In response to the negative publicity surrounding one of Iowa State’s most treasured alumna, Carrie Chapman Catt, it is important that those students who support the naming of Carrie Chapman Catt Hall have their voices heard.

We must not allow this issue to become another politically correct taboo. Supporting the naming of Old Botany to Catt Hall does not mean one supports or condones racism.

We should also remember that there is always another side to every story, and as far as this issue is concerned, “the other side” is the great crusades to which Carrie Chapman Catt dedicated her life: crusades for women’s suffrage, international peace and the expansion of women’s rights throughout the world.

As students, and particularly as women active in the political arena, we find it unfortunate and disheartening that one of our country’s greatest role models for young women is consistently criticized on our campus.

We feel those who would criticize such a heroine are not only unknowledgeable about her great achievements, but are engaged in a desperate search to place blame for the great injustices of the world.

We simply ask those students angry at the racism that continues to plague us to turn their negativity into something positive and apply that into something good for the community.

It is simply a waste of the valuable time we each have on this earth to steer such talent toward ridiculing a woman who dedicated her life to equal rights for women throughout the globe.

Instead, wouldn’t our time be better served working toward an understanding of the relations between race/ethnicity, gender, class and power?

Carrie Chapman Catt has been called, among many things, a classist and a racist.

The life of Mrs. Catt certainly does not reflect either of these notions. When Catt was 16, she decided to enter Iowa State College with no assistance from her parents.

Like three-fourths of ISU students today, Mrs. Catt worked her way through college by washing dishes for 9 cents an hour and also by working as a maid in a dormitory.

She was able to graduate in three years as valedictorian of her class. Mrs. Catt, in every sense of the word, earned her degree.

Mrs. Catt believed in hard work and understood the hardships of middle America. A classist? I think not. Mrs. Catt also left most of her estate to ISU, which, as a result, benefits approximately 50 students per year — regardless of color or class — from the scholarships she endowed. Mrs. Catt also funded the building of Alumni Hall, which we continue to enjoy to this day. A woman who, against many obstacles, worked her way through school and had given back that which she took is a classist?

Carrie Chapman Catt has also been criticized consistently on our campus as a racist. It is time to set the record straight and nullify the fraudulent claims of those who talk and write against her. Carrie Chapman Catt was far from being a racist. Unfortunately, in today’s world, these words, racist and classist, fall too easily from the mouths from which they come.

Racism has lost its true meaning as the epitome of all hate and ugliness by the simple ease in which we speak of it.

To those who criticize her, Carrie Chapman Catt has become the symbol of the struggle for the minority voice to be heard; she represents all who are muffled and silenced by the empowered and advantaged.

However, Carrie Chapman Catt fought incredible odds throughout her life and was discriminated against every step of the way. It is utterly absurd for us to sit here in all the freedoms we never had to earn and call a woman like Carrie Chapman Catt a racist.

After Mrs. Catt became president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she later became president of the International Woman’s Suffrage Association.

In 1911, Catt went on a world tour, visiting Norway, Sweden, Egypt, Ceylon, India, Malaya, Hong Kong, Philippines, China and South Africa, where she met with Ghandi. Catt pleaded with the leaders of these nations to allow women to take part in the political processes which governed them — WOMEN OF ALL COLORS and WOMEN OF ALL CLASSES.

In the words of Catt, “Just as the world war is no white man’s war, but every man’s war, so is the struggle for woman suffrage no white woman’s struggle, but every woman’s struggle,” (1917: The Crisis, Journal of NAACP).

Racism existed in the world at that time, as much, if not more than it continues to exist today. This was especially evident in the southern portion of the United States.

The year was 1919 when the suffrage amendment to which Catt dedicated her life was approved in the U.S. House and Senate.

Her work was not over, however, as Catt need to ensure ratification by at least 36 states in order for women’s suffrage to become an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Catt was successful in the northern states, but in order for its passage, she was forced to turn to the South.

In 1917, Mrs. Catt edited a book entitled “Woman Suffrage by Federal Constitutional Amendment,” to which those currently criticizing Catt base much of their claims of racism. In chapter six of this book, Catt discusses her opposition in the South and checks the basis, in fact.

Mrs. Catt writes that “southern members of Congress very generally urge that they oppose the federal amendment because it will confer the vote upon the Negro women of their respective states, and that will interfere with white supremacy in the South.”

In no way was Mrs. Catt associating this with her own feelings; she was simply stating that Southerners did not want the passage of this amendment for racist reasons.

In order to convince the South to ratify the amendment, she had to use strategy and in the end, she was successful.

She simply stated that because there were more women of Anglo decent than African, why would ratifying this amendment be of any supposed threat? She had to say this in their words, in a way that although unacceptable today, was acceptable in 1917. Mrs. Catt did say, “White supremacy will be strengthened, not weakened by woman’s suffrage.”

HOWEVER, Catt then went on to say the following in this chapter:

“The South professes to fear the increased Negro vote; the North, the increased Foreign vote; the rich, the increased labor vote; the conservative, the increased illiterate vote. The Republicans … fear the increased Democratic vote; the Democrats fear the woman voters’ support was only temporary … Certain … elements fear the increased Catholic vote and … others the increased Jewish vote.

“The Orthodox Protestant and Catholic fear the increased free-thinking vote and the free thinkers are … afraid of the increased church vote.

Labor fears the increased influence of the capitalistic class, and capitalists, especially of the manufacturing group, are extremely disturbed at the prospect of votes being extended to their women employees …”

In conclusion of this chapter, Catt stated, “Ridiculous as this list of objections may appear, each is supported earnestly by a considerable group, and collectively they furnish the basis of opposition to woman suffrage in and out of Congress.

“The answer to one is the answer to all. Government by ‘the people’ is expedient or it is not. If it is expedient, then obviously all (Catt’s emphasis) the people must be included.”

Mrs. Catt was anything but a racist, as evident in her final conclusion to this chapter.

The controversial quote taken from this chapter has been taken out of the actual context of the chapter in which it was written.

Catt’s life also is being interpreted and criticized outside the context of the times in which she lived — a time when most women stayed in the privacy of their homes, and out of the public life.

Carrie Chapman Catt was an inspirational public orator and political strategist who was able to manipulate the system to her advantage, and she won! She won this for all women, and her legacy will live on as long as we continue to possess this great privilege.

As women committed to ensuring that the great accomplishments of other women are recognized, we thank the faculty, staff and students of ISU for their support of the naming of Catt Hall.

We would like to particularly thank President Jischke for his relentless effort to ensure that this recognition remains.

We are proud to carry on the legacy left by this heroine, and are committed to her legacy forever.

In the words of Carrie Chapman Catt, “everybody counts in applying democracy. And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable voice in government,” (1917: The Crisis).

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Authors of this article are Erica M. Hanson, a senior in political science; Sharon Haselhoff, a senior in political science; Ginger Hale, a senior in communications studies and political science; and Molly Foster, a sophomore in microbiology.