This photograph appeared in the Illustrated Daily News. It shows, from left to right, Franklin Ardell, Anne Sullivan Macy, Sieglende (the dog), Helen Keller, and Margaret Vail in front of a car. They are taking part in a strike by actors in 1919. The car resembles an old Ford motor car. All three women wear splendid hats with wide brims. Anne and Helen appear to be wearing furs around their necks. Sieglende, in the center, is sitting on the hood of the car and Margaret Vail holds a banner that reads "THOSE NOT FOR EQUITY ONLY 27' (Guaranteed Harmless spirits)."
Anne's letters from Puerto Rico provide a rare glimpse into her political and social opinions. She was opposed to capitalism and the war, but her own hard, working-class background left her skeptical about the possibilities for real change. Helen held similar political views. She was an avowed socialist and pacifist. However, her own life experience, growing up in a comfortable upper middle-class southern family, left her full of idealism and a keen desire to enter the political fray.
In this excerpt Anne discusses America's involvement in the war:
Yes, it is unthinkable that anything so infamous should happen in the age we have been living in and calling enlightened and civilized. You can understand now why Bill Haywood derided the idea that any country is civilized. I remember his saying that our high refinement was a thin veneer concealing liars, swindlers, and murderers. I thought at the time that he was talking rather wildly, but now the abominations of this War make his statements appear mild. How easily the European nations have chucked their Christianity, their international friendships, their philosophy and humanity, and assumed unashamed the spiritual garb of savages! Truly, "where are the great ones of the earth?" It seems to me, they are all active for evil.
Even as Anne pours scorn on Western nations, she encourages empathy and gentle understanding as a solution to man's problems. Anne could be both a firebrand and surprisingly conciliatory:
You know, dear, you are an impassioned reformer of temperament. We both fight for peace like soldiers on a battle-field. How often have I said that we both make too much of a battle-field of life! Maybe there would be more peace in the world if we cultivated the gentler virtues. It is up to us who think we are in the right to try to be patient and tolerant towards everybody. God Himself cannot make this a kindlier world without us.
Full Transcripts of Letters
Anne's Letter to Helen Keller from Puerto Rico (1917, #5)
Date: 1917
To: Helen Keller
From: Anne S. Macy in Puerto Rico
Helen dear:
What in the world has happened? Another ship with not a letter from you! Can it be that you and mother are coming—that you are already on your way here? Blessed possibility! I have almost convinced myself that you will arrive on the next boat.
We find the tropical dishes delectable. I have learned to like the alligator pear with plain French dressing, it is delicious. The bread-fruit is very good too. It grows to be an immense tree. The one at the entrance to the grove is as large as the mulberry in front of your home in Tuscumbia—the one we were up in when the storm came. The fruit tastes more like ice-cream than bread. The guava is plentiful, also the mangoes. I wish I could send you some melons, but Harry Lake says they can't be shipped. They are as sweet as honey. The tiote is a very nice vegetable, about as large as an egg-plant, tasting something like a turnip. We cook it, take out the inside, mash it with pepper and butter, put the mixture back in the shell and bake it. We have all the oranges, grape-fruit and pineapples we can eat for the picking
.
Helen, if your next letter should begin, "Dearest Teacher—You are wonderful to write me such dear long (?) newsy (?) letters in Braille," I should go out in the grove, find a tail-feather a mocking bird has lost, and put it in my bonnet.
Of course you can't shut out of your mind the horror of this awful war. There is nothing we can do about it but wait. I think we shall jump into it before many months. I don't see what good that will do, but we, as individuals, have done all we can to keep America out of the maelstrom. Don't hesitate to write me all that is in your mind. I know you can't talk to your family as you really feel. There is no better way to ease off the appalling sense of catastrophe than to share one's griefs and fears with another who has one's confidence.
Yes, it is unthinkable that anything so infamous should happen in the age we have been living in and calling enlightened and civilized. You can understand now why Bill Haywood derided the idea that any country is civilized. I remember his saying that our high refinement was a thin veneer concealing liars, swindlers, and murderers. I thought at the time that he was talking rather wildly, but now the abominations of this War make his statements appear mild. How easily the European nations have chucked their Christianity, their international friendships, their philosophy and humanity, and assumed unashamed the spiritual garb of savages! Truly, "where are the great ones of the earth?" It seems to me, they are all active for evil.
