Jane Addams to the New York Times, August 23, 1912

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JANE ADDAMS REPLIES
To Mrs. Harper's Assertion That Mr. Roosevelt Tricked Suffragists.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

May I reply to the letter of Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, appearing in THE TIMES of Aug. 22, that Col. Roosevelt's address, published by order of the United States Senate, was written before he came to Chicago, and that, after consultation with Judge Lindsey and other suffragists, he omitted the statement to which Mrs. Harper so naturally objects, and gave instructions to the press agents and newspapers that the sentence should be eliminated.

His spoken address was most unequivocally in favor of woman suffrage. The Senate document, therefore, was not printed from a "revised and certified edition," but from a first draft. The platform to which Col. Roosevelt and the new party were pledged, and upon which the campaign must be made, Mrs. Harper admits was most satisfactory in its advocacy of equal suffrage.

The women who attended the convention have no doubt of the sincerity of the Progressive Party or of Col. Roosevelt in this matter, and they cannot but regret that Mrs. Harper has departed from the non-partisan attitude which she so ably advocated in your columns.

JANE ADDAMS.

Hull's Cove, Me., Aug. 23, 1912.