20th June 1924.
My Dear Miss Addams:
I wonder whether or not it would be possible for me to see a verbatim report of the lectures of Professor Miller and Professor Lovett which were delivered at the Summer School. They are among those which I missed and which I have heard contained exceedingly valuable material about press matters. I would be very much obliged if you could give me a chance to look [through] these manuscripts.
I wonder, Miss Addams, whether a Peace Mission to Japan could not be organized now along the lines of the European Peace Missions?
I wish to take this chance also to thank you for the personal efforts you made to place me on both the programs of the Congress and of the Summer School. I know what opposition faced you and I appreciate very much this expression of your personal solidarity.
At the same time, I want also to answer a question which has been put to me repeatedly since I mentioned the [coat and] Hull House rumors. Ever since I have been in Chicago, I have heard mentioned among other stories the definite statement that residents of Hull House say that I ran away with a coat of yours. I have never considered it necessary to deal with these absurd stories which is entirely personal and has nothing whatever to do with the peace movement, but lately when my name was again used to harm the pacifist cause and the coat story was also used in connection with the assertion that I am a person with whom decent persons cannot associate. That is why I mention it in the list of other stories. I have not the slightest idea who started that rumor, nor can I imagine to what it refers. There are two coat stories in my associations with you, Miss Addams. The one in that a coat of mine, along with your own coat and other articles were stolen from the stage of the [theater] where I gave an address where you were presiding. The other coat story is that when in 1916, I went to Bar Harbor to see Jacob Schiff, my trunk did not arrive with me in the morning. You had kindly made the appointment with Mr. Schiff for the same afternoon and in the evening, I was to leave for New York. You loaned me a cape for the visit to Mr. Schiff and when I left later, you insisted on my taking the cape with me, as it was a chilly evening and you were afraid I would catch cold on the boat. When I offered to send it back from the boat, you told me not to bother about it, to give it perhaps [page 2] to the chamber maid in the hotel, as it was an old garment which you were no longer wearing. On your insisting on this point, I told you that I would dispose of it in Europe where there was greater need for it. I arrived in Hungary at the same time that the Transylvanian refugees came up because of the [Romanians] had invaded Hungary. With many other things, taken out of my own and my mother's wardrobe, I gave your cape to Mme. Urmossy, the wife of the Unitarian pastor from Transylvania, who with her husband was one of our pacifist and feminist leaders. They had fled, leaving all their earthly possessions, with several children one of whom died [in consequence], and we feminists tried to give as much help and relief as possible to the [coworkers], going to especial trouble with the Urmossy family, because they were among our most valuable [coworkers]. Should the famous story still circulate in Hull House emanating from this cape affair, I would beg you to explain the matter to those who still keep the story alive. The Urmossy family has returned to Transylvania, communication is extremely difficult, if not impossible, but I would consider it good sport to hunt them up and get their statement that they still have the black cape among the things which my mother and I gave them.
Trusting that you have rested after the great fatigue of the Peace weeks and that you are satisfied with the results of the International gathering, I am,
Cordially yours,
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