He was anxious to finance the publicity work of the Second International, and actually contributed large sums to this side of the work both in Berne and in Lucerne. But his larger scheme never materialized. It was discovered later that he had a habit of offering millions for this cause or that, to the International, to the German Socialist Government, to the famine children of Austria, to Turkey, to Hungary; but never have I been able to discover that those millions were forthcoming. There was always some hitch in the business somewhere, some fantastic condition attached to the gift, or some impossible preliminary to carry through satisfactorily.
He was dreadfully impatient of what he called the “blue-sky politics” of some Socialists. He hated equally the politics of the White Guard reactionaries. Strange, queer, haunting character, with the lion head and the despot manner; time alone will tell us who you are and what your place in the scheme of things; but that you meant to help and not to hinder the work of the International I am profoundly convinced.
Mr. de Kay lost his favourite daughter a few months ago. She was drowned in Lake Michigan while on a visit to America. The mystery of her death, like the mystery of her father’s life, is still unsolved. She lies still and cold in her grave. But her father flits fitfully in and out of the game of international politics, too arresting a personality to be ignored, too mysterious a being to be acclaimed.
Seated in that part of the hall reserved for visitors was a dark-skinned Jewish lady wearing an enormous picture hat. It was not she of the ropes of pearls, but another and an older woman. She was dressed in a smart black dress and wore over it a valuable sealskin coat. She followed the debate with a certain amount of interest, but her black eyes roved restlessly around the room in search of somebody in particular. I did not flatter myself that I was the person she was seeking, but presently a little pasteboard card was passed along the line to me, and looking first at the card and then at the visitor, I caught the smile of the picture hat lady and recognized an old acquaintance. She was Frau Rosika Schwimmer, the first woman Minister.
The then Premier of Hungary, Count Karolyi, had signalized his term of office by several acts of a radical character, notably amongst them the appointment of a woman Minister to Switzerland. It was a bold thing to do, at such a time and in such a country, and of such a woman. I wish now that I had accepted the invitation to be the guest of Count Karolyi, extended to me in his name by his secretary and friend Herr Paul von Auer. Courage of this sort, which associates a man with feminism, is extremely rare. It would have been interesting to meet the man possessed of it. The conservatism of the Swiss is well known. They share with the Latin countries the dishonour of an unenfranchised womankind. To send to such a country the first woman Minister, and that woman a Jewess, was to challenge too violently the prejudices of the Swiss. The experiment was bound to fail.
Frau Schwimmer’s business with me was to ask my help with the organization of a women’s conference. Of course, the proposal interested me; but my mind travelled back to my previous association with Rosika and the occasion of my first meeting with her.
It was at the Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance of which Mrs. C. Chapman Catt is the President, held in London about ten years ago. Rosika (as everybody called her) was one of the most eloquent speakers in the Conference. Her style was ironic. She provoked shouts of laughter amongst the women by her pungent attacks on male mankind, and her wit and humour made of her a general favourite as a speaker. She and I were thought to be as great contrasts in our style of speaking as in our physical appearance, and a favourite design of organizers was to send the two of us to address the same meeting. This happened two years later at the Opera House in Stockholm, when the grave and the gay of the woman’s question were divided between the black and the blonde.
But I never really knew Frau Schwimmer till after our several meetings in America. The first occasion was a meeting in the theatre in Lexington, Kentucky, where we discoursed on women and peace to a fashionable audience. It says a great deal for Rosika’s power as a public speaker, that she was able by her eloquence to overcome amongst those critical American women a plainly expressed distaste for her peculiar style of dress. She affected at that time the loose, flowing robe more suggestive of the boudoir than the public platform. Black harmonized with our mood as well as hers, for the war was at its height; but the ill-fitting black gloves she persisted in wearing during her speech robbed her otherwise expressive hands of all their eloquence.
It was to the unauthorized activity of Rosika that I owed my meeting with President Wilson. A propaganda in favour of the calling by America of a conference of neutral nations for continuous mediation amongst the belligerents was being conducted all over the United States, with which I found myself in full sympathy. America was not then in the war, and the greater part of her citizens appeared to be hostile to the idea of entering. Their distaste for the war did not go the length of an all-round strict neutrality, economic as well as political; but there was a very genuine desire in 1915 on the part of vast numbers of American citizens to avoid active participation in the war, for reasons, for the most part, entirely honourable to themselves and the country.