May 11th. 1916.
Dear Miss Addams,
I was very glad to get your letter of April 18th. a few days ago but am very sorry that your health keeps you more or less a prisoner. It is [illegible] difficult to know where to take up one's correspondence. So many letters go amissing. I think by this time you will have received the letter I wrote months ago at The Hague. It was sent back to The Hague and then to Stockholm after being through the British censor's hands but I sent instructions to have it posted on to you. I left Amsterdam in order to attend the Annual business Meeting of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and do some other things while I was here and intended to go straight back to Holland as soon as possible. <There was no hidden reason although it was a great pleasure to be in my own country after being almost an exile for a year.> When there was some word of changing the place of meeting to Copenhagen, or Stockholm, I postponed starting, or rather making application for a permit, till the place was decided. Even after the meeting was put off I intended to go back, and have put in an application for a permit now nearly [page 2] four weeks ago, but have as yet no reply from the authorities.
You say you do not know whether the meeting was indefinitely postponed after consulting the members of Committee, or not. I think you will have by this time have received from the Amsterdam Headquarters the two circular letters 13 and 14 which show that all the Committees have been consulted and which give an indication how very much more difficult it now is to get permits and passports than it was a year ago. I agree with Miss Manus and Dr. Jacobs that it would not be possible to get together a representative meeting.
I should very much like to meet Miss Balch to hear all that has been happening in the United States the last six months. There does not seem to be much hope of meeting her.
The Women's International League had a Conference a few weeks ago to discuss subjects which may arise in our Conference after the War, but we have not yet chosen our 20. The Danish 30 seem to be going very systematically to work; they have regular meetings. That is the advantage of being such a small country. The Norwegian Committee has sent about $125 to the central fund. It is splendid considering how poor Norway is and how little other women's societies give to international [page 3] objects.
You seem to have kept the [program] well to the fore at your January Conference at Washington. I see an account of it now for the first time in "INTERNATIONAAL" for March-April. I am glad you went again to President Wilson and Secretary Lansing. Things are not looking very bright just now.
I have asked the Women's International League to send to the various National Secretaries the Official Parliamentary Reports of speeches likely to be of special interest to them. I hope Mrs. Thomas has been receiving her copies.
Hoping you are getting stronger,
Chrystal Macmillan. [signed]
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