CONSUMERS' LEAGUE OF SYRACUSE
My dear Miss Addams,
I have delayed expressing to you the formal thanks which by unanimous vote the Executive Board of our League extended to you at its meeting last Friday, for your great kindness in speaking for us last month. This I have done because we had a plan simmering in our heads for following up your plea for the starving children of Europe in some tangible way. This has occurred to us, and I wish to ask you what you think of its practicability.
We are thinking of sending the enclosed letter to ministers, asking the [cooperation] of their Sunday-school children in forming bands of Christmas "waits" to raise money by singing carols on Christmas eve and bring it to the Community tree as a part of the community offering.
I believe this idea might become popular all over the country, if it could be brought before the various city groups, whether or not it was thought wise to combine it with the community tree movement. Of course if the Tree of Light Committee took it up, it would gain great impetus.
I am submitting this plan to you before we give it any publicity, and I should be glad of any suggestions that may [occur] to you, especially as to the way the funds should be handled, through what particular committee, or [representatives. Is your] committee [organized] to receive contributions, or what of the fund which the Literary Digest is raising? Of course the Friends' Service Committee should appeal to everyone, but I thought that, as ↑I am↓ a well-known pacifist, inasmuch as the local situation will naturally be linked up with my name, as chairman of the Community-tree Committee, it might be wiser to choose a means like the Literary Digest [page 2] Fund, if that is all right.
↑P.S. Some badge or tag might have to be given to ↑accredit↓ the bands of carol singers, lest unscrupulous people should take upon themselves to exploit the idea.
I am afraid it is rather late to carry out the plan on a nation-wide scale, and yet it is so simple, that if the newspapers or December magazines, or some of the weeklies would take it up, it might go, just by its own impetus. Which do you think?↓
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