MT Eleanor Otterness - EO Gloria Thompson - GT

Margaret M. Thomson Narrator

Gloria A. Thompson Interviewer

October 15, 1972 Saint Paul, Minnesota

Margaret Thomson - MT Eleanor Otterness - EO Gloria Thompson - GT

GT: Today is Sunday, October 15, 1972. My name is Gloria Thompson and I’m interviewing Margaret Thomson about the history of the Women’s International League [WIL] for Peace and Freedom for Minnesota and her activities within the WIL. This is for the Minnesota Historical Society. I’m just going to ask you a few questions about your background in general. I’d like to know if you’re from Minneapolis.

MT: Well, practically. We came here when I was ten years old.

GT: Where were you born?

MT: Canton, Ohio.

GT: When was that?

MT: When was I born? You want me to tell my age?

GT: Well, okay. How about your education?

MT: I graduated from the University of Minnesota and I have an M.A. from Columbia Teacher’s College.

GT: Did you teach for a few years?

MT: Yes. I taught thirty-five years in Minneapolis. I was assistant principal at Minneapolis Vocational High School before I retired.

GT: When did you first join the League?

MT: Well, I’m quite sure I joined when it was first started and that would be in the 1920s. It was started in 1922. I’m sure I was a very early member; although, I wasn’t a charter member of it. It isn’t on the records, but I have a memory of a large group meeting that was on [unclear] that I think must have been a WIL meeting.

GT: Did you know Maud [C.] Stockwell?

MT: Oh, very well, yes.

GT: I would really like to know some things about her.

MT: Well, Maud Stockwell was a very unusual woman. She was tall and very queenly. She was a natural person to lead a group. She had such great presence of mind and she was a real liberal in her thinking. She had the help of her husband [Sylvanus A.], who was a real…almost a radical.

GT: Oh, really?

MT: The two of them together worked beautifully. As a team, they were leaders in Minneapolis of the liberal movement. Do you remember, Eleanor?

EO: No, don’t remember that at all.

MT: I was looking over some notes I have. She really began to oppose compulsory military training in Minnesota and with Mr. Stockwell’s help introduced a bill in the Legislature. He was a member of the Legislature. With a great deal of work, they finally got a bill passed making, I think, the ROTC [Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] voluntary instead of required.

GT: Do you remember any other kinds of projects that she promoted way back then in the forming years of the WIL?

MT: No, I can’t say anything that she promoted as far as the WIL was concerned, but she was very prominent in it. She was state chairman for a number of years and state treasurer, also. In fact, I think people called her Mrs. WIL for a long time. She had that position with the organization.

GT: She was responsible for giving the League kind of a path to follow.

MT: Yes, a path to follow. Yes. She hadn’t belonged when she led this fight against the military training, but that led her into inquiring about WILPF. In fact, there was no WILPF in Minnesota when she was working on this project. She’d been a suffrage worker before that. They wrote to Jane Addams and inquired about getting a charter for Minnesota and the charter came through.

GT: Like I was saying, the papers that we’ve got were the [Jean M.] Wilcox papers. We were trying to find out some of the things about the early, early years. That’s really good to know [unclear].

MT: I had written a little biographical sketch of her. Isn’t that in her record about the forming of the WIL?

GT: In historical papers?

MT: No, in that record that she gave.

EO: Olive Meili’s record. She tells about forming it out of a committee for disarmament that [unclear].

GT: Yes, in Washington, D.C.

MT: It grew up after this fight in the Legislature, too.

GT: That’s really interesting, getting back to you. What made you join the League or what attracted you to the WIL, initially?

MT: I think everybody who lived through WWI—I did—felt that we should never have war again, you know. [President Woodrow] Wilson fought the war to end all wars. The only way to do that was to work for peace. So I joined the WIL as a peace organization that was being formed. I always had up, in front of my class, the Kellogg-Briand [Anti- War Pact] peace treaty, you know, in big letters, so I was very much interested in peace.

GT: Were you involved in any other activities along the same [unclear]?

MT: Oh, yes. I really gave my extracurricular activity to working in the very young and struggling Minneapolis Federation of Teachers. That’s where all my extra effort went during my teaching time. We did build it up, as you know.

GT: You were very active in both then?

MT: I wasn’t active in those years in the WIL, no. I paid my dues and sent in my rummage for rummage sales and sometimes went to meetings and, occasionally, I took my students to a meeting, [unclear] meeting. But that was the extent of my activity in WIL.

GT: And you would say that by virtue of the fact it was a peace organization, this was the initial attraction?

MT: Yes, that’s right. Peace was popular after World War I.

GT: Right. When did you become active in the League?

MT: I retired in 1955. Of course, I always got notices of meetings and I had friends and I went to a meeting on a summer day in our suburban locality. I think the enthusiasm of those girls, particularly Mrs. Westberg. What’s her first name?

