two Wars
42. Suggestive Thoughts on Thrift
43. 1917 Petition for Conscription
44-50 AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S NATIONAL LEAGUE 1918
44. A Magnificent Demonstration
45. Women’s Vote Responsible?
45. Falling Birth Rate – Nat. Peril
46. Disloyal Utterances
46. Parents’ Consent
46. A War-Time Election
47. The Red Flag
48. Trade Vigilance Committee
48. The Power Behind the Throne
49. The Armistice – and After
51-54 AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S NATIONAL LEAGUE 1919
51. Thankfulness to God
51. Madness that is Bolshevism
52. Those Who Will Never Return
52. Peace Terms
- Versailles
55-56 INTRODUCTION PART 2 - WOMEN OPPOSING WWI
56. War is Women’s Business
57 PART 2: THE WOMEN’S
POLITICAL ASSOCIATION
57.
Vida Goldstein
58-68 WOMEN’S POLITICAL
ASSOCIATION 1914
58. The Woman Voter
59. A Ministry of Peace
60. Settling Intrenational Disputes
61. Women Will Stand Together
61. Women of the World Unite!
62. Shall the Mothers Rejoice?
63. Women, Bethink Yourselves
64. Fighting for Civil Liberty
65. Women of the World are One
66. An Outrage on Civilisation
66. White Australia Policy Done
66. A Scheme Help Unemployed
67. War and the People’s Bread
68. Christmas Message All
69-89 WOMEN’S POLITICAL
ASSOCIATION 1915
69. No Secret Imperial Policy
69. W.P.A. Women’s Bureau
70. Women Seeking Work
70. Proposals for Work
71. The Unemployment Bureau
71. Women’s Farm
72. A Farm Has Been Taken
72. Labour Bureau New Office
73. Women’s Conference Hague
74. A Free Press
75. Women’s Labour Bureau
75. Attempt to Annihilate Bureau
76. Defence of Their Own Rights
76. Cost of Living Deputation
77. Parliamentary Rebuff
78. Members Frightened of Us?
79. Deputation Minister Defence
79. Form a Women’s Peace Army
82. Congress of Women - Hague
83. Mothers Fight
84. Necessitous Women
85. WPA
Requests Prime Minister
86. Asiatic Deprived of Work
86. Tabloid Philosophy - Patriotism
87. Venereal Disease
87. I Didn’t Raise My Son Soldier
88. Peace Mandate
89. Our Bureau at Christmas Time
89. Women Continue to Sing It
90-115 WOMEN’S POLITICAL
ASSOCIATION 1916
90. Soldiers Attack Mr Katz
90. Who Loses the War?
91. War and Rights of Citizens
92. Mr Hughes Incites to Murder
93. Condemns Authorities
93. WPA and the Prime Minister
97. The Little Nations
97. War Profits, Food Prices
97. Not Breeding Machines
98. The Children’s Peace Army
98. Almost Without Bread
98. Peace Proposals
99. Conscription by Proclamation
100. Justice Blind in One Eye
100. Women's Farm
100. Unemployed Women
101. Letter from a Prisoner of War
101. Yarra Bank Meeting
104. Who Profits War? Mining
104. Distress Amongst Women
105. Social Evil Convention
106. Women’s National League
106. Church and Social Questions
106. Women Belligerent Countries
107. State Govt. Compels Women
107. So Mr Hughes Hopes
108. Opposing Conscription
108. Peace Army Leaflets
110. Child Labour
111. Manifesto Peace Army
112. New Premises
113. Colours
114. 6,000 Processionists
114. Persia - New Agreement
114.
Secret Mission to London
115. Proclamation Annulled!
115.
Women for Permanent Peace
116-122 WOMEN’S POLITICAL
ASSOCIATION 1917
116. Women’s Terms of Peace
117. WPA and
Russian Revolution
118. War is Out of Date
119. Workers Never Wavered
120. Raid on Parliament
120. The Strike
121. WPA Established a Commune
122. We Lead - Conscription No!
122. Hugely Successful Meetings
123-126 WOMEN’S POLITICAL
ASSOCIATION 1918
123. Press, Pulpit Purse
124. It is with Great Regret
124. The ‘Shirker’ Class
124. Meeting Guild Hall
124. Protest against Profiteering
125. President Wilson’s Speech
125. The Dawn of Peace
127-140 WOMEN’S POLITICAL
ASSOCIATION 1919
127. WPA Peace Buttons
127. Women’s Peace Congress
127. Delegation to Europe
129. Starving Babies of Germany
130.
