The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 18

2C Dfs Moines Sunday 19 Opinion ake candidates accountable CAMPAIGN Continued from Page 1C I ly icpuii ciecuun issues lium uie i tSWW uu'ii nil auun l-' .1 1 VI LllC VUlCl UV Oil I I fa ffP that we can to help voters under- i I I 0 ToRi, Jtu ri ipotiamm Ainc Candidates should use the following tactics: i 'm st1 I the candidates and their parties. 1 We're also gearing up to monitor Pleasefillout.h,sqUestnna,reandretumrtbyAug.8Io: i me campaigns, uieu laiuiess auu I their accuracy. In that regard we re I Dennis R. Ryerson, Editor i I A ifj.kt' Uiokinff forvniiraHviop. I The Drs Moinfis Renister ft Is.

MMimV- 1 First: We want your thoughts as to 1 P.O. Box 957 1 JV19 What bothers you about the political i I 1 -H advertising you ve seen? What do I Or send it by fax to 51 5-286-2511 vmt think Inuanc chnnlH tnlpratu? I I JV, W.V..- VV.V.. I tin i ii- ti ri 1 wnai snouiu iney reject: riease nu I Li 0 out the torm printed with this col- I dislike political advertising mat: nuvv umn, and mail it to me. Write a letter i I vnn rt-iro anniTinriQ mmmanrc I Second: We'll compile your CPAV- Vf thoughts and print a summary. I Third: We'll monitor the cam- I I Lp "YCrfZV- Crfh paigns as closely as we can.

Again, I ACll we will be relying on you to report to 0 LJJ V. us any advertising or other activity tSrl CJ JT that you think violates the sensibili- 5W' fcr IV ties of Iowans. We'll investigate and i Name: l- Mf provide a weekly assessment of how I 45al Jf well candidates are doing, beginning Candidates should not, in their advertising: XL 1W. the week after Labor Day. MS'IP Address: SS mi tv i if.nf IT' im? niHnpp shnrtlv hpfnrp FWtinn Dav I I Co Our goal? To make candidates ac- I IK tl s.

I w. fit: countable for their behavior, to help I focus them on the issues, to build re- i I spect for the political process and to I Phone number generate more public interest in the candidates and their messages. I DENNIS R. RYERSON is editor of The I 1 Register. iiii 1 A free-love advocate ru hurt women's movement: NOUN Savery answered charges against the suffrage cause: that the Bible forbids women's voting; that women could use the franchise to bring on war, but would not carry a gun to help win such a conflict; and that women could not carry on their duties mothers and hold public office at the same time.

1 ter fe'K- Jr 'Mt FROM THE REGISTER LIKRARY PHOTOSFKC Jesse Owens easily won a 200-meter heat in Berlin in 1936 Olympic Games the Polk County Courthouse on Oct. 19, 1871. Despite Savery's preliminary efforts to assure the public that Iowa suffragists were not proponents of free love, the subject dominated the meeting. Discussion of a proposed resolution bitterly critical of Woodhull and her free-love associates took up much of the afternoon and came to a head in the evening when a resolution was introduced denouncing "the doctrine of free love, believing that marriage is sacred and binding and that the Bible is the Palladium of our liberties." Savery opposed this so-called Palladium resolution on the grounds that denouncing a proposition that In 1936, true message of the Olympics was lost By SUZANNE FIELDS How strange to sit in Berlin watching the Atlanta Olympiad. a.

i ii i Nuremberg Laws that had been enacted in 1935, depriving Jews of citizenship, of holding public office and of marrying an Aryan. If anyone cared to visit the Jewish cemeteries, the desecration was there for all to see. But most athletes and visitors saw only what they wanted to see. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington has put together an exhibition of the 1936 Olympics in Germany, which will be on view for a ii iiupussiuie noi 10 recall me horror of the Berlin Olympics of August 1936.