EO: Elizabeth.

MT: Elizabeth Westberg had just been to a national convention of WIL and she was so enthusiastic about the work and the other women seemed so concerned and interested that I thought, well, I can give this organization some time. This is a good activity for me being retired. [Chuckles] So I went to meetings. They asked me to be on the Board and so on.

GT: What kinds of things did you do in the 1950s?

MT: I was thinking of that myself. That’s one reason I got these out. I think one of the important things was stopping the bombing, an atom bomb bill to Congress.

GT: How did you do this?

MT: Well, actually one of the things we did, SANE [National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy] was then, growing up, too, and the man from SANE National came out to talk to us and most of the people there were WIL people. So WIL people immediately saw this was something we must do to stop the bombing, the test bombing. So we collaborated with them. WIL loaned the money to pay the printing and buy the stamps and the WIL committee did all the addressing and got out literature. We raised enough money to put an ad in the paper at that time to stop the test bombing.

EO: This was nuclear testing.

MT: Nuclear tests, yes.

GT: In the 1950s.

MT: As you know, it was a partial test ban.

GT: And you believe you had some impact on [unclear]?

MT: Oh, I’m sure we did, yes, locally and nationally. Everybody gave all their energies to that particular project.

GT: What types of activities did you promote during the Korean War?

MT: I can’t tell you because I wasn’t active at all. The McCarthy Era had been very hard on WIL.

GT: I’d like to know more about that.

MT: All I can tell you is when I got active; you still had the feeling that there was a good deal of fear from what might be a result. The membership had dropped considerably.

EO: Who would know about the McCarthy Era in WIL in Minnesota?

MT: I don’t know anybody left who’d know. Medora [Peterson] wouldn’t because she was later, too, and Olive [Meili]. I’ll tell you, I think Viena [Hendrickson] would know. I think they must get Viena on this.

GT: Yes, I’m planning on doing that. I know that Olive had mentioned an FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] investigation that…

MT: That was national.

GT: Yes. This was during Jean Wilcox’s tenure. They had been cleared. She didn’t know anything about the 1950s, particularly. I was thinking…

MT: Well, that happened in the 1950s.

GT: Right.

MT: Yes, I know.

GT: I was wondering if the League had suffered during that era.

MT: Yes, I’m sure they suffered membership, because when I joined it was a pretty small group, but active people. I think they had just as many people working as we do, almost. It’s so hard to get people to work.

GT: Oh, it definitely is. [Chuckles]. I’d like to find out what in your opinion are the kinds of women that are attracted to the WIL. What makes a woman who has a lot of other things going, a job, maybe a family? What kind of women join?

MT: I’ve often wondered that myself. I think there was kind of a definite type. First of all, I think she’s quite intellectual. I’m talking now about compared with average. I think she’s above average intellectually. I think she must have a great deal of sympathy, a great deal of feeling for people. She’s articulate, that’s for sure. She’s concerned politically. Her concerns for people are not concerns for people individually bur for mankind rather than the man, I think. In fact, I thought some people might be even a little hard in the purely human realm. I don’t know that, though.

GT: What in your own words is the political philosophy of the WIL?

MT: Well, I think we believe in non-violent revolution, definitely a change. We’re non- violent.

GT: In what terms now do you mean change? Of what, for example?

MT: Well, let’s do away with the military. That certainly would be a change.

GT: Complete?

MT: I don’t think WIL has ever quite said…Well, yes, completely in the future, but when? No date. A much greater influence on the United Nations [UN] than it has at the present time and the peace kept by a peacekeeping force from the United Nations. Now, I think many of them would say that must be, well, practically an armed force. I think there is a hazy area, too, but they don’t want to see the UN develop an army. There’s a difference between having an army and having a peacekeeping force, the difference between a soldier and a policeman.

As far as economic change is concerned, I think that the members would be divided on that. There’s nothing in our principles except that we must have a just economic system. We must have a far more egalitarian system of economics than we have. The gals never said anything beyond the free enterprise system. Am I right, Eleanor? There are socialists I’m sure that are members.

EO: Yes.

MT: But socialism as a theory for WIL…

GT: I’m sure there are differences abroad in terms of what we have in Minnesota or the nation.

MT: Sure.

EO: It isn’t as big an issue as the political issue of the war.

GT: Would you say that war is still…or peace, anti-war still the primary focal point of the League or do you think it has changed in emphasis from the 1920s when it was a product of World War I and, now, we’re in 1970? Do you see [unclear]?

MT: I don’t like to speak for the younger members.

GT: I would just like to see if you would say it’s changed in emphasis or expanded, maybe.

MT: Yes, I sort of think it has expanded. I’m sure we have a growing number of members who see an economic change, but I don’t think it’s been made [unclear] issue. In other words, they’ve always said we’re non-political. We are not [unclear] political parties. We will vote for the political party that follows our program. There’s quite a difference there.

