Document 15: Editorial, "A Sound Protest," The Baltimore Sun, 28 February 1928, p. 12. The Records of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, U.S. Section, Swarthmore College Peace Collection (Scholarly Resources Microfilm, reel 42, #829).Introduction
This editorial in a major metropolitan newspaper supported Eleanor St. Omer Roy's letter to the DAR and her protest against the DAR's investigation of WILPF.
A SOUND PROTEST The protest made by Mrs. J. A. St. Omer Roy against a "secret investigation" of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which it has been proposed that an officer of the Daughters of the American Revolution shall make, is a wholesome one.
Mrs. Roy, as a member of both organizations, quite properly objects to the Daughters permitting one of its officials to undertake an inquiry into the league, with the rather accepted purpose of making an exposé of activities with which the Daughters do not sympathize. She points out that while differences of attitude are to be taken for granted, they also are to be respected, and that for a group to countenance such "a form of espionage" is a reflection on that group.
The Daughters are a patriotic association. Of that there has been no lack of proof. Nor is there any reason for objection on that score. Patriotism can be a fine and useful emotion. But, above all, it calls for calm tempers and unbiased and judicial minds. Too often it can be sent fluttering into a fever and then into delirium. The complete right of the Daughters to express their own views and urge their own opinions, on patriotic grounds, no one will dispute, whatever may be thought of the soundness of the views or the worth of the opinions.
But when a member of the House Naval Affairs Committee requests a member of the organization to make a secret study of the affairs of another group which holds opposed views, and when the Daughters indicate that they will tolerate such an activity, it is time for a protest. That it should come from a member of the Daughters makes it all the more welcome and ought to make it all the more effective.