The Olympic Stadium in Berlin, still standing, does what fascist architecture was intended to do intimidate and celebrate, chill and thrill, frighten and excite. What a challenge to the human BALLOT Continued from Page 1C tive in the women's movement in the East, called a woman-suffrage convention that met in his community in June 1870. Savery and Bloomer attended and an Iowa Woman Suffrage Society was organized. Henry O'Connor, the liberal attorney general of Iowa, was elected president, Bloomer was one of seven vice presidents, and Savery was made corresponding secretary. When Savery returned home she was instrumental in calling a meeting of Des Moines women that led to the organization of the Polk County Woman Suffrage Association.

Savery soon emerged as the leading spokesperson for the Iowa woman-suffrage forces, lecturing in communities as distant as Council Bluffs and Muscatine, as well as in Des Moines. She also became well known through her letters really essays to the Des Moines newspaper answering charges against the suffrage cause. For example: that the Bible forbids women's voting; that women could use the franchise to bring on war, but would not carry a gun to help win such a conflict; and that women could not carry on their duties as mothers and hold public office at the same time. All seemed to be going well for the Iowa suffragists until January 1871 when Victoria Woodhull, a notorious free-love advocate, rose to prominence in the woman-suffrage movement by her appearance before the House Judiciary Committee of Congress, where she presented a petition for a constitutional amendment permitting women to vote. This was an opportunity long sought by suffrage advocates and Woodhull was welcomed into the suffrage ranks by the National Woman Suffrage Association.

Wood-hull's association with this group gave the opponents of woman suffrage a convenient club with which to beat all suffragists whom they accused of being free-love advocates. Newspapers over the country played the free-love accusation with gusto as Iowa suffragists looked on with bewilderment and dismay. Their movement soon buckled under this relentless attack. Many timid women and most of the small band of male supporters of woman suffrage, including Henry O'Connor, president of the Iowa association, jumped from this sinking ship. Left without leadership, Savery assumed responsibility for trying to save the association by arranging for a convention to meet in Des Moines in October 1 87 1 In her call for the convention, Savery stated that the woman-suffrage party of Iowa was "neither responsible for the individual opinions of those who in other states were exciting the public mind upon the so-called doctrine of free love; nor was the party connected in any way with other organizations or individuals seeking to incorporate into its platform the principle of what was interpreted by the public as free love." The unquestioned respectability of Iowa women who were connected with the suffrage cause, she said, "should be sufficient guarantee of their integrity of purpose." The suffrage convention met at I Italy, and it probably came toi'annd when the Savery home, where the hives were located, was destroyed by fire in March 1874.

While spending the winter of 1873 in Washington, D.C., Savery -sought the appointment of U.S. consul to. Le-Havre, France, a bold move to. snow that women considered themsterves entitled to recognition by out; government. When Savery's bid for a foreign post was rejected, she turned to the College of Law at the University" of Iowa, where she graduated 'with high honors in 1875.

(Savery and her classmate, Mary Emily Haddock of Iowa City, were the first two women to graduate from this institution.) Savery did not intend to practice law; she wanted to gain an understanding of the history of the'ttghts of married women. vv Personal troubles dogged Savery during her later years. In theTire that destroyed her home in lost her library, considered the finest in the state, her Parisian wardrobe and many works of art acquired in Europe. Looters absconded with whatever the fire did not destroy. There was no insurance house, and as James Savery did hot have the funds to rebuild, he moved to the Savery Hotel.

James Savery went broke during the depression of the late 'and he lost his hotel (soon rename-the Kirkwood) and other properties. In 1878, he and Annie went to ijpn-tana, where within a fewf years James was able to recoup his fortune. The Saverys returned Urbes Moines, but about 1883 lished their residence in New, York City. However, they always, kept close ties with Des Annie Savery, who suffered from jieart trouble, died in New York in.April 1891. Her body was brought back ft, Des Moines for burial in Woodland feme- tery.

Funeral services were held in the parlors of a new Savery Hotel at Fourth and Locust Streets (now the site of the third hotel bearing, the Savery name). tj After a short religious servicf old friends paid tribute to Saveryi The main speaker was Judge Hubbard of Cedar Rapids, who spoke abouther life and accomplishments. at length about her interest in Celi- gious thought, her literary interests, her study of history and her study of the law. But her work in behalf of i women got only a brief mention. u.