GT: Do you actively promote, for example, a peace candidate’s particular campaign ever or have you historically?

MT: No. We aren’t supposed to endorse candidates.

GT: That’s an individual issue.

MT: That’s individual. I know [unclear] but a handful of people that wouldn’t be for [Eugene] McGovern would be for [Richard] Nixon. I wouldn’t even guess that there would be ten people.

EO: Did you know Martha [Rugh] Platt left the Republican Party?

MT: Oh, did she really?

EO: And so did Mrs. [Betty] Salisbury.

MT: I don’t know Mrs. Salisbury.

EO: She worked in the bipartisan caucus and joined the WIL.

MT: Oh, she did. I didn’t know that.

GT: What is your definition of pacifism?

MT: Well, I suppose a pacifist would never resort to arms even though his own life might be in danger or, if you extend that to mean the country, the country should never resort to arms even though it would be so-called endangered.

GT: I know in going through the Wilcox papers that there was a problem in World War II when the country was attacked and the League didn’t quite know what to do then with its position.

MT: Oh, my, yes.

GT: It found itself attacked on all sides or on some sides, anyway, at least on disloyalty charges. In time of war, what does the League participate in?

MT: I’ve read the life of Emily Greene Balch [Improper Bostonian: Emily Greene Balch by Mercedes M. Randall]. I think she worked against war up to [unclear] and, then, I think she gave herself to humanitarian efforts, to take care of the wounded and humanitarian efforts for people left behind. She could not go any farther than that during World War II. But, in this last war, the Vietnam War, of course, we’ve gone much farther. We’ve opposed war openly and we’ve helped the boys who won’t go into the

war. We’ve given a good deal of help to those fellows, I think. We’ve opposed the draft, which Eleanor has told you about. She’s done so much work.

GT: What kinds of things have you been able to do for the resistors, for example?

MT: Well, do you mean what the WIL has done for the different people?

GT: Right.

MT: I don’t know that we furnished any money for bail or that kind of thing or court costs. We’ve gone to their trials.

EO: Do you remember in 1968, Margaret, when Doug Marvy and the Milwaukee group…Doug Marvey. There was a draft office, like a selective service office, break in in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Eight [correctly the Milwaukee Fourteen]. Didn’t we raise money for them?

MT: Yes, I guess we did.

EO: We raised one thousand dollars for the Minnesota Eight.

MT: That’s right. Yes, we have. We raised the money.

GT: How do you raise the money?

MT: I follow the Crocker boys for it.

GT: Who were these people?

MT: The three Crocker boys. Well, the first boy went to Canada and the second boy is on parole now out of prison. The third boy had an interesting trial, an appealed trial. He, finally, took some alternative service but not under the military, under a probation officer. How did we raise the money? Well, appealing for money [unclear] those. There were some who had the famous cocktail party.

EO: [Unclear] which one was this for?

MT: Wasn’t that for some of the boys?

EO: Oh, the one where we were arrested?

MT: Arrested, yes.

EO: Oh, no. That one was for the people who were…

MT: [Unclear] cocktail party by myself.

EO: Yes. Meaning she wasn’t there.

MT: I wasn’t there.

EO: We were arrested at the Licken’s house when we were raising money for the people who were going to sit in on the nuclear site. Remember the site out in South Dakota. That was it.

GT: Oh, South Dakota. I’m thinking of the one in North Dakota. Was this…?

EO: May 1970. For the Minnesota Eight, Harriet Licken and I sent letters out so we didn’t have to have the cocktail party and that raised one thousand dollars.

MT: That raised one thousand dollars in that appeal.

EO: Yes. Then, just recently, Margaret Marian Jacobson and Peg Shore gave a party at their house and we raised one thousand dollars for the bailiff fund for the students who were arrested protesting peace this spring.

MT: I didn’t go to that one either.

EO: Most of it was WIL people, though. They [unclear] take money from anybody.

MT: I may have sent some money. I think I did. I know I sent to the [Minnesota] Eight.

GT: Do you have some general or specific ones…? I know you have a bazaar coming up. Is that an annual event?

MT: Yes, we have it annually. This is the seventh or eighth, isn’t it? I think it’s the eighth. That makes our money for our budget. We have this lecture coming up, this British woman.

GT: Yes, that’s this week.

MT: I think everybody in WIL is working for McGovern, because I’ve been trying to get a telephone chain going. I worked all day Monday and half a day yesterday; that is, I didn’t do anything else. Everybody said, “Oh, don’t ask me now. I’m working for McGovern.”

GT: Yesterday, Olive Meili said that during World War II—I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this time since you weren’t as active then, but I’d like to find out more about this—some of the Jewish women or many of them dropped out during the Second World War.

MT: Yes, that’s true.

GT: To what do you attribute this?

