Peace Hero: Emily Greene

-Emily Greene Balch born on January 8, 1867in Boston,was the daughter of Francis V. and Ellen (Noyes) Balch. She came from a prosperous family, her father being a successful lawyer, at one time secretary to United States Senator Charles Sumner. She went to private schools as a young girl; graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1889, a student of its first graduating class; spent the year 1889-1890 in a study of sociology; used a European Fellowship awarded by Bryn Mawr to study economics in Paris in 1890-1891. She completed her formal studies with dispersed courses at Harvard and the University of Chicago and with a full year of work in economics in 1895-1896 in Berlin.

In 1896 she joined the faculty of Wellesley College, climbing to the rank of professor of economics and sociology in 1913. She was an outstanding teacher; she impressed students by the clearness of her thought, by the extent of her experience, by her kindness for the underprivileged, by her strong-mindedness, and by her firmness that students could express independent judgments only if they shared on-the-spot investigation with their research in the library. During these years she was a member of two municipal boards (one on children and one on urban planning) and of two state commissions (one on industrial education, the other on immigration); she participated in movements for women's suffrage, for racial justice, for control of child labor, for better wages and conditions of labor.

-Miss Balch had always been concerned with the problem of peace and had followed carefully the work of the two peace conferences of 1899 and 1907 at The Hague, she became convinced after the outbreak of World War I in 1914 that her lifework lay in furthering humanity's effort to rid the world of war. As a delegate to the International Congress of Women at The Hague in 1915, she played a prominent role in several important projects: in founding an organization called the Women's International Committee for Permanent Peace, later named the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom; in preparing peace proposals for consideration by the warring nations

Emily Balch also remained active in social reform efforts. She helped to found the Women's Trade Union League in 1903. She was involved in starting a new organization, the Women's International Committee for Permanent Peace, later called the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She was also involved in various projects involving The League of Nations after the first World War. She wanted the world to demilitarize and live in peace. She saw war as an opportunity to spread hatred and thus wanted countried to stop using war as an excuse for power. Her efforts extended to launching programs that supported demilitarization and international anti-war campaigns. It was she who facilitated the U.S. withdrawal from Haiti in 1926, after 11 years of occupation.

She attended the 1919 International Congress of Women, held in Zurich, where she accepted the position of secretary of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, until 1922. She briefly took that position, without pay, in 1934, and later contributed her Nobel Peace Prize financial award to the IWLPF.

- During World War II, Emily Balch reluctantly gave up her strict passivity, believing that the threat of Hitler, she "went through along and painful struggle, and never felt that I had reached a clear and consistent conclusion." However, she worked with refugee resettlement and against the Japanese-American relocation camps.

One of Emily Balch's last projects was a 1959 celebration, organized by the WILPF, honoring the 100th anniversary of Jane Addams birth -- Jane Addams of Hull-House, and with whom Emily Balch had worked on peace projects, and who had won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

-She won her Nobel Preace Prize along with American evangelist John Mott (of the YMCA). in 1946. Hence her efforts were never solely for fame. She always practiced humility and proved to the world that nothing mattered more than living for others. Her Acceptance Speech was as follows:

“I am happy in thinking that not I myself but the Womens' International League for Peace and Freedom, with which I am identified, is the true recipient. Hoping, as I do, that this internationally organized body of women has ahead of it a great opportunity for usefulness in educating people everywhere toward the world-mindedness on which peace must be based with other people, I am hoping that 1946 will mark a turning point in the age-old effort to rid the world of war, to national disarmament, to renunciation of power politics, and to development of international trusteeship, not only for dependent peoples, but for regions and interests”

-Chairman Gunnar Jahn of the Committee in the speech of presentation at the award ceremony in December 1946 reported Emily Balch's "lifelong unrelenting work for peace" and declared, "She has taught us that the reality we seek must be earned by hard and unrelenting toil in the world in which we live, but she has taught us more: that exhaustion is unknown and defeat only gives fresh courage to the man whose soul is fired by the sacred flame."

-In 1955, concerned about the widening gulf between the United States and China, she wrote a poem that was a "letter of love," addressed to "Dear People of China." This is the last stanza:

Let us be patient with one another,                                                                                        

And even patient with ourselves.

We have a long, long way to go.

So let us hasten along the road,

The road of human tenderness and generosity.

Groping, we may find one another's hands in the dark"

Emily Greene Balch retired in 1956 and died in 1961. Her efforts were indeed a beacon of light in a world of darkness. Nothing stopped her and nothing slowed her down. Such dedication is nothing short of an icon in this World.

I chose her as my peace hero since I believe that a hero isn’t expected to leave their mark in the world through any form of status or fanfare, but instead they have to live their life as an exhibition of their efforts. And these efforts can be seen in her life and all the decision she took. Never has any woman risen to such difficulties in a world which had still not liberated women. Thus Emily Greene becomes a figure which not only established peace but also extended her influence to various other phases of life and the world.