You know, I never have trusted President Wilson. He is an egotist, a tyrant at heart who wants to be Bismarck without Bismarck's intelligence. When the bankers get nervous about their loans, they will force him to enter the War. But you know, Helen, that in history we have found the worst things, the most dreadful disasters served as stepping-stones to a new epoch. The blight and ruin and horror of the French Revolution were necessary to awaken abject peoples to a sense of their human rights. Who knows? This War may topple to earth the brutal stupidities and uglinesses of this huge, materialized plutocracy. The waste of capital may be so prodigious that capitalism will not be able to rise again. The sacrifice will be beyond calculation, but perhaps the benefits will also be enormous. Oh dear, what a dismal letter this is! And oh, how out of key it is with my surroundings!
The sun is flinging shafts of gold across the floor. The air is sweet with the scent of orange blossoms, and the ground is aflame with the long, ribbon-like pineapple leaves. From the verandah it looks like a Persian rug, only more brilliant, and not at all inviting to stretch out on. The pineapple is lovely to look at, but it is as comfortable to the touch as—a hedgehog. If I had a grain of the sense of the humming-birds that are circling round the banana-tree like a string of fire-opals, I shouldn't have wasted so much time and so many punches on reflections about war. Aren't we foolish to fill our minds with the devilries of men instead of with the beauties of nature? But we must help each other all we can, and we must try to keep sane, all the more if we believe the world has gone mad.
Do you know, I'm getting terribly lazy? I've done not a stroke of anything for so long that I'm afraid I won't be good for much when I get to work again.
Lovingly,
Teacher.
Anne's Letter to Helen Keller from Puerto Rico (1917, #6)
Dearest:
I am getting impatient to see you! Why don't you persuade mother to bring you to Porto Rico? After all the strain of that fire and that horrid operation on your lip you must need a change. I have a suspicion that you and mother think this island has cast a spell upon me, and that my accounts of it are exaggerated. Truly, you are mistaken. You would both be fascinated with it. No painter that ever lived could catch the lights and colors of the island. After the sun set last night, there was a green fissure across the heavens like a jade river. Even the insects that swarm about the lamp when it is lighted are beautiful. They dart about like tiny humming-birds.
By the way, I have never seen so many humming-birds before. It is as if an invisible magician was flinging handfuls of jewels into the air.
Did I tell you, the island is very mountainous? Some of the mountains are most fantastic. I suppose they are volcanic—nothing else could make such sharp spurs and precipitous sides and terrifying curves. Won't you rummage in the Montgomery book-stores and see what you can find about Porto Rico? Such ignorance is shameful.
Most of the hauling in Porto Rico is done by oxen. They are huge creatures, but not strong in proportion, poor things! They eat nothing but coarse grass. They are on the road all night. At dusk Polly and I go out to see them. A slender youth walks beside them, cruelly prodding them with a knout. He appears to do it to amuse himself; for the animals never change their gait, or seem to mind the stinging whip. I shall never forget their eyes, like pools of fire in the dusk.
Write as often as you can. I think some of our letters go astray. The war, or rumors of war seem to have knocked the mail's galley West. I know very little of what is going on. We seldom see a paper; and when we do it's two weeks old. So I don't know this minute whether we are at war with Germany or not. And, bless you, I don't seem to care greatly.
I think your letter to Professor Drouot is very good, but I did not send it. It is not always possible to know whether it is wise to explain one's position in such matters when the other person's point of view is the opposite of one's own, and when circumstances tend to make both parties extremely emotional. I can understand Professor Drouot's point of view, although I can't sympathize with it.
You know, dear, you are an impassioned reformer of temperament. We both fight for peace like soldiers on a battle-field. How often have I said that we both make too much of a battle-field of life! Maybe there would be more peace in the world if we cultivated the gentler virtues. It is up to us who think we are in the right to try to be patient and tolerant towards everybody. God Himself cannot make this a kindlier world without us.
It is conceivable that Professor Drouot has his part in the plan of the Lord. The Good Samaritan couldn't have helped the wounded man without the ass.
Please tell Rebecca that I was so glad to get her nice letter.
I'm very tired, dearest. Goodby [sic], and may God bless you and make you happy. I know He will in His beautiful Sometime.
Teacher.