MT: Well, because there was lots of opposition to World War II, that meant you were opposed to Hitler and Hitler was killing the Jews, you see, just that simple. They felt we had [unclear] right to oppose such a war. But Mrs. [Fanny Fligelman] Brin stayed in. She was the leader in Minneapolis, really, for peace in WIL.

GT: In the 1940s?

MT: Well, all through. She joined it from the beginning and stayed in WIL,

EO: Is she still living, Margaret?

MT: Oh, no, she died a long time ago [Fanny Brin died on September 4, 1961]. She was incapacitated for several years before her death. In any history, you should know Mrs. Brin.

GT: I don’t even recall the name.

MT: You don’t?

GT: I haven’t heard it yet or seen it.

MT: Well, that should be in Jean Wilcox, she started the Women’s UN Rally Day.

GT: I’m familiar with the UN Rally Day.

MT: Well, she was the start of it.

EO: Did she do it because she was in WIL?

MT: No, I wouldn’t say that. She just was so strongly for peace. She was also a leader of the Women’s Peace Party that grew up after WILPF was formed. It was formed by Carrie Chapman Catt. Of course, Jane Addams was the leader of WILPF and Carrie Chapman Catt was the leader of the Women’s Peace Movement, which became a very much stronger organization than the Women’s International League.

EO: How long did it last?

MT: It didn’t last. I don’t know when it did dissolve. I don’t imagine it went much into the 1930s. It didn’t last because it wasn’t based on a clear and [unclear] principles as WIL. You see, you always know what WILPF stands for. That’s one of the things that I think that’s kept it alive, really. There’s been no doubt that this is the way WIL thinks. We’re not [unclear].

GT: I know that the membership has fluctuated in the League throughout the years.

MT: Very much.

GT: Very much?

MT: I don’t know. I can’t say statistics.

GT: I know prior to World War II, it had six hundred members and, then, during the war, it dropped to around one hundred and fifty. At least, this is what I found in Wilcox papers.

MT: There were seventy five about on the list when I entered it in 1955 and I’m not sure all seventy five paid.

GT: How does that compare to now?

MT: Now, we’re around three hundred, aren’t we Eleanor?

EO: Yes.

GT: It’s building up again.

MT: Oh, yes, it did. It is, too, the kind of thing when people are wrought up about war, then they’ll join and when they feel peace is here…

GT: The motive of peace or the promotion of peace was what really started you [unclear].

MT: Yes, I’m sure.

GT: Do you know anything about the Volunteer Work Camp in 1939, 1940, any vague notion about that particular WIL program?

MT: No, I don’t.

GT: Do you know of anyone who may possibly know about that? I did find some information in the Wilcox papers.

MT: Yes, because Ann Wilcox [Margaret says Ann Wilcox, but may mean Jean Wilcox] sponsored it, I think, for WIL at that time. I know there was a house in Saint Paul, particularly, that was sort of the headquarters for them. I knew a girl who’d been a member of it in college, of the workforce.

GT: What did think of it, if you remember?

MT: Well, they had lived in one of these houses together, you know, a lot of students. It didn’t work, finally, because simply what breaks all these things up is some people work and some people don’t. Ones who work don’t like it when the others don’t. I can’t remember her name and she doesn’t live here anymore anyway. Wasn’t there quite a little about…?

GT: No, a pamphlet. I haven’t any idea how successful it was, really, and how many participated.

MT: I don’t know either.

GT: Or how well it was received. I do know that there was one of the camps set up in the Twin Cities to promote racial relations and alleviate some of the economic…

MT: This girl married a black man who was in the camp but the marriage didn’t last. She had one child and the marriage didn’t last. She was married a second time when I knew her.

GT: I see. I did find out from a Wilcox report to the national that apparently it wasn’t too successful, at least in terms of the community. They were somewhat hostile to it, I gather.

MT: I imagine, because it did have blacks and whites.

GT: What bits of information could you tell me about Jean Wilcox as an individual?

MT: Well, Jean was a quiet, powerful individual. She organized, and kept it going for a long time, the Town…what did they call it? Town Club or Town Discussion Group? Have you found that in the papers?

EO: The Saturday Club?

MT: No, this met Monday nights and was always a discussion group and always two sides. That was a very valuable [unclear].

GT: I think it was just the Town Meetings.

MT: Town Meetings. They called them the Town Meetings and met Monday night at the YWCA [Young Women’s Christian Association].

GT: Yes, I have seen some of those papers.

MT: Well, that really was valuable in Minneapolis.

GT: It was?

MT: They discussed very important problems. I’ll tell you who could tell you that. Oh, if I can think of his name, the man who was principal of Washburn High School for years. I can’t recall his name, but I will be able to. I can find somebody.

GT: Okay, thank you.

MT: I’m sure he could tell you because he was interested then, too. In fact, I think he chaired it for a while. I remember one very good discussion between Doctor Ben Jones and, who was the man who was head of the UN for so long?

