Finding no acceptance or interest in addressing the issues women laborers encountered from national trade unions, she began collecting data to compile statistics.

[15] In 1907, to counteract the unfavorable press they received from the media at large, the Feminist Association founded the journal A Nő és a Társadalom (Women and Society), with Schwimmer as editor-in-chief.

She gained national prominence that year for a dispute with law professor and MP, Károly Kmety [hu], who introduced a measure to implement stricter limits for women's admission to higher education.

[31] She met with President Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, but was unsuccessful in her attempts to organize a neutral conference to bring both sides of the conflict together.

Chrystal Macmillan proposed that suffragists should hold a conference to discuss international peace principles and Aletta Jacobs suggested that the Netherlands, as a neutral nation, could host the event.

[33] At the International Congress of Women, held in The Hague from 28 April, Schwimmer and Julia Grace Wales, a Canadian academic, proposed a "continuous conference of neutrals" between governments be formed to mediate conflicts and restore peace.

[8] After the conference closed on 3 May 1915, Schwimmer, Addams and Jacobs, along with Macmillan, Emily Greene Balch, Mien van Wulfften Palthe[36][37] and others, formed two delegations of women who met with European heads of state over the next several months.

[38][39] By the time Schwimmer returned from Europe in the fall, sentiment had changed in the United States and many feminists believed that pacifism would hurt the cause for suffrage.

[42] Determined to continue pressing for a mediation conference, she decided that if politicians and feminists would not act, it would fall on individuals to work to end the war.

When it did not have the desired effect, Shelley met with the editor of the Detroit Journal and a reporter, Ralph Yonker, who was a favorite of Ford, set up an interview for Schwimmer.

[45] Without strong leadership from Ford, the pacifists on board jockeyed for power positions, and Schwimmer was resented for having been entrusted with the international correspondence from heads of state.

[51][52] According to Beth S. Wenger, chair of the history department at the University of Pennsylvania,[53] the debacle of the Peace Ship "signaled the beginning of a smear campaign against [Schwimmer] and the eventual termination of her public career".

[54] Though Henry Ford's anti-Semitic beliefs that German-Jewish bankers had caused the war predated his involvement with Schwimmer, she was portrayed in the American press as the reason for his prejudices.

[55] She was also accused of swindling Ford out of money, being a German spy, and a Bolshevik agent, though she was awarded $17,000 in a libel suit against the New York Commercial Advertiser for making those charges.

[58][63] Friedrich's inadequacy led Admiral Miklós Horthy's forces to try to establish order by implementing a reign of White Terror by cleansing the country of Jews and communists.

[63][64] In 1920, Schwimmer fled to Vienna where she lived as a refugee, financially supported by her friend Lola Maverick Lloyd, until she secured permission to emigrate to the United States in 1921.

[58][68] In 1919, New York State had launched the Lusk Investigation to examine the activities of radical people and organizations liable to threaten the nation's security.

[70] Military officials and right-wing women's organizations, such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, joined in the Red Scare tactics to focus suspicion on the activities of pacifists and suffragists.

[58] Catt and Addams both drew criticism from anti-radical groups and because of her link to them, Schwimmer, and those who associated with her, became targets for those seeking to attack leaders in the feminist movement.

[71] Schwimmer was accused of having prevented the United States from preparing sooner for the war, [68] was called a spy, and her peace initiatives were twisted from being humanitarian missions into strategic plots to aid the Germans and their allies.

Against the advice of Fred Schlotfeldt, the District Director of Naturalization, Schwimmer, believing that no woman would be compelled to fight in the United States and that honesty was required in completing the form, answered that she would not personally take up arms.

[75] Two years later, her second interview was called and she explained in detail that defending the country did not necessarily require her physical action, but instead could be a verbal or written defense of principles.

[80][81] After Fred Marvin, a Republican and anti-radical who was editor of the New York Daily Commercial, accused her of being a German spy and a Bolshevik agent, she sued and received $17,000 in damages[82][83] in July 1928.

[84] The following day, her case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on her denial of citizenship was unanimously overturned,[84][78] concluding that "women are considered incapable of bearing arms" and thus could not be forced under the law to do so.

[86] Believing that Schwimmer's influence as a writer and public speaker could sway others to refuse to perform military service, Luhring and Sargent examined the court records, but were unable to find any point of law on which to base a review.

[87] Urged by White to reconsider the opinion, Sargent replied that Schwimmer appeared to be a fanatical idealist of intelligence and ability and that there was no evidence that had been presented in court to substantiate that she had a sinister character.

[89][90] In a dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. put forth that free thought was a tenet of the Constitution and had no bearing on whether someone should be admitted to or live in the country.

[99] The purpose of the organization was to establish world governance with a constitution, elected representation, a supranational legal system to resolve conflicts between nations, and an International Criminal Court to address human rights issues.

[4][5][6] Schwimmer was one of the pioneers who backed creation of the International Court of Justice[16] as a means to provide equal participation and protection for all people regardless of ethnicity, race, or gender.

[100] In 1948 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but had little chance of obtaining it, in spite of support from backers in Britain, France, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, and the United States.