WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM
Dear Miss Addams,
Japan
I was so glad to see Mrs. Inouye. Isn't she nice? We had a tea in the garden for her amid all our roses -- it did look so pretty -- but various arrangements went wrong and she came late, with Mr. Inouye, and stayed all too short a time. I was very glad to understand from her that the Japanese society wishes to be regarded as affiliated with us, which I had not previously understood to be the case. I have also had a nice letter from Miss Jōdai, to whom I have been writing all this time about our Japanese relations, and I am relieved to find her wholly cordial and active and that her failure to reply was due to a breakdown. We hear our Tokyo exhibit arrived all right and that the leaflet about the League in Japanese was printed as Mr. Ayusawa here kindly arranged for us. [page 2]
Ex. Com Meeting
My next "concern" is the Ex. Com. Meeting which we were not able to bring off in the spring and which is most important. I feel it is essential to have Thora Daugaard with us as we must discuss the question of a 1923 Congress at Copenhagen. She replies ↑to [my questions?] as to when she could come↓ proposing a meeting just after the Varese School. Fräulein Heymann wants us to meet in Freiburg (Germany) for financial reasons. I think this will be less of an economy than she proposes ↑supposes↓ and I want our funds to pay the [traveling] expenses from the ↑Swiss↓ frontier and one week's stay in Geneva for members of the board (not consultative members). It is a very great advantage to meet where our files & records are, to have the board see the Maison Internationale and to have them get some idea of the L of N (the assembly of which will be meeting). Also I think it is a pity for one to be away again while the Assembly is there. The expense of what I propose will not be enormous. There are 10 on the Board. Neither you nor Miss Marshall can come [page 3] and I am there anyway. I think Madame Duchêne would not accept and perhaps some others the same so it is a question of ↑at most↓ six people. We can take care of a number in the M.I. (though of course this is also an expense for which the League would pay the M.I. account). I hope you will not disapprove. Fräulein Heymann is absolutely unwilling to have her expenses paid so this in itself may upset this plan. I have written to her about it but have not made the proposal to anyone else yet.
I wish we might meet the third week in September instead of the first as it will be hard for one to leave Varese instantly, there will be many ends to tie up, I think. Also I need some time between Varese and the Meeting to prepare the [illegible] for it, but we must meet when we can get our members together.
As to the Agenda I suppose ↑the main points should be↓ the Congress, the financing of the League, the secretaryship and the question whether we want to alter [page 4] to make any alterations in the Constitution (notably as to the point raised at Vienna whether there could be more than one [organization] in our country, also the question of affiliated societies for which we have no provision). But I have a horror of constitutional discussions in big meetings and of [illegible] everything that involves agreement or a form of words.
Another matter to discuss would be the question of our work between now and the Congress.
Please let me know your wishes and opinions.
Do you agree that we should have a Congress next summer?
Do you approve of Copenhagen?
(If we don't have a Congress can we raise the money to go on?) [page 5]
Finances
I have not yet had the May nor of course the June balance but in spite of the fact that we did not raise last year the sum [budgeted] for, I hope we can keep our heads above water till the Congress funds begin to come it. America has done splendidly with associate memberships. I will send you details of the financial situation as soon as the books [are] made up for the 6 months ending tomorrow.
You know Fräulein Wössner had to leave on account of her health. Her successor, Miss Eichenberger, a Berne girl, is doing pretty well but so much bookkeeping is new to her & ↑[though]↓ Fräulein W. is very generous about helping it goes a little slowly.
Secretaryship
About this I should like your opinion and advice. You once spoke of G. Baer; someone else (I regret to say I forget which member of the board) to whom I mentioned this thought her impossible as an office worker. I think Mlle Gobat will drop out in September for some months at least. She is not well. She wants Vilma Glücklich to come in her place and I [page 6] think this will come about.
About going on myself I don't know what to think. I still have too small a margin of nervous vigor -- one ought to have a lot. And if I stayed on till 1925 I should be sixty and we ought to have a young woman. Yet of course continuity and acquaintanceship and having the threads in one's hands all count. Perhaps we may have me go on ↑half salary↓ half time and someone else be associated with ↑me↓ taking Mlle Gobat's place, & giving whole time. One idea that has crossed my mind is that it would be fine if we could get Dr. Ethel Williams should you approve? (I don't suppose that there is any chance that we could get her).