EO: York Langton.

MT: York Langton on aid to Greece. York Langton was all for the aid to Greece and Doctor Ben Jones who was head of the Trinity Baptist Church [in Saint Paul, Minnesota?] at the time was against it.

EO: Isn’t that interesting?

MT: Isn’t that interesting. Doctor Ben Jones, York Langton had been one of his students when he taught at Carleton. He taught at Carleton and, then, came here as a preacher and, then, went back. He said, “York Langton ought to know better as a student that’s a good thing to do.” [Chuckles]

EO: You mean this is aid to Greece that ultimately led to the takeover by the Army?

MT: Well, this was opposed to communism, you see. This was aid to Greece.

EO: Under the Truman-Marshall Plan. It was [unclear] says [Donald] Don Fraser for the dictator of the military [unclear].

MT: Actually, it didn’t directly lead into it. They kept the system going.

EO: Yes, provided the arms to arm the military against the civilians.

MT: Yes, that’s right.

GT: What other things did Jean do?

MT: Besides WIL?

GT: Besides WIL or…

MT: Well, I don’t really know. I couldn’t answer that question. I think that pretty much filled her life, WIL and her organizing [unclear]. She was very important in WIL, you know. She was state president for a long time, on the National Board.

GT: In the 1940s.

MT: She certainly gathered information on everything in the world. I’ve kept two or three things.

EO: What did you do, Margaret, with the things that you picked out of all the bunch?

MT: For me to keep?

EO: You and Medora [Peterson]. Well, I don’t [unclear].

MT: I’ve got mine. One of them was the speeches of Olives?]. [Unclear] reread that, you know. I didn’t take very much. She didn’t date anything, did she?

GT: There were a lot of undated things.

MT: I just didn’t understand that.

GT: Lots of correspondence is to FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] and people in the United Nations in reference to the European Recovery Program and things like this, to Dorothy Detzer and stuff like that.

MT: She was not nearly so active when I became active. She was not doing too much of that kind of thing in WIL. She was our literature chairman. She was very faithful about having our literature at every meeting. On the other hand, she accumulated too much of it. [Chuckles] I mean too much of it landed in her own files.

GT: Was she a very dynamic woman?

MT: No, I wouldn’t call her a dynamic woman. She is not what I think of as dynamic. She was very much quieter than that. Did you ever know her, Eleanor?

EO: Yes.

MT: Would you call her a dynamic woman?

EO: Well, not when I knew her, she was selling plants and turning up at meetings and very quiet.

MT: Very quiet, yes.

EO: I knew her for years without knowing she was WIL.

MT: Oh, really?

EO: I knew her as being at the Unitarian Society selling plants. She was selling them for the WIL, but I didn’t know that. I used to buy plants.

MT: Of course, she was active in the Unitarian Society.

EO: Right. She lived on the same street we lived on: Emerald.

MT: She was not a housekeeper, not a homemaker.

GT: From the papers, I discovered that it is not unusual that many of the women in the League were affiliated with the Quakers or Friends or Unitarian Society.

MT: That is true. Philadelphia, everybody seemed to be either a Unitarian or a Quaker.

GT: It’s not untrue here, from what I can gather.

MT: No.

GT: There’s a large percentage.

MT: Yes, that’s true. There are others, too. I expect they’re [unclear]. A person who has an orthodox religion, I don’t think turns to an organization for peace. They work through their religion. Then, I think their thinking isn’t that great. An orthodox [unclear] other matters. Have you come across the 1931 caravan?

GT: No, I haven’t. I have no papers on that. The Wilcox papers are from about 1935 to 1945.

MT: There are pictures someplace.

EO: There are pictures in the Saint Cloud scrapbook of Mrs. Anne Graves.

MT: Well, there were pictures that were here. I wonder if Olive Meili didn’t get those.

EO: I just brought her scrapbooks home yesterday but I haven’t looked at them.

MT: I guess that was really one of the important things that WIL has ever done.

GT: What was this?

MT: Well, in 1931, WIL nationally organized this peace caravan. It started in California, cars I suppose, going to Washington [D.C.]. On the way, it gathered up other cars from other states.

[Break in the interview]

MT: [Reading] In 1931, the great peace caravan of the WIL moved from the West Coast to Washington, D.C. to petition the president on disarmament. Mrs. [Diana] Wells covered the states speaking at meeting after meeting. Twenty thousand names in Minnesota were signed on the petitions. In Minneapolis, Mayor William [A.] Anderson met Mrs. Wells on the courthouse steps. In Red Wing and Albert Lea, the people gathered and welcomed Mrs. Wells there through their mayors. Governor [Floyd B.] Olson met Mrs. Wells on the Capitol steps. The caravan is moving on to Washington.

MT: I think that’s all about that.

