The legitimacy of woman suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt’s comments in the book “Woman Suffrage by Federal Constitutional Amendment” was the hot topic of a debate Sunday morning on Newstalk, a program on the campus radio station KURE-FM.

The program featured two members of the September 29th Movement, the campus organization whose aim is to change the name of Catt Hall, and Jane Cox, associate professor of theater and supporter of keeping the building name.

Milton McGriff, information director for the September 29th Movement, and Gabriel Clausen, a member of the Movement, debated with Cox over several facets of the Catt Hall issue, including two statements from the book quoted in an article of the Uhuru magazine written by Meron Wondwosen, a member of the Movement.

“Woman Suffrage by Federal Constitutional Amendment,” copyright 1917, is a book written by four writers (including Catt) and compiled by Catt which lobbied to give women the right to vote.

During the radio debate Cox said many quotes used by Wondwosen were taken out of context. Cox said because the book had four editors it may not mean Catt said the comments herself.

Each chapter in the book was written by a different writer. The quotes are drawn from chapter six, a chapter entitled “Objections to the Federal Amendment,” a chapter with Catt’s byline on it.

The quotes, according to Uhuru magazine, state, “white supremacy will be strengthened, not weakened, by woman suffrage,” and, “woman suffrage would so vastly increase the white vote…it would guarantee white supremacy if it otherwise stood in danger of overthrow.”

McGriff said, “Carrie Chapman Catt deliberately and consciously put together a southern strategy.”

Cox spoke about Catt’s public life from the age of 26 to 61. “She worked on the issue of women’s suffrage not only here but in South America, Latin America, China and other places around the world. It was a burning issue with her. When that work was done she turned her attention to peace work.”

Cox said Wondwosen had quoted from a book by Robert Fowler entitled “Carrie Chapman Catt: Feminist Politician.”

“On the same page of Fowler’s book that is used as a citation in this article, there is the following paragraph. And this paragraph relates to when she was on the losing side when she had fought to bring in all races into the National American Woman Suffrage Association [in 1903].

“You can say she should have resigned, but she did not resign,” Cox said. “She signed the document with the other officers although she voted against it.”

She quoted directly from the same page in Fowler’s book which Wondwosen had cited, “Her remarks could not have been reassuring to confirmed racists. First, she affirmed the Progressive Gospel that the answer in the end is always cooperation.

“In this case for all races to work together for progress. Secondly, Catt went out of her way to challenge the idea that there was a superior race.”

Cox added that Catt had once written to a friend on the suffrage fight in Tennessee in 1920 and said, “Women here are appealing to Negro-phobia and every other cave-man’s prejudice.”

Clausen claimed that Catt still embraced the document passed by the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and was wrong in doing so.

McGriff said in reference to the book “Woman Suffrage by Federal Constitutional Amendment” and the NAWSA document, “If you put your name on it, you’re responsible for it.”

The program aired at 10 a.m. Sunday and was moderated by Nicole Dorrell and produced by Stacy Walshire, both with KURE news.