As I understand it, you, in the League of Women Voters, are not creating a new party—a woman’s party—to run sex candidates in opposition to the Democratic and Republican party candidates. Some people fear you want to do this. I am sure you are right not to do so. I did not stand for Parliament as a sex candidate. I represent a Division of Plymouth—one of the most important naval ports of England. Thousands of my supporters are English sailors. But this does not prevent me fighting, and fighting hard, for questions where there is a woman’s point of view—questions of morality, the protection of young girls.
Some men don’t like it. But the best men—a growing number of men, I find—are supporting me.
You are right not to make a new political party. You are equally right to try to lift and raise and improve the platforms of both the big political parties by joining them. See that you send neither windbags nor carpetbaggers to represent you.
The big contribution you can make to politics and national life is to face and tackle the moral standard. Insist upon a single standard of morality—not by lowering our standard; but by raising the men’s standard to that of women. Do that in America. We are working for it in England. If America and England do it, then all countries must follow. In some countries women are still looked upon too much as mere physical instead of mental companions. It is partly the fault of the women. They will always be that until they get a higher sense of companionship. The right-minded women want to be companions in the truest sense of the word, and the right-minded men want to have them so. It is easy enough to attract men; it is harder to help them. The single moral standard not only helps women, it helps men; it helps nations.
You cannot be material in your domestic life and be spiritual in your national life. You cannot be material in your national life and be idealistic in your international relations. Lust creates the spirit of War; it is incompatible with the spirit of Peace. The material man lives and dies. It is the spiritual man who never dies. So with nations. No material nations, however powerful, have ever survived.
The peace which the world wants is not the peace which comes from a smashing conquest—that sort of peace is apt to sow the seeds of vengeance. I believe the women can help to bring to the world the real peace—the spiritual peace—the Peace which passeth all understanding.
Always remember St. Paul’s words; they apply particularly to women: “God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” We can only bring this spirit into world politics if we have got it in our hearts. Let us prove to all nations that we are not only talkers, but doers.