WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM
October 6, 1921
My dear Mabel Kittredge:
I was sorry that I did not manage to see Mrs Mathes until Tuesday evening. We had a very satisfactory talk then but it seemed to us both that before we could make a proposition concerning the office and secretary, that we would have to confer with Miss Boynton and Miss Reed which we did yesterday afternoon. Mrs Mathes is quite certain that she can not be of much service to the League unless the headquarters are in Chicago, with Miss Reed as Executive Secretary. She of course appreciates the necessity of doing work in Washington during the period of the Disarmament Conference. We both wish that Mrs La Follette might serve as head of the Washington Committee, unless you yourself can be there much of the time. In the meantime of course, the drive for members, collection of dues, and all such routine work, could be done from the Chicago office.
Mrs Mathes will be in Washington the first week in December on matters connected with the Anti-Saloon League, and we hope that we might have a Board Meeting then which would make it possible for the Eastern members to attend. We might have another Board Meeting somewhere in the east in the Spring especially if we have the [page 2] Annual Meeting in Washington as has been suggested. Most National Organizations have four Board Meetings a year, and if we could have two in Chicago and two in the East, that might keep together the fine Board which you have accumulated. Was the monthly Board Meeting a part of the Constitution or merely a vote of the Board itself.
On the financial side we made out something of a Budget. The Chicago Branch offers to give office room, in their very delightful headquarters for which they pay $100 a month, so that that means no rent for the [illegible] National. This office room is shared with the Committee for the Promotion of International Friendship between the Churches, and we call the entire undertaking the World Friendship Bureau with Miss Reed as Secretary. The budget for them and us would be as follows:
Miss Reed's Salary Monthly $150.00
Stenographer 100.00
Filing clerk 65.00
Postage and supplies 35.00
Total $350.00
One half of this would be $175 a month. I could pay towards that out of some money Dorothy North has left me, $25 a month, leaving $150 a month for the National to raise. I do not believe that we could count on any more from the Chicago Branch than the rent and ↑the↓ $25 a month, as [page3] they are carrying on a fine local program. The remaining $150 a month makes $1,800 a year, but we ought to add at least $200 for literature. Do you think the National through dues and other wise could secure $2,000 a year? Of course Mrs Mathes ought to have some money for a [traveling] fund, and not be made to feel ↑too↓ constantly the [dearth] of money. We would have to have the cards ↑membership↓ files and so forth ↑in Chicago↓, but I think the bulk of the records and the old correspondence would not need to be shipped on, certainly not at once. I think this is a bad time for raising money, and I quite dread going in to an elaborate plan. We have cut this down, perhaps beyond the minimum.
I am sending this all on at once, and will write you later about International matters.
Always devotedly yours,
J. A. [initialed]
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