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VILLARD, SEPT 18, 1907
Sept 18 1907
Dear Mrs. Sewall:I do not know that I can explain on paper the ecentricities of Mr. Stead. He poses as an "apostle of peace", but he talks like a warrior. What he said of my proposed resolution if such they might be called, was that they were not at all approriate - highly
[top margin:] I still hope that you will let the other matter rest.
Most Sincerely Yours Fanny G. Villard
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unpractical lacking in diplomacy - or words to that effect. Still, that was not so very unexpected for I can count almost on my fingers, real non-resistants. But what he said at the close of Baroness von Suttner's address on the "Right of Conquest" was this: "Baroness, I don't agree with what they tell me you have said. (He was not present, until she had finished.) Now, if marauders
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should come here from Norway, as they have in former times, and take away the women & children & cruelly abuse them, what should we do? Why, go up there & string them all up!" He went on to say: " there is my friend, Mrs. Villar, she doesn't agree with me. Come up here Mrs. Villard " Then I did, as Mme Suttner also called to me - I said: " I am not willing to imitate the marauders of whom Mr. Stead speaks, & I would rather perish than try
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to overturn the principle of right, the sheet anchor of the [trimer?]" Why Mr. Stead wants to talk in that way, I know not. It is undignified & it sounds, to say the least, like one who finds the idea of hence highly amusing. Mrs. Gordon would not allow me to preside at one of the Conferences, as I was invited to, because Lady Aberdeen is opposed to Mr. Stead. She did not wish the ladies to have anything to do with him. Yet Mrs. Gordon asked him to be present at a Com-
[right margin:] with a meeting, where he really might not to have been, at all