Shortly after my father arrived in Washington, Charles Sumner arranged a large dinner party in his honor. A few days before the dinner an invitation came for the same evening to dine at the White House. The letter was brought to my father at Mr. Sumner’s house. I remember my surprise when the great Massachusetts senator said,
“You must go to the White House; I shall have to excuse you. An invitation to dine with the President cannot be declined.”
While my father was working for the Dominicans, my mother was making her appeal to women throughout the world to hold a great International Peace Congress. She wrote an appeal, had it translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Swedish, and sent it far and wide. Some of the correspondence of this time has been preserved. A letter from William Henry Channing has a fresh interest to-day.
London, February 8th, 1871.
Dear Mrs. Howe;
The truth is that this horrible war has made me ill, soul and body, and for the first time in my existence I have lost hope for humanity.
The prospect brightens, doubtless some sort of a treaty will be patched up between Germany and France, and no immediate attack on Belgium will probably compel Great Britain to interfere. The atmosphere of Europe will be temporarily serene. Yet, I hold that the present so-called “Peace” will prove to be a very transient one. You see how very low my hope for Europe is. For the time being, Militarism is rampant. If Germany with all her past illumination, culture, aspiration, can be guilty of such absolutely infernal cruelty as she is perpetrating against fallen France, where can we look on the Continent of Europe for any stable policy of peace? The one encouraging sign of the times,—and gloriously encouraging it is,—is the overflowing charity that is now seeking to alleviate in some degree the indescribable suffering occasioned by this devastating contest. But when, on the other hand, one reads the reply of the Göttingen Professors to the appeal of Dublin University, or the letters of Strauss and Mommsen, or consider what is implied in the treatment of Jacoby,—is not there the strongest ground for apprehending that Continental Europe is to pass under a sway of a mightier military despotism than the world has seen since the days of Macedon and of Rome?
More and more I feel that the hope for Humanity in this age has made its home in our Republic. And it lies with you, women of our Free and United Nation, to open the new era for our Race!
In the year 1871 my three sisters were married and my brother left home; after graduating from Harvard and the Institute of Technology, he went out into the world and began his long service to Science, which from the first called him to her ranks.
