Dear Miss Addams:
Thank you, dear friend, for your consideration and courtesy about the letter which I proposed. Do you mind my asking one thing more? Would the Board frame a simply statement [reaffirming] our purpose and send it out from the Board? It wasn't only the civilian relief that I was thinking of, but my fear was that all this other work will be taken care of in the different [locales]-- and that the Woman's Peace Party will become in California, a Red Cross; in Massachusetts, given to dehydrating foods; and somewhere else, perhaps, a bureau for getting messages through to relatives beyond the lines.
Can we not, as a party, keep single and [reiterate] our original faith? The statement of the New York Branch you have of course seen. It seems to me that a [restatement] of fundamentals, sent out from the Main Office by the Board, would go far to keep our basic principles in the minds of the locals, and keep them from turning into something else, as branches. You know, I am sure, that what individuals do in the ameliorative work I do not refer to at all. It is only that the Party, as a party, should keep its self-consciousness that it is a Peace Party.
I don't like to seem to hold out for this, but it presents itself to me as of immense importance.
Affectionately yours,
(Signed) ZONA GALE
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