Pan American Women. Megan Threlkeld

support from the Harding administration, while Carrie Chapman Catt could help identify potential delegates using her contacts from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.⁴ No Latin American woman had the right to vote in 1922, and the alliance had branches only in Argentina and Uruguay, but Catt had developed an extensive network of contacts through a survey the group conducted in 1902 on the political status of women around the world.⁵ By corresponding with U.S. commercial attachés in Latin America, Secretary Hoover also helped identify politically and socially active delegates, rather than simply extending invitations to the wives of Latin American diplomats.⁶ In June 1921, Park established a committee to determine the feasibility of such a conference, decide how many Latin American delegates might realistically be expected to attend, and draw up a tentative agenda outlining the purpose and goals of the conference that could be used to generate publicity.⁷

      Reflecting the newfound power of women voters, Park also organized a delegation to the White House. On June 29 she led a group of conference backers, including Maryland and National LWV officials, a representative of the City of Baltimore, and the governor of Maryland, to a meeting with secretary of state Charles Evans Hughes. After securing his approval, the conference committee, chaired by Dorothy Hubert and LWV executive secretary Minnie Fisher Cunningham, began to make definite arrangements.⁸ They wrote to members of the Latin American diplomatic corps, asking for the names of prominent women in their countries. In October the U.S. State Department issued invitations on behalf of the league to every Latin American country, asking governments to appoint delegates.⁹ The Pan American Union also lent its enthusiastic support. Director Leo Rowe promised Engle and Cunningham he would “keep after” the State Department to issue the invitations promptly and even speak to as many Latin American ambassadors as he could personally, to convey his own belief in the significance of the conference.¹⁰ By October 1921, the conference was beginning to take shape.

      Conference planners recognized the significance of their work as women diplomats. The league argued that by convening a group of women to discuss common concerns, they were furthering international cooperation. In other words, this was not just women getting together to discuss “women’s issues” separate from international politics. As Engle had originally pointed out, a conference promoting inter-American peace and cooperation was an ideal way for the league to generate publicity and establish a voice for women in international relations. A popular argument for women’s suffrage throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was that women’s influence would improve U.S. politics and society by making them more humane and by reducing corruption. After winning the vote in 1920, U.S. women used similar rhetoric to establish their authority over international issues ranging from disarmament to national defense.¹¹ The Baltimore conference attempted to do the same for diplomacy. Advance press coverage reflected the league’s success in this regard. The San Antonio Express asserted, “Diplomatic service of this sort heretofore has been entrusted to men; but in view of the new civic position woman has assumed in the United States … the time has come when she should enter this larger sphere of action.”¹² The Baltimore Sun agreed: “Nothing could more strikingly demonstrate how far the world has moved in the last few years from old precedents and customs than this great international gathering of women. For weal or woe, for good or ill, the heretofore politically submerged sex is asserting an equal right with man to guide and govern the earth.”¹³

      A few months before the conference opened, League of Women Voters vice president Marie Stewart Edwards articulated the organization’s own understanding of this gendered diplomacy: “By emphasizing the preservation of the race as a necessary function of government we can perhaps supplement the masculine idea which overemphasizes the preservation of property to the exclusion of other things, and by combining the two we may eventually do away with this queer theory that to protect property and to protect the human race we must create engines for the destruction of both.”¹⁴ Edwards saw in the Baltimore conference an opportunity to counteract the prevailing trends in inter-American relations, to put an end to the cycles of violence and aggression like that between the United States and Mexico. Her characterization of masculine politics as focused on property rights resonated particularly with the Mexican situation, given the centrality of land and subsoil resources to the U.S.-Mexican dispute. “Preservation of the race,” meanwhile, was a common way in which women peace activists framed their mission, linking their work to their familial and social roles as mothers.¹⁵ This juxtaposition was at the heart of the role the LWV envisioned for itself in U.S. foreign policy. The ballot was not only a chance to improve U.S. politics and society; it was a tool for improving the world, a way for women to exert authority over international relations. “The mothering heart and conscience of women have always been at the service of those close at hand,” the league declared. “For the first time in history these qualities are being consciously directed to meet world-wide needs.”¹⁶ In the weeks leading up to the conference that vision seemed poised to become reality.

      U.S. league members were not the only ones who saw promise in these new forms of gendered diplomacy. Their government saw an opportunity in the Pan American Conference to conduct diplomacy through women. With regard to Mexico in particular, the appeal of “international friendliness” among governments took on special significance, of which the organizers were well aware. The two countries had had no official relationship since December 1920, and by early 1922 both sides were looking for potential ways to restore ties. Almost from the beginning of the league’s contact with the State Department and the Pan American Union, the question of Mexico was a key topic of discussion. Hughes and Rowe recognized the conference as an opportunity to take steps toward reconciliation. Marie Stewart Edwards reported that the secretary of state was “tremendously pleased with this opportunity for establishing lines with Mexico which they had not been able to do as yet in a more direct manner.”¹⁷ When financial difficulties left the organizing committee wondering if they should postpone the entire conference, Maud Wood Park observed that Sumner Welles, assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, and Rowe were anxious to have the conference proceed as scheduled because “it might mean real help in the Mexican situation.”¹⁸ The Department of Commerce was also interested in the trade benefits that might result from a restored diplomatic relationship. Philip Smith, chief of the Latin American Division of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, instructed the U.S. trade commissioner in Mexico to publicize the conference in Mexican newspapers and gather information on women’s activism in Mexico City.¹⁹

      Mexican officials also welcomed the opportunity presented by the Pan American Conference. President Álvaro Obregón knew that for his government to be considered legitimate in the eyes of the world, and to begin to solve the problem of Mexico’s massive foreign debt, he would have to reconcile with the United States. On March 22, 1922, less than a month before the conference opened, Obregón told the New York Times, “We wish to assume our place in the world of nations. By our efforts to pay our just obligations the Mexican Government is demonstrating that it realizes its obligations and is determined to fulfill them. Naturally recognition is needed…. Our desire and our word to resume the payment of interest on our debts should help toward bringing both recognition and closer relations.”²⁰ At the same time, Obregón had to save face in front of widespread opposition to the United States in his own country.²¹ The PACW provided him an opportunity to reach out to the U.S. government while deflecting any potential resistance. Sending a delegation of women to meet with other women was a move much more likely to be accepted and forgotten in Mexico than sending a group of oil producers, for example, to meet with U.S. investors. Obregón’s support of the conference was so strong that he authorized federal funds from the Secretariat of Public Education to finance the delegation.²²

      Identifying the Mexican women who would represent their country was a long process for Dorothy Hubert and the organizing committee. They relied primarily on the personal contacts of U.S. officials and others in Mexico City. After considering input from the U.S. trade commissioner, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Mexico City, and the Pan American Round Table (PART), a women’s group based in San Antonio, Hubert focused her attention on the Consejo Feminista Mexicano. The trade commissioner called it the “leading national women’s organization of Mexico,” while the Woman Citizen—the organ of the League of