Dear Miss Charlotte,
Help! I love my TCC sisters, but I am fearful that the discussion of politics at is causing discord among my friends. Truthfully, I could go my whole life without knowing that Hortense is voting for a candidate that is much reviled by Lavinia. And vice versa. Quite frankly, I am unhappy with both! How easily they ruin a perfectly lovely lunch with friends by turning it into an unpleasant contretemps! One feels a sharp rap on the knuckles with one’s spoon could go a long way. Where is our “sweet reasonableness” that Charlotte of spoke so eloquently?
Signed,
Patience (for now)
Dear Patience,
I completely understand your distress, especially in light of the demonization and name calling engaged in political debates and discussions. However, I fear a rap on the knuckles would only inspire greater enthusiasm for disruption!
But please let me remind our gentle readers that the agreement of our members to avoid politics, religion and charity is one of the founding tenets of the Twentieth Century Club. We were to dedicate ourselves to “education, literature and art,” to which Charlotte saw as “liberalizer of the human mind, (and) the interpreters of the human spirit.”
The following words were spoken at a remembrance memorial service for Charlotte Mulligan held November 9, 1914 in which members of the TCC were reminded that as members past, present and future that we take
..…the pledge of “strict neutrality in matters pertaining to religion, politics and charity” which (Charlotte) wrote into the constitution were not a restriction but a measure of conservation…”
Furthermore
The TCC was to hold itself free from the snare of (these matters) the better to promote that atmosphere in which individual gifts will flower. Its duty was not to share in current controversies but to feed those springs of perception and that “sweet reasonableness of soul upon which the right solution of controversial questions depends. The education, literature and art,” to which she dedicated it she saw in their large meanings – liberalizer of the human mind, the interpreters of the human spirit.”
Indeed! Let us go forward in curiosity, good human spirit and dedication to improving ourselves!
Miss Charlotte