Peace Congress Zurich
131. Rule of Force and Spoilation
131. Old Order is Not Changed
132. Peace - Unspeakable
134. Hatred Treaty of Versailles
134. Colour Caste’s a Lie
134. Pagan Rites Ended
135. It is War, It is War
135. Congress Deep Regret
136. Zurich and Versailles
137. Old-Time Despotism
138. Order Out of Chaos
139. The World is Sick unto Death
139. Misunderstanding and Hate
140. Not Enough Return Passage
140. This Publication Ceases
141-143 INTRODUCTION to
PART 3
144-148 SEQUEL
144
Women in Black
145 Beyond the Garden Gate
149-177 APPENDICES - 1 to 9
178-180 INDEX
Pages 127 to 140 Women Opposing WW1 PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE
WOMEN’S POLITICAL ASSOCIATION 1919
WPA - WPA Peace Buttons
Woman Voter 16 January 1919:
The signing of the armistice brought a renewed demand for our peace buttons, but every member of the Women’s Peace Army, of the WPA, every reader of the “Woman Voter” should make it his or her business to dispose of large numbers of buttons, to see they are worn as generally as war buttons have been. The buttons are the most attractive that have been produced in Australia, the design being a white dove, bearing an olive branch, on a purple ground within a green circle. Send to the Guild Hall for supplies - 6d. each, or 4/- a dozen.
WPA - International Women’s Peace Congress
Woman Voter 16 January 1919:
The Congress will be one of the most notable events that have ever occurred in connection with the woman movement, and women everywhere must give it their earnest support. Men everywhere are heard expressing their views on peace and war, and are endeavouring to get their views crystallised in the Conference of the Powers. Shall the women be silent in this crisis of the world’s history?
WPA - Our Women’s Delegation to Europe
Woman Voter 30 January 1919:
Dear Friend - It is probable that the International Women’s Peace Congress will be held in Paris, or at the Hague, in May or later. Miss Vida Goldstein and Miss Cecilia John were elected in 1917 to represent the Australian Women’s Peace Army at the Congress, and, as women are not included amongst the delegates to the Peace Conference of the Powers, it is essential that the Women’s Peace Congress should express itself on the question of a Constructive Peace -
1. Because women and children are the greatest sufferers from war.
2. Because post-war problems will vitally affect the children of the future and the status of men and women in industry. Whether social and industrial freedom are to be worked out by constitutional or revolutionary methods, the community cannot afford to ignore the views on women on Peace and Reconstruction, and Australian women have their contribution to offer to the world’s thought about them. Therefore, all who desire to see a Constructive Peace which shall safeguard the interests of women, industry, and democracy are asked to contribute to our Peace Delegation Fund. The Women’s Peace Army and the WPA also desire to send their delegates to Europe that they may get the most reliable information from unbiased students of history and economics as to -
a. Who and what were primarily responsible for the war.
b. The position in Russia and Germany.
c. Social and industrial conditions in other parts of Europe, in Great Britain and Ireland, in America, and, if possible, in Japan and South Africa. The information that reaches us on all these questions is so limited, frequently so prejudiced and incorrect, that it is desirable we should learn as much as can be learnt of the truth about them, through our delegates. Again, the democrats of other countries will be eager to know all that active workers in the industrial, political, anti-militarist, and woman movements in Australia, like Miss Goldstein and Miss John can tell them. Our delegates, rank and file workers as well as leaders, can speak with great authority on the various aspects of each of them, and their journalistic experience will be invaluable in collecting information abroad and disseminating it on their return to Australia.
WPA - The Starving Babies of Germany
Woman Voter March 27 1919:
The Starving Babies of Germany - From Miss Harriet Newcomb comes a letter describing the terrible sufferings of mothers and babies in Germany, the result of that unfortunate "military necessity", the British Blockade.To some minds it contains the absolute condemnation of militarism in each and all of its manifestations. If the results of war, conducted in a perfectly fair, humane and gentlemanly way, as politician, churchman and journalist have every day for four years assured us it was conducted, are so dire, what must they be where a nation “deliberately makes war on women and children?”
