To the Editor:

In light of some negative things I’ve heard about Carrie Chapman Catt (that she was a racist; that she was an ethnocentric xenophobe), I, as an immigrant, am especially interested in her recent “canonization” and why it occurs after apparently so little “devil’s advocacy” (or even objective research) seems to have been done on her.

When I questioned people who should be knowledgeable as to her alleged racism and xenophobia, I’ve met with a door-slamming “Where’s your evidence?” or “Hey c’mon, Joe, don’t you know we’re not supposed to ask about THAT…?”

This, from some of the same people who complained the loudest that ISU didn’t sufficiently research the background of Coach McCarney before hiring him.

Okay, I thought, the whole story would come out later, during the weeklong dedication ceremonies, the workshops and speeches and discussion groups.

But Celia E. Naylor-Ojurongbe’s “Can We Talk? Racism: Now and Then” (Daily, 10/17) makes dear that these issues somehow got lost in the dedication hoopla.

Like many in our culture, I believe in heroes…and heroines. But history shows us that we believers must be extra careful of the people we choose to fill these roles for us.

Mussolini, for instance, was seen by many as a hero for restoring property to the Vatican and for making the trains run on time; that is, making Italy “work.” That these were the same trains he later used to send the Roman Jews north to Auschwitz is a historical fact that cannot be denied or hushed up.

His defenders claimed he didn’t especially want to partake in the Holocaust but that in light of Hitler’s wishes it was politically expedient to do so. Mussolini turns out to be not so heroic once you’ve studied the history of ALL he did and was.

Of course, Catt was no Mussolini; quite to the contrary, in that she was instrumental in getting women the vote, she was a force for much good.

But was she also, as some claim, a racist, The Yellow Rose of WHITE Suffrage? And, was she xenophobic, as well? (If anybody can come up with some other way to interpret her anti-immigration speech, entitled “America for Americans,” I’d sure like to hear it.)

Lacking any clear answer to either of these questions, I’m left wondering why people have been so quick to gather in tents and sing her canonization.

The truth is, I’m afraid, that we haven’t been given the whole history here.

I don’t want to take honors away from Catt; she deserves to be admired for much of what she did and was.

But if she was indeed a racist, if she indeed did not want my kind immigrating to her country, then I’d like those who admire her to face the music about ALL Carrie Chapman Catt did and was. Hushing up won’t do, not in America.

Joe Geha

Professor of English

Iowa State University