ofessor.
ISRAEL HOLMGREN, Professor.
G. KOBB, Professor.
OTTOR ROSENBERG, Professor.
GUNNAR ANDERSSON, Professor.
GERHARD DE GEER, Professor.
OLOF KINBERG, M.D.
ALFRED PETREN, M.D.
JOHN TJERNELD, barrister.
TOR HEDBERG, author.
HJALMAR SODERBERG, author.
G. STJERNSTEDT, barrister.
IVAN HEDQUIST, actor at Royal Theatre.
IVAN BRATT, M.D.
T. FOGELQUIST, Rector.
MRS. EMILIA BROOME.
MISS SIGNE HEBBA.
CHRISTIAN ERIKSEN, sculptor.
LUDVIG MOBERG, M.D.
KARL NORDSTROM, artist.
NILS KREUGER, artist.
ARNOLD JOSEFSON, M.S.
CARL ELDH, sculptor.
MISS ALMA SUNDQUIST, M.D.

A Threatened Despotism of Spirit

By Gertrude Atherton

The subjoined article, appearing as a letter to THE NEW YORK
TIMES, was provoked by the appearance on hundreds of
billboards in New York of flaring appeals to American women
that they use their influence to prevent the further
exportation of arms and munitions to the enemies of Germany.

New York, July 5, 1915.

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

As I do not belong to any of the suffrage or other woman's
organizations in New York, may I say in your columns that for the
honor of my sex, if for no other reason, I hope the Mayor will consent
to the obliteration of those disingenuous posters addressing "American
citizens," and so cunningly worded and signed as to produce an
impression of representing the women of the United States? If the
people that are spending their thousands so freely had come out
frankly and stated that they were pro-German, and that the success of
their propaganda would mean defeat for the Allies, short of
ammunition, and victory for a nation that has nine-tenths of all the
ammunition in Europe, then at least we should have the sheep separated
from the goats; we could put it down to masculine influence over the
weaker female vessel, which at least was trying to be honest, and let
it go at that.

But I hold that such a poster, flaring from every billboard, is a
defamation of patriotic American women, and a distinct blow to the
cause of suffrage. It will not only antagonize men, who alone have the
power to grant the franchise in those States still obdurate, but
disgust thousands of women not yet won over to the cause, and far too
intelligent not to know the precise meaning behind those lying and
hypocritical words. For if that poster were really representative of
American women it would mean that American women were traitors to
their