Jane Addams was known as the “mother of social work” for her tireless efforts on behalf of the needy. She founded Hull House in Chicago,one of the first settlement houses in the states to provide services for the local poor. It included educational facilities. She was a leader in the women’s suffrage movement,and an active pacifist. She taught, wrote, and lectured about peace both nationally and internationally. Before World War I, Addams was probably the most beloved woman in America. In a newspaper poll that asked, “Who among our contemporaries are of the most value to the community?” Jane Addams was second, after Thomas Edison. When she opposed America’s involvement in World War I, however, newspaper editors called her a traitor. She helped found the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with American educator Nicholas Murray Butler. The CPI unleashed a torrent of abuse upon pacifists.

Petition of Jane Addams, et. al to President Calvin Coolidge, regarding the restoration of civil rights to American citizens convicted of espionage during World War I

To the President; White House, Washington, D.C.

The undersigned citizens urge upon you the wisdom of restoring the rights of citizenship to the 1500 men and women convicted solely for their utterances during the war under the espionage act and related laws.

We urge that these rights be restored by a general proclamation by you as the sole constitutional authority able to grant pardons. Unless such a proclamation is issued, these people will continue to be punished indefinitely by the loss of their rights of citizenship solely because of their spoken or written opposition to the war.

We submit that such continuing punishment for offenses in an emergency long since passed was never contemplated at the time. Nor is it in accord with the traditions of our government, particularly as expressed in the amnesties following the Civil War, which restored citizenship to all persons engaged in the rebellion.

Any course other than a general proclamation of the restoration of the rights of citizenship would be impracticable. Word cannot be gotten to these 1,500 people to make individual applications for restoration of their rights. Furthermore, even if it were possible to reach them, most of them, feeling the injustice of a continuing punishment for offenses of speech in war-time, would decline to make such applications, expecting the government to take the initiative to correct injustice, just as it did when it commuted the long sentences imposed during the war days.

Now ten long years after the war, is not the time ripe, Mr. President, to clear the record of war prosecutions for opinions, to release these men and women from continuing punishment, and to restore to them their rights as citizens?

Respectfully,

Jane Addams [writer, social worker, Chicago, Ill.]
Judge George W. Anderson [Judge, Circuit Court of Appeals, Boston]
Rev. Iddings Bell [Warden, St. Stephens College, Anandale-On-Hudson, N.Y.]
Bishop Chauncey Brewster [Bishop, Protestant Episcopal Church, Hartford, Conn.]
Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin [Clergyman, author, New York City.]
Prof. Zechariah Chafee, Jr. [Professor of law, Harvard Univ.]
Prof. John Dewey [Professor of law, Columbia Univ.]
Raymond B. Fosdick [attorney, New York City.]
Prof. William E. Hocking [Professor of Philosophy, Cambridge.]
Francis Fisher Kane [attorney, Philadelphia]
Prof. Underhill Moore [Professor of law, Columbia Univ.]
Judge Julian W. Mack [Judge, Circuit Court, New York City.]
Prof. Harry A. Overstreet [Professor of Philosophy, City College of New York.]
Allen S. Olmsted [attorney, Philadelphia]
Herbert Bayard Swope [Executive Editor, “The World”]
Don Carlos Seitz [writer, New York City.]
Prof. F. W. Taussig [Professor of Economics, Harvard Univ.]
Robertson Trowbridge [Union League Club, New York City.]
Wilbur K. Thomas [Friends Service Committee, Philadelphia]
Vera B. Whitehouse [author, New York City]
Lillian D. Wald [social worker, New York City]



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