GT: Who was Mrs. Wells?

MT: Mrs. Wells in her youth had been an actress. Her husband, Charles Wells, was a sculptor and taught at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. She really devoted herself to causes. She was another Unitarian. She became executive secretary. WIL had an office in the Curtis Hotel for a while and she was the executive secretary of that. She had a wonderful voice, beautiful speaking voice so she was a very good person to send around to talk. She organized a speaker’s bureau at that time, too, for other people to talk. WIL was very much more known, I think, in the 1930s than it was maybe not now but then it was later on.

GT: Why do you think so?

MT: Well, because the membership was so much greater and there was more activity. It was World War II and the McCarthy Era stopped all of that.

GT: Do you think that’s what really did put the damage…?

MT: Oh, I really do. It had to work very hard to come back.

GT: Do you recall any incidents in particular that were devastating in the 1950s around the McCarthy Era?

MT: No, I can’t personally recall.

GT: Were you a president of the League at one time?

MT: Yes.

GT: What period was that?

MT: Well, I think I was president for five or six years. I have it down someplace. [Chuckles] I haven’t got it in my head. I think from about 1959 to at least 1963. Then, I was on the National Board. That put me on the National Board, but I was also appointed during those years for special projects: civil rights and education and labor. I’ve been all those things on the National Board.

GT: What did you do in the context with labor during your tenure?

MT: I tried to talk to a group of labor people and Muriel [sounds like Brund-age] about the United Nations. I thought that would be [unclear] at one of their meetings. I tried to get literature to them and made a report, also, for WIL, which gave their point of view to WIL people. We had women from the educational office of the UAW [United Auto Workers]. I corresponded with them, got them some material. It was pretty hard to really make contacts, but I had been very much interested in the labor movement, so it was natural for me to work on it.

GT: How successful were you in that endeavor?

MT: I can’t say I was successful at all.

GT: Why do you say that?

MT: Well, I don’t know. I never had too much feeling that I was…Well, there were some issues, too. The right to work—I think we got that idea across to most people, eventually—helped. I don’t think WIL went on with that committee. I haven’t heard of anything being done about it for a number of years. I had the state chairmanship one year, in 1965. I didn’t want to do it any longer. [Unclear] was the state then, two years. They’ve been two years. Yes, I think it was two years. In 1967, we had a conference at the University that we worked awfully hard on, on the growing threat of violence. That was done in the continuation department [Continuing Education Department] with the University. We worked awfully hard on that. That was 1967.

GT: That was all during your time?

MT: Yes.

EO: Was that as late as 1967, Margaret?

MT: I know that date, yes. Yes.

GT: What other issues did you address yourself to during your tenure in the League?

MT: Well, the Vietnam War from 1963 on.

EO: On the day that [President John F.] Kennedy was killed; Margaret Thomson was delivering a speech to a big meeting of the WIL on the Vietnam War. Right, Margaret?

MT: That’s right, yes. I heard the news that he‘d been shot. I was dressing to go. I went ahead and went. I got over there early. I didn’t know whether he’d been killed or not. I got there about twelve thirty. Of course, everybody was around the radio. It was over at the church, over at the Christian Church, then the news came that he had died. Well, then, the question was what should we do? Should we go on with the meeting or not? People

were there and I thought, well, I’ve done this paper. I gave it. The tragedy of it didn’t overwhelm me really until the second day. Eleanor very kindly took my paper and helped make sentences [unclear].

GT: What was the subject matter?

EO: Margaret had been keeping track all along of our involvement in Vietnam as some people in the WIL didn’t do. I mean all of us were aware of it and were against the war, weren’t we, Margaret?

MT: Yes.

EO: But lots of people didn’t keep track of the events.

MT: It really wasn’t a war then. It was hardly a war.

EO: It was involvement.

MT: Involvement, yes. Otto Nathan was the executor of the [Albert] Einstein estate and he was on the Board of the WILPF for a number of years. He said—I can’t remember whether he said this in 1963 or 1964—“Our involvement in Vietnam is the most serious war this country has ever had.” Well, that sounded ridiculous at that time, but certainly proved to be true.

WIL in 1963 had sent a caravan with the Women Strike for Peace—it had been organized at that time—to Washington in which they interviewed every senator and representative about the war. I said a caravan; I meant a delegation. WIL nationally had been involved early in this.

EO: I think [Ngô Đình] Diệm was killed that same year.

MT: About two weeks before Kennedy died, just about two weeks.

EO: Was it two weeks before?

MT: Two or three weeks.

EO: Or a week after.

MT: No, it was before. My paper had been written before he was killed and I thought maybe that somewhat changed the picture, you see. I didn’t know.

EO: The events were related?

MT: Yes. It was a very short time. It was just two or three weeks. Kennedy’s was November twenty third, wasn’t it?

