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SPEAKER: The unique thing about the Women's International League is that it is ongoing. We have had so many peace organizations that sprang up around a particular issue, and then that issue gets resolved and it disappears. I think the Women's International League is one of the few that have survived over the years and that as soon as one problem is resolved begins to think about the next and where it can take action. But there are very few other organizations that will stick to the basic issues as WIL has.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: And what you seem to be saying is the work of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom doesn't necessarily mean that there has to be some actual war somewhere in the world and that you are seeking peace in that conflict. You've got ongoing work all the time.

SPEAKER: That's right. If it's based on social justice, then we have a job all over the world. We have organizations in 22 countries. And we have now contacts with the Women's Democratic Union, which is a huge organization of women in the various countries that have had a revolutions. And with that group, there are 87 countries now that have that group organized. And we have contacts with those.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: What would you say the priorities for the Twin Cities Chapter are this year?

SPEAKER: We have a draft repeal campaign going on. In the next four months, they are the best four months since 1948 when peacetime conscription for the first time in the history of the country was legislated. We are anxious to put people in touch with the facts about the importance of actually repealing the draft. The draft has not been repealed. We have 0 draft calls because the president chose to say he would not actually induct men into the army.

The draft repeal campaign is one project. The other is court watching. We need women, and the judges have asked us to send middle class women who have time from 9:00 to 11:00 in the morning one day per week to come to the courtrooms to create an atmosphere in which there will be true justice done for people who are too poor to speak for themselves or belong to minority groups.

The judges have told us it has been a great help. Our Saint Cloud group is working on the gun control because they interpret violence and trying to control violence as passing state laws for gun control. And they've chosen that as a project.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: I almost think then of your organization as what you do with peace and freedom when you have it, how you structure it, not a militant fight, but how you best use it and distribute it. That's really what it is, isn't it? The distribution of peace and freedom.

SPEAKER: I've learned working in the Women's League for Peace and Freedom that every woman has to analyze what she does with the peace and freedom that she has in order to find time to do something for her community, something for more than just her family. We've just come through a period of time in the United States when everybody focused on their own private interests. And now as a result, we have so many problems that cannot be solved by the mother or the father or even the family together focusing on their own interests. Our problems are only going to be solved if we all work together on them because they are community problems.

They're state problems. They're national problems. They're world problems. And that means that women have to join with other people in their family to face up to these problems. And that means a woman has to change her time schedule so that she has to figure out what time is she giving to her specific private family interests and what time is she giving to a community interest.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Isn't there a problem of apathy in the general public thinking that when we have peace, that is no active war that we will indeed then have freedom? And then you can let down and not put your energy into these kinds of efforts. I mean, do you find that your membership drops off actually or becomes less involved when there isn't a current conflict?

SPEAKER: I think that's not true with our organization, and that's because of the nature of this organization. People who belong to it, are not just the people who turn out for the march on Washington or the State Capitol. These are people who have an ongoing interest and don't see really that things are any different now.

The same people who got excited about the war who are WIL members are now concerned about the president's cutbacks and what it's going to do for child care institutions, how it's going to affect mothers who are only able to work when child care is available so that although this may be true of other peace organizations, it's just does not apply to ours.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: The women's International League for Peace and Freedom, their motto, as long as there is economic injustice in the world, there will not be peace. Their office is located at 1925 Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. Their projects are many. Their resource is you. I'm Connie Goldman.