User:Ngriffeth/Percy Maxim Lee

Percy Maxim Lee (Mrs. John G. Lee) was president of the League of Women Voters of the United States from 1950 to 1958, during the Communist-hunting period of Joseph McCarthy. In 1951, the League established a Freedom Agenda Committee and published a pamphlet called Individual Liberty to refute McCarthyism. After the American Legion attacked the Freedom Agenda and demanded that the LWV repudiate it, Percy Lee gave a speech in Indianapolis refusing to do so

She presided over the League during the time of the largest membership growth in League history, with over 126,000 members and 950 local leagues in all 48 states.

Throughout her term as president she promoted the League's policy of supporting international cooperation. In 1950, the year Lee was first chosen as president, the League's biennial convention supported the European Recovery Program and the International Trade Organization. Before the 1952 convention of the League, Lee said that "Support of United States policies to strengthen the United Nations and to bring about international economic development continues to be a subject of great interest to membership." In 1952, she announced a campaign to improve citizens' understanding of United States trade policy. In 1953, she opposed a "go-it-alone philosophy in the field of international relations" and announced a League of Women Voters campaign to promote "more solid backing of the United Nations, a more liberal international trade policy, and restoration of technical assistance (Point Four) funds" for technical assistance to foreign countries. Under her leadership in 1954, the League voted at its convention to continue support of the United Nations and in favor of "US participation in international programs for regional defense, economic development, and technical assistance." The same year, the national board of the League voted to oppose the Bricker Amendment limiting Presidential treaty-making powers and strongly supported the League's study of international trade and individual liberty. Lee subsequently strongly defended opposition to the Bricker Amendment against criticism from some members of the League. In 1955, as League president, she testified at a Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights hearing "against Senator Joseph McCarthy's abuse of Congressional investigative powers". In 1956, Lee was re-elected for the fourth time and the program adopted included "individual liberties with an emphasis on loyalty-security programs and conservation with an emphasis on water resources".

She was president of the Connecticut State League during the time when the League was opposed to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). She explained in a letter to a proponent that first, that it "would do violence to the political system embodied in our Constitution" by allowing Congress to make rules on matters formerly reserved to local bodies, and later, that it would create confusion and uncertainty and invite litigation.

Mrs. Lee had held four honorary degrees (LL.D. from Rutgers University, Drexel Institute, Cedar Crest College, and LH.D. from the University of Hartford). She was married to John Glessner Lee and they had four children. Additionally, during World War II, the Lee family hosted two daughters of Oxford University professors and a German family of three in their home.

In her professional life, Mrs. Lee was a founder of The Renbrook School, served on the Board of Trustees of the Putney School and Connecticut College, and held various appointed positions, including Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Connecticut College, Chairman of the Capitol Region Planning Agency, and Chairman of the Consumer Advisory Council. She also served on the State Library Commission, the Commission on the Status of Women, and The Clean Water Task Force, and acted as a liaison between the public and The Foreign Operations Administration from 1954 to 1955. President John Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson both appointed her to positions, including the Consumer Advisory Council and Public Land Law Review Commission.