October 5, 1923
My very dear Friend:
I found your dear letter awaiting me here upon our return only a few days ago. We left Japan on the twenty-third of August, "we" meaning Mary Smith, Alice Hamilton and myself. We stopped for nine days in Honolulu and again for a little visit to my nephew and others in California. I grew stronger as the journey proceeded and finally arrived at Hull-House feeling almost as well as ever although I am following out ↑a↓ rather a careful regime as to rest and careful living. I am sure you will be glad to know that I have lost thirty pounds and mean to make a vigorous effort not to get it back again!
The trouble was a tumor in the right breast and although microscopic examination showed it to be benign the operation proceeded quite as drastically as if it had been malignant and I was obliged to remain in the hospital for four weeks. The surgeon, Dr. Kubo, was a Japanese although the hospital itself was a mission one attached to the Cathedral and schools of the mission supported by the Episcopal church in America. Everyone was very good to me from the Bishop down and the kindness of the Japanese themselves was simply unending.
Alice Hamilton reached us before I left the hospital and went with us into the mountains at Nikko where we stayed for three weeks and enjoyed the place hugely although my wound did not behave very [page 2] well and I was obliged to go to bed again for ten days.
The city of [Tokyo] gave me a reception before we left and all sorts of kind things were done by officials, the Prefecture of Kobe, the Prefecture of Osaka and others. The presents which they showered upon me are probably lost as we left them to be packed by the American Express and sent by a later boat. However, the loss of belongings of any sort seems a mere trifle and we are only gradually hearing from the many friends we made in Japan, English, Japanese and Americans and as yet out of the entire number but two have been lost although there are many still to be heard from.
I am so very sorry that no one wrote you more definitely. There was a grain of truth in the ginrickshaw accident. I was thrown out of one outside the wall of Peking with a good deal of damage to my right arm. It was finally operated upon when I was under the ether in Japan and all is now well. We stayed in Peking almost four weeks [and] we had a great many letters to all sorts of people there, Wellington Koo and many other Chinese officials were very kind to us.
We were in Korea for ten days and had only a week in western Japan before I was sent to the hospital.
The "Peace" in Japan has become a part of the political movement. The Liberal party is pushing very hard for reduction of armaments and against the continuation of the militaristic policies so that they were very hospitable to any one who was identified with the movement. [page 3]
I must write soon to Captain Ellis of the settlements and the interesting things they are beginning ↑in Japan↓, but I am getting this letter off to you at once as you bade me.
Do send me a copy of your article. I should [in] any event be flattered to have been selected as the subject of an article by you but much more so when you give the reason therefor.
↑Always and forever↓ Affectionately yours,
Jane Addams [signed]
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