Miss Newcomb says -
“The pitiful condition of thousands of poor little babies in Germany cannot be exaggerated. It can only be compared with the state of things known in India during one of the worst famines ...
Facts are vouched for by unimpeachable authorities ... and acknowledged by the British Government.”The medical authorities in Germany have appealed to England for 1,000,000 india-rubber teats. The mothers in Germany, through underfeeding, cannot suckle their infants. There is practically no rubber in Germany. The babies are too weak to suck through the bone or wooden teats which are all that can be provided. (For a long time milk in Germany has been prohibited, except to infants under the age of three years).
The German doctors suggest that the teats shall be paid for at rather a higher price than the English cost, and that any profit might go to assist English war widows and orphans. (The Women's International League sent 1,000,000 teats to Germany. You can support them by ...)
WPA - Australian Representatives at Congress - Zurich
Woman Voter 10 April 1919:
As is by this time generally known, Miss John, after all, accompanied Miss Goldstein on the “Orsova” on the 24th ult. So desirable was it held to be that both delegates should be in time to take part in the full Conference in Berne that Miss John was fairly rushed off at the eleventh hour. As readers are already aware, both delegates left on a fund far from sufficient for their needs, and efforts towards adding to what has already been subscribed are, therefore, to go on unrelaxed.The present world circumstances make this delegation far and away the most important that has ever taken place in the world of women – and in saying that we say the world of humanity. The voice of women must be heard, and the impress of her spirit felt now, if ever. No more must the one-half of the whole be silent in the counsels, contributing in silence and in tears men to the chaos made by the rulers of men. The woman-soul, by speaking first, shall have less of suffering after.
We believe that most citizens – even those who are not with us in all our aims, realise that, and are sympathetic to the ideals – of the band of picked and representative women of the civilised world who are presently to meet and to confer in Switzerland. The appeal for financial help to defray the cost of our representation still stands. Open you hearts, friends. It is for us, not for themselves, that these women hasten thence.
WPA - A Proposed Woman’s Charter
Woman Voter 1 May, 1919:
A Proposed Woman’s Charter to be presented to the Peace Congress ... and to recommended to the consideration of the League of Nations, if such a body be formed.
1. That courts be set up especially in the East of Europe, to trace and rescue missing women - captured, stolen or deported - and to establish the responsibility for these outrages, it being manifestly impossible for the relatives of injured women, many of whom are the humblest peasants, to bring cases and provide evidence themselves for the recovery of their women.
2. That in all the newly freed territories, and in all the lands whose integrity has to be guaranteed by the Great Powers, some sort of official machinery - to be determined by the territory itself, be set up to enable unenfranchised women to set forth their needs, and to protect their interests in regard to social conditions and legislation.
3. That all customs, whether social, religious or domestic, which enable the sale, barter or disposal of women and girls - in marriage or otherwise - without their consent or at an immature age, be decreed to be outside international law, and that any woman or girl victims of such customs, or any friends on their behalf, may make appeal for protection to the laws and enactments under which the traffic in human slaves has been abolished.
4. That the nationality of women shall be placed in a position of independence as absolute as that of men, without regard to any such considerations such as marriage, or the naturalisation or denaturalisation of husbands, and that nothing but a woman’s own deliberate choice and declaration shall affect her nationality.
They “Continue Rule of Force and Spoilation”
The New York Times May 15 1919:
Zurich Conference Says They “Continue Rule of Force and Spoilation”
PARIS, May 14 1919 - The Peace Conference today received from the Women’s International Conference for Permanent Peace at Zurich the resolution adopted yesterday by the conference denouncing the terms of peace with Germany.
The resolution declares that the terms tacitly sanction secret diplomacy, deny the principles of self-determination, recognize the right of the victor to the spoils of war, and violate principles of justice. The rule of force, it is declared, is continued by the financial and economic clauses.The conference at Zurich also telegraphed to the (Versailles) Peace Conference a resolution, which had been adopted unanimously, deploring the famine and pestilence in Central and Eastern Europe and urging that the inter allied war organization be transformed immediately into an international peace organization to deal with food, finance, and transport throughout the world. The resolution also urged that relief be organized immediately, and that if the supply of food and transport were not sufficient all countries be rationed. It was added that no luxuries should be transported from one country to another until relief had been sent to all peoples.