EO: Yes. [Correctly, November 22, 1963]

GT: I don’t know if I have any more questions right now. Do you have anything you’d like to expand upon or any reminiscences? [Unclear] but maybe that’s enough. Well, you’ve given me a lot of information. You’ve given me a lot of people to contact and a lot of ideas.

EO: How do you feel, Margaret, about it as being a social group? For instance, yesterday, Gloria asked Olive if people were close friends. Olive gave examples of people who were close friends.

GT: I first posed the question of what she thought the political orientation of the League was and her response was the same. It was not to be political, except the League is political; although, it doesn’t channel into one political party. I did ask if the League was a close-knit group.

EO: What do you think about that, Margaret?

MT: Well, it is and it isn’t. Our members come from widely different economic circles and widely different parts of the town and widely different social connections. They are as different as they can be.

[Break in the interview]

MT: I have never been in a group, and I’ve belonged to organizations, in which there is less conniving or political struggle, the kind of undercover thing that goes on in political groups between people [unclear] or this or that. There’s none of that. I’ve always felt the spirit was unusually open and kindly and considerate within the group. For instance, we’ve had a member we all knew was a communist and many people didn’t believe in communism, but she was accepted [unclear]. She wasn’t in an office.

EO: Was that [unclear] who pretended she was a communist and turned out to be…?

MT: An informer.

EO: …an informer. Is that who you’re talking about?

MT: No, I’m talking about Betty Smith.

EO: I know, but I’m asking you. There was somebody that…

MT: Yes, yes, the woman who testified against Betty. What was her name?

EO: Ruth?

GT: When was this?

EO: No, no. Now, we’ve switched. We’re not talking about Betty Smith. We’re talking about Ruth [unclear].

MT: Well, yes, I have to talk about [unclear].

GT: First, I’d like to talk about Betty Smith who was a communist.

EO: She is.

GT: In what time period?

MT: She was called up for subversive activity.

GT: In the 1950s?

MT: No, I think this was the early 1960s.

EO: It was the House Un-American Activity Committee.

MT: I think it was a Senate group.

GT: This is a woman, Betty Smith, who is…

MT: Is a communist.

GT: … with WIF today?

EO: Not now, she isn’t.

MT: She isn’t. She dropped out. It was [unclear] that she dropped out. She was for years and she belonged at the time to WIL. She was brought up by this group and accused of being a communist. There were two testifiers. One was a man who was a [unclear] worker and one was this woman. Her name was—you’re right—Ruth somebody.

EO: She now lives up in the woods. This was in an article in the paper the other day.

GT: This was the informer?

MT: Yes, the informer and she joined WILPF purposely to follow Betty Smith’s activities.

EO: She was paid by the FBI.

MT: Yes. We didn’t know it.

GT: Good heavens!

EO: She’s up in the woods now.

MT: Is she?

EO: Yes. I saw an article in the paper about her less than a month ago.

MT: Then the law was passed that the government couldn’t compel a communist to register. So Betty was let out on that basis, you see, and, ultimately, I guess she’s running a library. She is employed by the communists now.

EO: And she gets paid.

MT: Oh, sure.

EO: I don’t know.

MT: I’m sure she does. I’m sure she’s got a paid job. For years, she didn’t. She lost her job in insurance—not in insurance but in some…She had a good job, too. She lost that job. They would have taken her back if she had said, I guess, that she’d give up the communist party. At any rate, they put a [unclear] that she wouldn’t.

EO: She wouldn’t. That’s the way to put it. She was a Unitarian, too.

MT: Yes.

EO: Her husband, who she’s divorced from, is a black man and she has two nice kids. They’re going to college now.

MT: Are they really? I wondered.

EO: She told us that not too many years ago.

MT: Is that so?

EO: Awfully nice children.

MT: She was a nice girl.

EO: Good looking, she’s originally from Grand Marais. Her parents taught up there.

MT: Oh, was she?

EO: Yes.

MT: I didn’t know that.

EO: Yes, she’s a Minnesota person, just like the Barrigans.

GT: Can you think of any women in the 1920s or 1930s pre Jean Wilcox other than what we’ve said so far who are of interest?

EO: Mrs. Palmer. Talk about her for a few minutes. We don’t know about her, Margaret.

GT: Who was Mrs. Palmer?

MT: Wait a minute.

[Break in the interview]

MT: [Reading]. Mrs. Palmer served the WIL in the interest of conservation. She was chairman of the Committee on Conservation and that committee organized a dinner at the state convention for the purpose of arousing interest in the preservation of our natural forests, particularly, the Quetico Superior National Forest.

EO: What year is this, Margaret? Do you know?

MT: No, I don’t remember the year when she did this. It was before my time, so it probably was in the 1950s. They were great friends of Mr. Oberhoffer.

EO: [Ernest] Oberholtzer.

MT: [Reading] Oberholtzer, who was the United States representative. He was co- chairman of the International Commission established to set the boundaries of the forest.

