New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-11
MRS. BOISSEVAIN'S ITALY
A Feministic Conception with
Little or No Foundation in Reality.

To the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: It was with amazement that | read
the article sent to you from Italy by Mrs.
Inez Milholand Bossevain, for it conveyed
an impression absolutely contrary to that
which | had gained from a careful reading
of the daily papers and weekly and rOnthly
magazines of all the principal cities in Italy,
Of all shades of political, social and religious
opinion, from the scurrlous "AsinO" to the
Clerical "Osservatore Romano" from the So
cialist "Avanti!" TO the Nationalist "Giornale
d1talia," from the peace party's organ, LA
Vita Internazionale," to the erudite "Nuova
Antologia" and from the "Piedmontesc
Stampa" to the Sicilan "Ora di Palermo" 1t
also contradicted everything that has been
written to me in letters from priests bank
ers, artists, journalists, merchants, lawyers
and doctors in Italy, and all that has been
said to me by such Italians as have arrived
in New York in the last few weeks
From all of these sources | had gathered
the belief that never was a war more pOpu-
lar, more insstently demanded by all classes
of peoples than that which Italy declared
against Austria
And | have been trying to explain to my
sen NJ" ~ iHltIllEthb NOlhdl as IA''
Boissevain could gain so opposite an opinion.
think have arrived at the correct solution
of the mystery. Mrs. Boissevain looks at life
through spectacles deeply colored with fem
insm. Feminism has become an obsesson
with her. She dreams of a Utopia ruled by
women. OF course, in such d world there
would be no war, for women never quarrel!
She has become a clever lawyer, forever seek
ing evidence in a clients favor and cOnsci-
entousy closing ner eyes to all other evl
dence Thus in Italy she is not seeking IN
an unpre JUDGED way to ascertain actual con-
ditions, but is on the alert for anything that
will furnish arguments for the feminist
cause. Her ears are microphonically attuned
to catch the plants of bereft mothers and
mourning sweethearts, but they are closed
to the proud exultation of a people united
in a patriotic cause.
In every land at war any one can find
women whose hearts bleed over husbands
sons and lovers summoned from home to
fight their country's battles. You can find
them by the hundred in Montreal and Winni-
peg and st. Johns to-day. But these same
women would De ashamed of the husband
the son or the lover who refused to answer
his country's call. On the complaints tina.
sorrowng women pour into the sympathetic
ears of other women it is unfair to base a
generalization that these women are against
the war.
There are, however, few assertions in
Mrs Boissevan's article that appear TO be
-disngenuous, shall | say? Her quotation
Of what a certain "Marchese di San G." said
to her, for instance. There doubtless are in
Italy other marquses who bear those initials
but the late Marchese di San Giuliano is the
one that instantly recurs 20 the mind Of the
reader. As he is dead, he cannot deny { at
he used the language she quotes, but the
opinions therein expressed are so diametric 81
" opposite to his we'll known views that it
is difficult TO believe that this is not a case
Of what the Italians call mistifcazone It
looks too much as if Mrs Bossevain had de-
scended to the lawyers trick of taking the
words of some obscure marquis with those
initials and quoting them in such a way as to
convey the impression to American readers
that the speaker was really the late Minister
Of Foreign Affairs.
There are, of course, in Italy many women
and many men who regret that war was the
only way in which their country could com.
plete the unihcation begun half century
ago and at the same time free itself from the
moral intellectual and commercial incubus of
leulohlc lhuuthCe uhueI "Hicn II hdd Btodheu
so long. But those who cry out against the
war, even in private, are such a slender mi
nority trat they really do not count. The
best proofs Of this are, on the one hand, the
enthusiastic uuanimity of the Clercals in
joining the ranks and in giving their hearty
support to the government, and. on the other
hand. the split in the Official Socialist party
brought on by the stubborn ant-war attitude
Of its leaders, against which all its repre-
sentatives in the Chamber of Deputies re-
belled and in protest against which the editoy
Of lis official neMsnaner resicned