The League
Of course I meditate over the whole problem of the future of the League -- can it go on as in the present lines and should it? This is not from any special reason for thinking otherwise but to keep a fresh mind and not suffer from the illusion of the actual. [page 7] Can we continue to support it? The British W.I.L. is ↑in↓ debt & has the greatest financial difficulties, increased by the fact that it lost money in its Easter School at Keswick by which it hoped to raise [illegible] ↑some↓. The low valuta countries cannot help. The small neutrals can't do much. It pretty much comes back on the U.S.
Should we change our whole scale? e.g.
-- Let the M.I. go on as a pretty much a Ding an Sich, and hold our Congresses without keeping up office work between times?
Is the time coming when our movement might & should merge in a men-and-women's international peace body of one type. The International Peace] [illegible] No More War Movement, the Union of Democratic Control (not quite in its old form it seems to me & too much Mr. Morel), the Mr. Libby's Disarmament Council, the Ligue de Droits de l'Homme in Paris, some of the vigorous German peace societies, -- these ought all to be working together. Or do they accomplish more separate? [page 8] I do hate and dread the patriotism of the kind devotion to one's [organization] as an end in itself and ↑that one often sees [illegible] and I try not to fall into it (though↓ when you are [organizing] sec'y you almost have to cultivate [illegible] or acquiesce in some of this ↑it↓). -- So I just put these questions.
I wish we might go on at least for another 2 years -- to 1925 -- and then see if the situation is riper. I wish we could have time before [illegible] or after the ↑a↓ Congress to really talk out such questions. I think to put them in writing before the members is merely unsettling.
Staff
Miss Amy Woods of Boston who is with us as a volunteer is very useful and is learning a lot. [written in left margin] ↑[Journey]↓ She has ↑however↓ gone off on a 5 or 6 weeks trip with Sarah Wambaugh to Poland, Danzig & [illegible] the [S'aar?] and so on, & I think this is very useful.
Dr. Ethel Williams and Miss Widegren are I think now in Finland. I am giving Dr. Williams for this trip what remains of the money collected in connection with my Balkan trip of last year -- Miss Woods goes "on her own." [page 9]
The June Bulletin will be somewhat delayed but will come out just as soon as we can manage. It is almost ready, Miss Woods having done most of the work.
Staff
We have been working short-handed as I let Madame Tunas go to Munich to help Fraulein Heymann with Lauenstein. This seemed only fair considering all we are carrying for the Varese plan ↑School↓ and that she let G. B., who was her mainstay, go to America. I feared she was breaking down in consequence. Madame Tunas counted the [illegible] is to count the month in Munich (where she is to work half time) as half of her month's vacation. The other half she will take at Varese. Mlle Gobat was away from about the middle of May to June tenth at Milan [helping?] about Varese. In arranging vacations it proved best for the office for me to take June -- [though], this was inconvenient too. Of course there is never a time when it is easy to get away. It seems as though having had [page 10] had the special leave in 1921 I and so late (in fact as you know I only sailed Jan 7) I ought not to take a ↑any further↓ vacation in 1922 but I felt that I could not get through the year this way and that I had better try to be as fresh as possible for all the strain the summer and early fall will bring (especially Varese). I trust you will approve.
I have been here (off and on) since June 4 in a charming Alpine valley, not far away & [accessible] by telephone to Geneva. I have been back to the office once during this time for 3 most strenuous days and I must say I get almost daily budgets of mail to attend to here. The rest of the time I sleep, tramp or otherwise refresh myself, the more as I am alone here except for 5 very pleasant days when Miss Woods was with me. Unless recalled I mean to stay till Monday (date is July first) so as to get nearly a full month of holiday. Thus Mlle Gobat goes for July, & she [page 11] will carry on in Geneva in August when I shall be in Varese part of the time at least.
Varese & Lauenstein
I do think the [program] is a fine one. Applications came in slowly -- I will give the data when I return to Geneva. About Lauenstein I am waiting to hear from Madame Tunas on her return next week. I do trust it will succeed -- financially also. They have had to double their price (I suppose this in Marks on account of the fall of the exchange.
I thought I would not begin this letter with tiresome excuses but I am well aware that I owe you many apologies for neglected correspondence.
April 22: copy of Call to Pan-American Conference. Thank you. Mrs. Post has also sent me material but I still might [illegible]
B. Russell: Why Men Fight. Thank you so much for this.
The International Interpreter: We should of course [page 12] be delighted to have this ([though] I must say there are some things I think we need more especially the Europe Nouvelle & Le Progrès Civique -- either or both, but this is a barbarous reply!)
Thank you for sending me the Quaker memorandum. Their work is near to ours and we must make as close a cooperation as we can.
