Willard and Somerset Respond
"An Unwise Advocate"
Ida B. Wells gave her speech at the British Women's Temperance Association (BWTA), and the assembly passed an anti-lynching resolution. But the issue of Fraternity containing the Voice interview had already been printed and was scheduled to be distributed.
In her autobiography, Wells wrote that her ally in the BWTA, Florence Balgarnie, called Lady Henry Somerset to tell her that the article would be coming out. Somerset, according to Wells, threatened that if it did,
she would use her influence to make sure that I got no further opportunity to be heard in Great Britain.
Nevertheless, the issue of Fraternity with Willard's interview from 1890 appeared. Not long afterward, Lady Somerset and Willard responded with the below piece, which was first published in the London paper the Westminster Gazette and then reprinted in the WCTU newspaper, the Union Signal.
Wells immediately wrote a letter to the editor, which the Gazette reprinted the following day.
*Add pull quote from Wells's response the next day in a letter to the editor of the Gazette.*