"She believed in and gave.spme study to woman's suffrage andmade some speeches in favor of it but fi- nally abandoned it as perhaps at present impractical and inokpedi- ent," Hubbard said in a' masterpiece of understatement. Now, more than 100 years later, it is time to honor Annie Savery wher I pioneer work for women for she was so bitterly denounced by her own generation. spirit it must have been when a small but deadly tyrant like Adolf Hitler so demonized the Olympic spectacle with cunning, hatred and guile that nations paid homage to him so their athletes could show off their skills. It's easy now for Americans to sneer at the Xlth Olympiad of 60 years ago, which glorified Hitler and Nazism. Few of us want to look back at our own nation's sad complicity in it.

We should remember some other young athletes who were abandoned by their countrymen, victims of American insensitivity, or worse. Everyone knows the story of how Hitler was outraged by the flying Jesse Owens, a black man, who won four gold medals, rendering the Fuhrer's goofy notions of Aryan superiority ludicrous. But how many of us have ever heard the names of Sam Stoller and Marty Glickman? They were members of the four-man American 4 100-meter relay team; at the last minute both were removed with the lame excuse that a faster team was needed to compete with Germany's late substitutions. It was merely a "coincidence" that only Jews were dropped from the team. Of course.

Just as it was merely coincidence that no German Jew participated except for Helen Mayer, a fencer, who was included for propaganda reasons. She had two Aryan grandparents. And when she won a silver medal, even she gave the Nazi salute when the medal was put around her neck. With hindsight, it's difficult to understand why we sent our athletes to Germany at all. At the time, large numbers of Americans of all faiths thought we should boycott the games.

But the U. S. Amateur Athletic voted by a narrow margin to participate. Brit-' ain and France quickly followed, and few athletes re- fused to participate for reasons of conscience. The 1 936 Olympics were a triumph of Nazi will and propaganda despite Owens partly because Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief, cleverly saw that most public anti-Semitic slogans were hidden.

He even called for the removal of street-side display cases for "IkrSturmer" (Stormtrooper), a popular racist Nazi newspaper. The tightly controlled German press minded its manners, and pamphlets written in English and other languages emphasized Nazi goals for "peace." But such cosmetic censorship could not hide the nobody suspected its members of believing in only diminished the dignity of the association. The resolution was tabled. Savery, the main speaker of the evening, explained that she was not prepared to criticize or defend Woodhull's private life; nor did she care to be apprised of it by those who set a stricter standard of behavior for women than they did for men. She reminded her audience that Woodhull "had given to the cause of woman suffrage the devotion of a master mind" and that she had contributed many thousands of dollars to the suffrage cause.

The upshot was a split in the Iowa woman-suffrage movement. The members of the Polk County Woman Suffrage Association issued a statement: "It is as much a duty to deny that of which we are falsely accused as a privilege to demand a right of which we are unjustly deprived." They affirmed their belief in the sanctity of marriage and their opposition to divorce "except for good scriptural reasons." This group was determined that Savery was no longer to be a spokesperson for the suffrage cause. Although Savery continued her efforts in behalf of women on several different fronts she was henceforth a pariah in Iowa suffrage ranks. In 1871, she organized the Iowa-Italian Bee Co. in partnership with Ellen Tupper, an apiarist, as an example of the kind of business women could successfully operate.

Savery supplied the capital, 10,000, and Tupper the know-how. In the first year the company made money, but it soon ran into trouble because of loss of bees in shipment from Jesse Owens in early 1960s holding the four gold medals he earned in 1936. year. A much more extensive show (with an excellent catalog) is on exhibit now in Berlin, sponsored by the German Topography of Terror, a foundation that documents Nazi atrocities. When the Olympic torch was extinguished at Berlin's Olympic Stadium in 1936, the flame was moved to a Krupp munitions factory in Essen, where lit a blast furnace to boost production for the approaching war.

A month after the games ended, Hitler drafted his four-year plan to subdue the world. He underestimated only the time needed to get it started. He marched into Poland in September 1939, and the 1936 Olympics became a footnote to enormous tragedy. How you played the game became considerably less important than whether you won or lost. SUZANNE FIELDS writes for the Washington Times.

Her column is distributed by the Los Angeles Times.