NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION
HEADQUARTERS, 505 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
October 15th, 1912.
Dear Miss Addams: --
I called you up twice on Sunday morning, but we did not seem to be able to connect after all. So I will report to you now what we did after you left Saturday afternoon.
It was not very long, to be sure, in which <that> we discussed constructive work, and yet, considering the time, it really seemed to be the most fruitful session the Board has held this year. A sad but yet hopeful indication of what we might have done if it had not been for the "Woman's Journal" nightmare.
We recommended having a finance collector in the field all the time, also a field secretary, who should travel about and keep the branch associations enlightened as to National work and necessities and strengthen the bonds of union and enlarge [cooperation] in every direction.
Then we recommended the publication of a monthly bulletin, very inexpensively printed. The idea that it should be not a suffrage paper at all, since it would not be printed for the public, but would be a means of keeping in close touch with the members and giving help and to them and getting help from them in all directions. I had gotten an estimate from the printer. One printed on newspaper, which would cost $160.00 a month including the mailing for all places except in New York city where, according to the second rate regulations, we have to pay full postage.
The second estimate, printed on book paper, which would not turn yellow quickly, $210.00, including postage.
This was on an edition of 30,000, to be sent to the dues-paying members only. [page 2]
Then we recommended that the editor of the Literature Department and the chairman of the Press Bureau be one and the same person, feeling that, with a certain [rearrangement], that plan would be entirely feasible, provided the Press Bureau should have a stenographer and that the editor of the Literature Department should not do the work of a general assistant as here to fore, but keep strictly to editing literature and managing the Press Bureau.
In view of having covered that much ground and not being able to have a quorum for Sunday morning, without a terrible strain on Mrs. Laidlaw's plans, we decided that it would be better not to try to meet.
Will you not let me know the title of your Sunday afternoon address at the Convention, as soon as you can find it convenient? It will help very much in the press work and we need it for printing the [program].
It slipped my mind to speak to you about that play "Mrs. Raford, Humanist" by Leando Brown. The play is to be published very shortly, as you know, because he wanted you to write a word of introduction. I have had one or two letters from him since and he would like very much to have the book sold here at Headquarters. Would you approve of that, or was your objection to the play something fundamental?
I trust you enjoyed flattening out Rabbi Wise and Mr. Bennett as much as the papers seemed to indicate you had the opportunity to.
Faithfully yours,
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