April 12, 1913.
My dear Mrs. Bowen:
The fellowship amounts to $500 a year, and I have sent Miss Seymour's name to Miss Brandt, together with half a dozen other suggestions. Can you give me her address?
In regard to the signature on Miss Seymour's sketches, the point was merely this: -- if Miss Seymour simply didn't want her name used because she had sold them to the Juvenile Protective League, or to you, the reason didn't seem to me to be sufficient. If she sold them direct to us -- and I hope [someday] we can buy that sort of thing -- we would, of course, have carried her name. Unless there was some other reason, my recommendation was that her name should appear, if we could get your permission and hers.
From your letter of the 7th, I take it you did not receive my "school-master" letter at all. The second page of it concerned your own sketch of which we had two versions set up in proof. So I am sending the carbon of the second page to you with duplicates of this proof. Perhaps you will want to choose between them again.
Progressive Service.
Dr. Moskowitz has accepted the chairmanship of the Committee on Men's Labor under Miss Addams' department; Miss McDowell that of Women's Labor; Miss Kellor (acting) on that of Immigration, and I am acting on Social Insurance. We have asked Professor Spingarn to head the committee on social and industrial justice as it affects the negroes.
Dean Lewis, Dr. Lindsay, Miss Kellor, Mr. Smith and I went to Washington last Tuesday and met with the congressional progressives, who decided to stand for a program of eleven bills at this extra session. Five of them are on social and industrial justice. I urged that these be limited to bills which national organizations had been mulling over for some time, and which were pretty thoroughly thought out, and on which they could back us up with the facts. This action was taken. The five are: [page 2]
1. The Kern bill prepared by the American Association for Labor Legislation, providing compensation for [employees] of the Federal Government who suffer from trade accidents or trade diseases.
2. The La Follette eight-hour bill for the woman of the District of Columbia, prepared by the National Consumers' League.
3. Combination of the uniform child labor bill of the National Child Labor Committee with the old Beveridge bill, prohibiting interstate commerce in goods made by child labor.
4. The bill supported by the Committee on Prison Labor, National Consumers' League, etc., prohibiting interstate commerce in prison made goods.
5. Bill calling for a federal commission on social insurance -- a commission of inquiry. This I drafted from the successive federal commission on the industrial-relations bill of the last session.
Dean Lewis has engaged Mr. Donald R. Richberg to take active charge of the legislative reference bureau, which will serve all departments. I have been making the strongest sort of representations at headquarters, urging that a man of first rate [caliber] -- such as Professor Commons or Professor Seagers, be engaged for the summer to reduce our platform proposals on social and industrial justice to essential proposals that we can stand for before Congress and the legislatures. The platform is pretty broad, and in the intervening months since November, very little has been done to crystallize it. It seemed to me that if I could get this through, so the material would be in shipshape order by fall, it would be my best service while Miss Addams is abroad, and would be a long step toward what she has so frequently urged, that we get down to tacks, on the proposals made, rather than usher forth a lot of new proposals. I have felt that neither the fragmentary time that I could put on it, or that she could put on it on her return, or that any of the legislative reference division of the service could put on it, would solve the matter by any means. During the recent months, for instance, when a legislator from Nebraska wrote in for a minimum wage bill, their method has been to whip out the half dozen bills which have been introduced in different states -- an excellent contrivance for duplicating error. The New York office has been apparently unacquainted with much of the work Mr. McCarthy has done, etc. Mr. Richberg's appointment will head things up in the general service, and if we can get this fundamental work done in Miss Addams' department, the staff <and> equipment ought to be such as to serve Miss Addams and the other national leaders much more adequately.
Do you suppose that she would be interested in such developments as the above? I have hesitated writing her.
May I see you when you are in New York on the 17th, to talk these matters over with you?
Sincerely,
Paul U Kellogg [signed]
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