WPA - The Old Order is Not Changed
Woman Voter 22 May 1919:
About a situation which is hourly changing, and about which our information is so fragmented and unreliable, it is little use of saying much. One thing, however, stands starkly clear amid all the uncertainty of the world’s affairs - that is, the old order is not changed. We are amongst those who are not surprised at that, seeing that for any real change to take place in the system of human relationships at present existing it is necessary that change should first take place in the hearts and minds of those who are at the fulcrum of the system. The winning nations, in the persons of their rulers, show that victory has poisoned them, put a dangerous virus in their veins, a kind of ill ichor, which, working its course, produces new wars.
The map will be changed, that is all, and the balance of power readjusted. The Allies are to have all the “pudding”, as children on the see-saw put it. New animosities, like mushrooms, are being sown, but unlike mushrooms, they will last long. One can hear the clatter of new swords between the words at the peace table.
Such a fine term as “mandatory powers” is but a masquerade for the old thing “protectorate”, and protectorate is, we know, a euphemism for something else.
The language and conduct of diplomacy are still to obtain, the powerful are still to hold, and the small or feeble to be subject. Whether it be old China, unmilitaristic by nature, or a small Pacific island, unmilitarised by civilisation of the Western order, places and peoples unable to force their rights are to pay the price.
The defeated are to be degraded to the utmost in the unarming, crippled in opportunity, and mortgaged beyond reason. As one of the “Huns” put it, “stripped naked” and then told to turn out their pockets. And Japan - but of that folly, as well as criminality, how may we speak! The Near East and the Near Future, unless a miracle happens to nullify the work of our special representative, the “diplomatic” Mr Hughes, the next generation of Australians will rise up to curse the hour when, in supineness, their fathers led him to the councils.
WPA - Peace Has Come - It is Unspeakable
Woman Voter July 3 1919:
Peace has come. Let those who can still deceive themselves celebrate it. Of peace I have little to say. It is unspeakable, what there is of it. We have saved the world from the Germans. Heaven send something to save the world from us.The Home Government, through Mr Churchill, has quite frankly explained the necessity for preparing for perpetual war. We are to war or are warring in pretty nearly every quarter of the globe ... “England, which stands in the place of providence to the smaller nations.” I quote one of our imported Collins St. pulpit lights.
Providence, presumably giving personal supervision exclusively to British interests, has been lately dispensing her judgements in the best traditional manner. Fire from heaven in modern style, by aeroplane, will, it is hoped, convince the Afghans that in their interests our will is best. We bombed their cities with “good effect” and caused tremendous explosions of munition stores.A wonderful people we are ... was there ever our like before? We consign to starvation a million people - women, little children and old men - firmly refusing to end our war with them, even when the war with their men has ceased. Meanwhile our parsons bang their pulpit cushions and rant against "those nations that make war on women and children".
We bomb defenceless towns from the air, while our press is still yelling for the blood of those who transgressed international law and our gentle women and brave men bear these unnameable things with an equanimity in which can be detected not one quiver of protest. And our gentle women and brave men bear these unnameable things with an equanimity in which can be detected not one quiver of protest, though our sense of justice, our feeling for humanity, is so sensitive that one bomb dropped upon an English town will cause a cry that reverberates the whole world round.
With “good effect”, with “satisfactory results”, covers the whole incident when the human beings done to death are those who decline to accept our ruling in their affairs; but I wish, for my soul’s relief, I could find two words that would express our damnable hypocrisy.
WPA - Great Hatred of the Treaty of Versailles
Doris McRae: I saw demonstrations of starving people, including women and children, in Germany and realised that there was great hatred of the Treaty of Versailles. Ruth Crow papers, A Biography of Doris McRae 1893-1988, University of Melbourne
WPA - “Colour Caste’s a Lie”
Woman Voter July 3 1919:
White Australia Convention - A convention was held at the Guild Hall on the afternoon and evening of Saturday, 7th ult., to discuss the White Australia question ... The golden precipitate gathered from the Convention is the growth of Internationalism and of brotherhood that the tone of the proceedings marked. We are, despite economic fears and purity of blood considerations, learning that “colour caste’s a lie”, and that “a man’s a man for all o’ that”.