Mrs. Urie is being very cordial [though] she does not approve of us, thinking no good can be done except through proletarian [organizations]. She is giving us a scholarship at Varese for an Italian, preferably an a proletarian educator and is writing Mr. Holmes.
M.I. postal cards and announcements. It is like trying to run in a sea of molasses to get things done. I have been pushing the reprinting of our postal card (supply about exhausted) and of announcements of the house all I know how. I will see Monday whether those have yet been sent to you & try to get them to you at once if not. Have the desired no. of Vienna & Zurich reports finally come to hand or not? [page 13] Have you now received the copies of the Zurich and Vienna reports Miss Wössner sent?
Re International Causes.
I am very glad you spoke to Mr. Glenn about this. The [Geneva] University has rather stolen our thunder but is very glad to have us play with them. M. Fatio told me I should have a chance to speak, on our League to their students and they will then be invited to come to the M.I. & look us over. (I hope some of their students may lodge with us also).
I think I had [personally] written you that the U. of Geneva is this year, for the first time, having a Summer School in International Affairs & in the French language and that M. Fatio was sent to America to [drum?] up American interest which he thinks he has done very successfully. The students are coming over on the Saxonian with the parties of students which the Student Relief ↑(?)↓ has [organized] to travel in Europe this summer. I tried to, I hope successfully, to reach them with circulars of [page 14] our two Summer Schools.
I will wait I think till this summer's experiment in the U. of G. has been tried out and then talk the matter over with the university authorities and propose a plan to you sending the text in triplicate (for Mr Glenn, Mr Duggan and yourself) as you suggest.
Meanwhile please let me hear from you what you think about this ↑their courses↓ being carried on by the U of Geneva, with us and perhaps Madame Walther's school offering site -- & has courses in affiliation. Or do you think we should rather try to do something independently ourselves even now?
Perhaps they would arrange to have an advising council on which we & other international [organizations] here could be represented.
Miss Alexander has been very kind & has sent me 10 [illegible] sets for use here in international classes (about which I [page 15] talked with her while in New York) of the pamphlets issued by the Assn for Int. Conciliation & Arbitration, besides a lot of books they use in the International Polity Club and she also got the Carnegie people to send us quite a lot of valuable literature. (Mr. van Loon also has sent us his History, at my request).
Nansen Fund
Your money for the expenses of the administrative expenses of the Nansen High Commissariat for Russian relief has been formally acknowledged but I have never thanked ↑you↓ as I do heartily. We have now paid our share up to July first and about half of it for July.
Our Ukraine friends write piteously as to the famine there. I imagine this is all familiar to you. Much material about it reaches us and I never know much of it addressed to you as the League representative in Nansen's body. I never know whether you wish to receive this or whether you are already flooded.
Please let me know. [page 16]
Miss Surowzowa also said it would mean a great deal for the famine situation if it could be secured merely that the army of occupation were withdrawn. I do not understand this & will inform you if I learn about more.
Miss McDowell
We had a delightful but brief visit She from Miss McDowell and her 3 American friends. One of them, a charming girl with money of her own, may stay on with us after their second visit, which they propose to make at the time of the Assembly, and work for us as a volunteer. She has secretarial qualifications and is able & modest & that lovely young zest to be of use.
My visit to Prague in June fell through because our Prague friends did not wish me to come at this time.
I think the situation that developed at the Prague meeting of the ass'n of L of N. Unions was very interesting. It was over the question of the protection of potential minorities. The [page 17] Committee, a strong one, had drawn up a [program] of what ought to be accorded in the way of schools etc, which went too far for the Czechs so that they withdrew when they could not persuade the meeting not to accept the report. The French members stood by the Committee report. I think it must work educationally in [Czechoslovakia], in spite of the appearance of a flare-up.
Your Book
We ordered 6 to have on sale, [Macmillan] was very slow but they have finally come. I think all but 2 are disposed of already.
London Peace Meeting
I do not think I had better try to go but Mrs. Swanwick will appoint En delegate [illegible] one or more English women to go as delegates from us and I think Miss Widegren and Frau Misař are also going. I hope so.
If you live to get as far as this you will know that I am
very lovingly yours
Emily G. Balch [page 18]
Yours of June 8 I see have forgotten to refer to. I am very glad to have Mrs. Blaffers letter (of Mexico) and hope we may see her. Of course I will write.
Thanks too for letting me see the letter about the lecturers. I do hope it has been worthwhile. I was so pleased to have the scheme undertaken and I hear such acc'ts as I have had have been quite enthusiastic especially as to Gertrud Baer.
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