October 18, 1916.
Dear Miss Addams:
Thank you for your note about the report. I am not sure whether it was the first paragraph or the first two pages that struck you the wrong way. The first paragraph was added after I had written the report -- for I had a feeling that the succeeding pages dealing with finances, difficulties, etc., had not a very winning quality to them; and that something was needed to provoke the reader into thinking that the whole document was not a recital of dull tribulations and practical difficulties.
I have asked the printer to send you galley proof direct from Philadelphia, which, with the three types used, will give a better idea of the text as a whole, and how it will strike the readers.
Will you let me know whether it was the introductory paragraph or the heavy introductory pages that you had in mind; and whether the impression holds in the galley proof?
I agree with you in the matter of the October magazine number. It was certainly the very reverse of The <a> Dorcas Society meeting! It was not altogether a question of free choice, however, and is surely not a precedent; let me explain.
Throughout the summer we carried out some very rigorous economies, -- cutting down issues; on the other hand, we are changing printers the end of this month, and any matter left in type is a dead loss. Because of the constricted issues, we put your article "Disturbing Conventions" over from the September to the October magazine; but could not of course, even if we had wished, do that another month, for [page 2] the book was on the press.
Mrs. Hooker's series has been running throughout the year. This was the last of it, and we did not want to have them string out into the fall. This particular one had been in type for four or five months.
Finally, Miss Montgomery's sketch dates back for over two years; and while we felt compunctions in the matter -- that we had treated her pretty shabbily by the enforced delays -- we did not want to have to [reset] it in new type. That and Mr. Alden's article were the last we had set up in the old type.
Of course Mr. Bicknell's series had to run. The consequence was that this was almost a special number on sex hygiene and foreign affairs -- curious bed-fellows; but you may be interested to know that Mr. Devine, who is just back from Europe and comes at The Survey with fresh eyes, was favorably stuck by the issue and your part in it. Whether our November number matches it in standard remains to be seen; but it will, of course, be better rounded.
You will be interested to know, also, that Mr. Devine comes back feeling the very reverse of what he felt eighteen or twenty months ago. Then he felt that Americans should keep hands off the war in trying to make their influence felt; likewise, The Survey. Now he is strong for a [crystallization] of American sentiment to stand out for [social] factors in settlement and reconstruction; likewise, I am glad to say, The Survey.
Sincerely,
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