WPA - Peace. The Pagan Rites are Ended
Woman Voter 7 August 1919:
Peace. The pagan rites are ended. There were few killed during the celebrations. Now we can settle down to our wars again without any silly interruptions. “Leave now thy gift before my altar, and go, kill thy brother, for he has committed a sin unpardonable in my sight. He would govern him in ways pleasant unto himself, and of that I will have none. Thou shalt execute judgment against him, I command thee”. That is a fairly accurate interpretation of our mission to the world, as gathered from the “peace” sermons. The God of the Churches speaks.
WPA - It is War, It is War
Woman Voter 1 September 1919:
Letter from Miss Goldstein, Geneva, Switzerland June 8, 1919“Quite the most wonderful and inspiring incident of the whole Congress was when Fraulein Gustava Heymann, of Germany, approached Mme Melin, who arrived shortly after we did, coming with great difficulty from the war-devastated region of Northern France. Fraulein Heymann presented her, in the name of German women, with a simple bunch of pink roses symbolising the beauty and fragrance of the spirit of love that is universal, that knows no enemy in persons.
Mme Melin, who knows the full horrors of war, replied with a marvellous oratory, simple and sincere, but tragically touching. She spoke rapidly, in French; but even those who did not know a word of French required no translation. They understood.She called upon the women of all countries to pledge themselves to do all that was possible to fight against war. She described its terrors, its horrors, the sacrifices made by all who fought and suffered and died for the Fatherland they loved; for an ideal to be trampled in the dust. “It is not my country, it is not your country that is guilty of the crimes against humanity - c’est La Guerre, c’est La Guerre” (It is War, it is War). continued Appendix 11
WPA - ‘This International Congress Expresses Deep Regret’
Woman Voter 1 September 1919:
June 8, 1919 Geneva, Switzerland
Letter from Miss Goldstein cont.“The greatest interest centred around the discussion of the Peace Terms, which were unanimously held to be a violation of the Fourteen Points, and the following resolutions were agreed to –
This International Congress of Women expresses its deep regret that the Terms of Peace proposed at Versailles should so seriously violate the principles upon which alone a just and permanent peace can be secured, and which the democracies of the world had come to accept.
By guaranteeing the fruits of the secret treaties to be the conquerors, the Terms of Peace tacitly sanction secret diplomacy, deny the principles of self-determination, recognise the right of the victors to the spoils of war, and create all over Europe discords and animosities which can only lead to future wars.”WPA - Two Conferences, Zurich and Versailles
Woman Voter 1 September 1919:
The incident related of the Women’s Peace Conference at Zurich, of the German women delegates presenting a bouquet of roses to the French woman delegate, is in delightful contrast to the whole tone of the proceedings of the men’s conference at Versailles, “the real conference” as we are reminded it was. There it was a sword rather than a bunch of roses which was thrust at the unhappy Germans by the Frenchman – Clemenceau.The whole story of the tragic entrance of the German delegates into the presence of that austere assemblage to receive the terms of the treaty makes sad reading. It was a theatrical and non-human display on the part of the Allied delegates. The nation that had overthrown its misrulers, and for the first few months of orderly democracy had proved its sincerity, was but scurvily treated by its austere victors dictating the terms of their harsh peace to its representatives.
The “cub” reporter was there in force, gloating in his servile way (and in the way his powerful paper likes) over the deportment of his country’s representatives. Thus we read by cable – such news could not come to us fast enough by the mail – that “Herr Bell is, in appearance, like a golliwog” and some other vicious and trivial details as to the personal appearance of the unhappy Germans whose work it was to accept from our hands, and carry to their countrymen, the cup of humiliation.
How will history deal with these two incidents – the meeting of the “enemy” women at Zurich, and the meeting of the men representatives of the recently-opposed nations at Versailles? The one incident sends a sweet perfume to heaven for all time, while the other reeks an offence to the nostrils of millions of yet unborn sons of men ...
Women Break Windows, Men Break Heads -
The position is simply this: Women break windows, and men break heads. Every liberty that the Englishman prizes was not gained as a matter of justice, but as the result of agitation, principally with violence."