GT: So there’s information about that in the Wilcox papers.

MT: Oh, I’m sure there is, yes.

EO: How did we get involved with that issue? Because it was [unclear].

GT: [Unclear] friendship.

MT: [Reading]. Mrs. Palmer and the WIL wanted this Quetico Superior Forest called the Peace Forest, but the American Legion opposed this action and won. Mrs. Palmer was also chairman of the Committee on Peace Symbols. The Christ of the Andes became a symbol of peace for North and South America.

They had a home up near Grand Portage.

GT: A name I recall from the 1940s and late 1930s is Lucy Lawson.

MT: I never knew her but I heard a great deal about her, but I can’t tell you anything about her because I didn’t know her and nothing stuck. But probably in those files, there’s something about her. Viena will know her.

EO: How about Alice [unclear]?

MT: [Reading]. Alice was a delegate from the WIL to the Joint Committee for Equal Opportunity [JCEO] and a charter member of that group. It was on her invitation that the JCEO adopted the WIL racial equality standards and put them into circulation. The standards were printed and they were included in all of our bills from departments from our stores. The retail stores had responded by changing their previous policy of discrimination. [Unclear] work in that committee JCEO. While she was teaching, Alice made a Good Will Day an institution at Central High School. Good Will Day was started by the children of Wales at the Central High School assembly. Letters were read from the children of Wales and letters from Alice’s students to the children of Wales were sent. Governor Olson and [Elmer] Benson, each recognized the day by proclamation. Alice has served on the Board of the Minnesota State Association of United Nations. She served on the State Committee against Military Conscription. This committee was reactivated when there was a threat again of military conscription after it had been abolished. Alice was active in the work when it was threatened to be reenacted.

EO: In the 1940s.

GT: Yes. Do you know anything about Ruth Gage-Colby?

MT: Oh, yes, I knew her. We all know her. She’s really the most famous WIL woman we have, really the most widely known. Don’t you think so, Eleanor?

EO: I don’t know. Tell how you first met her. Tell us what you know about her.

GT: What kind of feelings do you get from her? What was she like as a person as well as a WIL?

MT: As a person, I was not attracted to her. I thought she was too erratic and too egotistical. I’ll just put it that way. Really, that’s the way I felt. But as things have gone along, actually she’s usually been right. She’s been a little farther out than most people. I can’t tell you anything where I think she’s been wrong in her sponsorship. I think she has, really a very good brain and ability to talk. She has great ability, I think, to speak to people and to put her ideas clearly.

GT: What are some of her credits as a national figure in the WIL, although, she is originally from Minnesota?

MT: Her national credits? Well, she’s been on the Board for years and years, being off for the short time that you had to be off and, then, being reelected back in New York continually. Of course, she always was for one China and recognition of one China. She never felt it was a Taiwan issue at all. On Vietnam, she had worked, of course. What else? What else would you say?

EO: Do you remember the 1940s when she and Marian Jacobson raised money to send to the new China, to send instruments, medical aid to new China?

MT: Marian Jacobson?

EO: Yes.

MT: Our Marian Jacobson?

EO: Yes.

MT: No, I didn’t know about that.

GT: She went to San Francisco for the UN in 1945?

EO: Yes, in 1945, but, then, maybe Margaret doesn’t know that.

MT: No, I didn’t know that she was on that group. She went to China after the war as an [unclear], I think. That’s how she was able to get a visa right away to go to China. I was corresponding with Madame Sun Yat-Sen.

GT: Oh, really?

EO: She made us her guests last September, a year ago, as Madame Sun Yat-Sen’s guests.

MT: So, you see, she’s the kind of person that people notice.

GT: That’s really interesting.

MT: She brought back very interesting accounts of China. Didn’t you think her talks were very good?

GT: What kind of things did she have to say about China?

MT: Well, she told us what we were hearing, that you don’t see poverty and the children are well fed, happy. They’re in schools. Their health is taken care in all health regards and the elimination of drugs and prostitution and crime are noticeable. She told us about acupuncture, of course. She told us about the Red revolution, which she felt was a necessity to bring people back to their original ideas of communism and not become [unclear] bourgeois. [Chuckles] I think that was about her message.

GT: She sounds like a very incredible woman.

MT: Well, she was kind of an incredible woman.

EO: She’s from Olivia, Minnesota.

MT: Is that where she’s from?

EO: Yes.

MT: I think she’s a woman who’s had the advantage of having plenty of money so her activities were not circumscribed by having to earn a living.

GT: That makes a big difference.

MT: That makes a difference. I would think she would be a very effective person there at the UN, people that regard her. I don’t know.

GT: I would think so. Well, we’re nearing the end of the tape, so I think we will close now. I thank you very much.

MT: Well, thank you. This has been very interesting for me.

[End of the Interview]