Jane Addams to Madeleine Zabriskie Doty, February 20, 1925

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WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM

Hull-House, Chicago.

February 20, 1925

My dear [Madeleine] Doty:

I was awfully sorry to telegraph you I could not come to Washington, but I am planning to go to Mexico for a month with Mary Smith. We leave Sunday, March 1st, and there are so many things I have to see to first that it would be utterly impossible for me to get away before. By the way I should be very grateful to you if you have any addresses you could send me. I will of course, see a great deal of Miss Landázuri who started our Branch there, and a few other people to whom I have letters. I go as Miss Smith's guest. It is wise for her because of her asthma to get away from Chicago every spring and this year she has chosen Mexico rather than California or some other place. For my own plans, another time of the year might have been easier to get away, but I am as you may know delighted to go.

I also believe it would be better to have stalwart men of various kinds appear for the measure. Is it possible Miss Balch ↑Breckinridge↓ will be in Washington at the right time? She speaks extremely well and had introduced practically the same resolution at The Hague in 1915 and is tremendously interested in it. Let me off from the article for the bulletin until I return from Mexico when I will have something fresher to say.

I am delighted at what you say about the arrangements for the program on the [interallied] debts as well as the one on economic imperialism. Sir George Paish was in to lunch with me the other day and gave a little address before the Chicago W.I.L. He is very wise on the debt question and I am awfully sorry we cannot have him.

I read part of your letter before the Chicago Branch of W.I.L. hoping they would care to invite the Convention to meet in Chicago in the spring, which I am happy to say they promptly did with great good will and hospitality. They asked me to transmit the invitation to the proper authorities, so I am writing this to you and will of course also write to Mrs. Hull, and for the sake of good form, to Dorothy Detzer. I think we would have [page 2] a good attendance from Milwaukee, Madison, St. Louis and possibly from Detroit and some of the Ohio Branches. But the disadvantage would be that the publicity would be very bad. The Chicago Tribune has a perfect genius for misrepresenting a cause such as ours. While the evening papers, the News and the Post would be fairer, they would be far from enthusiastic. However, we would have some disadvantage everywhere. It might be well to have the [interallied] debts discussion somewhere else and just take one topic for the annual convention. The Branch would offer hospitality to practically all the delegates who cared for it and I think you would find them good hostesses. 

I think the opposition to Miss Woods is centered more or less in one or two Branches in the east. I find no complaint with regard to her office work and the Western Branches felt fairly well tied up I think to the Washington office.

In regard to the Japanese American situation, I have done a good deal of speaking on Japan. We had a very good audience at the University of Chicago last evening. Sidney Gulick of the Federation of Churches has a vast amount of information and literature on the subject and of course, they are trying to have the Japanese  included on the European quota by July 1927 when the present quota arrangement will be changed. Whoever works in New York should get into relations with him. I do not of course know Prof. Buell. If he is ↑not↓ available it might be possible that Miss Rauschenbusch who is at the University of Chicago and has just returned from California where, under the direction of Prof. Park, of the University of Chicago, she has been working for months. They have a vast amount of material concerning the sentiment towards the Japanese in California and the actual situation there. I sat next to Prof. Park the other night at a dinner given by the Japanese Consul but could get him to say nothing as to his findings which he had not yet written. Miss Rauschenbusch is working with him on the material now. I will of course, be happy to sign the letter asking the American Fund to appropriate the sum of money but I should want to be sure we had a very good person. I am sending a copy of this letter to Mrs. Hull to save time and confusion.

Always devotedly yours,

Jane Addams [signed]