WPA - Modern Diplomacy versus the Old-Time Despotism
Woman Voter 2 October 1919:
Modern Diplomacy – The old-time piracy and brigandage of what are styled the bad old days, when life was worth the living, began to seem strangely decent. They move us almost to veneration when compared with our modern diplomacy, particularly in its best advertised stunt “the protection of weaker nations”.The old-time hell, which went with the old-time despotism, never staged such unspeakable horrors, never dreamt them, as those which this “protection” includes. The merest acquaintance with its benign operations in China, Korea, Persia, India, Finland, Egypt, and all the rest of these cherished and sheltered countries, is enough to drive a sane man mad. In the minds of the self-appointed defenders of the weak, protection, extermination and slavery are synonymous terms; that is why “The Argus” refers to Russia’s liberating message as “sinister”.
There is, of course, the best of reasons why the release of Persia from the grasp of the old Russian regime should have a sinister appearance to our eyes. Russia was doing our dirty work there, and the naked villainy of her performances was such that we were forced to be blind to them, and, now that Russia has given Persia her freedom, we must reduce her to slavery unaided. That does not seem much in itself, but every task of the kind adds greatly to the national responsibility. What a thought compelling comment on the general situation this message to Persia might be to the patriots, if patriots ever thought.The Persian delegates hung around the closed doors of the Paris Conference, seeking justice from the victorious upholders of Right against Wrong quite in vain, till out of Russia, outcast, Bolshevik Russia, came to their people the word of life and hope, and a new beginning. If only the upholders of Right would let them have life and hope and a new beginning!
WPA - Evolving Order Out of the Present Chaos
Woman Voter 6 Nov 1919:
Vida Goldstein, London - There is a great fact standing out above all others - there is an increasing number of strong, resourceful men and women in every country who honestly believe that revolution, armed revolution if necessary, is the only means of evolving order out of the present chaos ... The other day I visited the House of Commons during the debate on the Profiteering Bill. There were about 80 members present; at one time there were 40, out of a total of nearly 700.The remoteness of Parliament from the people, from industry, from the vital needs of the community, could not have made itself felt more clearly. And thought turned naturally to other lands, with other messages, and I wondered how the change would come in English speaking countries. Through Reason and Justice and Understanding; not by violence, is my hope. see Appendix 12
WPA - The World is Sick unto Death
Woman Voter 18 December 1919:
The aftermath of war, even more than the war itself, has shown us the utter futility of the tinkering processes of reform that each and all of the methods adopt that do not aim at a complete upheaval and reconstruction …
The world is sick unto death, and the sources of Government – if we may put it so – polluted. The blockade is the devilish anti-climax of the war; the cold blooded, unimaginative concerted actions of our rulers, into whose hands we, with the other democracies, lie like puppets, dumb and obedient, guiltily impotent, or wickedly acquiescent to the awful horrors done in the name of expediency by our representatives.What wonder that Miss Goldstein, over there, shifts our frontier pegs in the presence of such facts as the starving of Middle European babes in our name? We make no apology; beg for no understanding, for our change of outlook under this stress. We lose our title to be human beings much more to being Proggressivists, were we unshaken by such actualities as this. The system is the devil incarnate. The present intention of the Association is to go into recess (not to vegetate, but to possess our souls); into what we shall then emerge, it doth not yet appear. But we MUST not, DARE not, be idle.
WPA - Reaping the Whirlwind of Misunderstanding and Hate
Woman Voter 18 December 1919:
Vida Goldstein – “The peoples, as well as the Governments, have sown the wind of misunderstanding and of hate and are reaping the whirlwind, and we must bring in the soft breezes of sweet reasonableness, of charity, of clarity to the consideration of social and industrial problems.”
“There can be no peace until people understand what true internationalisation means. People must learn to lead themselves ... To return to the work on the old (i.e. prewar - ed.) conditions would simply be a case of fiddling while Rome is burning.”
WPA - Not Enough to Pay for Miss Goldstein’s Return Passage
Woman Voter 18 December 1919:
Owing to strike and to the outbreak of influenza, the amount raised was disappointing - only £268/15/9 - not enough to pay for Miss Goldstein’s return passage.
(On her return to Australia three years later Vida continued to campaign, but on individual issues, including equal pay, bacterial warfare and nuclear disarmament. Geraldine)WPA - This Publication Ceases
Woman Voter 18 December 1919:
We have to notify subscribers and readers generally of this paper that with this issue this publication ceases. The reason for this is wrapped up in those considerations ... that bring about the dissolving of the WPA.================= End Part 2 =================
