January 19. 1915.
My dear Miss Addams,
I was so disappointed to find you had left Washington before I could thank you for the great work you have done, and beg you therefore to accept my very, very warmest thanks in this way.
I prepare to report to those [organizations] which had given me their credentials that my mission came to its end. The new [organization] being the bearer of the work, I hope and I am sure it will carry on the work with full success, while I have to admit -- and I do it with aching heart -- that I have been a complete failure.
And may I here make a personal remark. When you look back now to the Washington meeting, will you do me justice in admitting that it would have been perfectly the same without my presence? That it didn't make the slightest difference [whether] I have been there or not. I am [accustomed] to [criticize] myself very sincerely. I know very well when I am of use but also when I am a failure. In [Washington] I was not a failure, but I was of no special value. Foreseeing this I felt justified in [withdrawing.]
I hope Cleveland sent you the report of our very promising start. I am sure you get an excellent [organization] through Mrs Williams one of the finest young, earnest and enthusiastic workers I met in the U. St. She is ready to devote her whole time to the [organization] of Ohio and Cleveland, but she has to depend on a salary.
In Cleveland as well as in some other places people didn't see clearly what the organization in Washington meant as the press arrangements [were] as poor as possible and were chiefly concerned with pushing a few names.
I hope you get the best publicity agent in the U. St. as the success depends chiefly on good press engagement.
Mrs Lloyd with whom I spent two delightful working days here will bring you material of great value to the propaganda of the stop the war part of your platform. Having had different suggestions from Mrs Evans and Mrs Villard I informed Mrs Lloyd of readiness to do the [international] part. I would be only too glad to do this part of the work, but I [would] under no circumstances accept Mrs Evans suggestion to be "Paid [organizer] of the Party." I discussed with Mrs Lloyd the conditions under which I would be ready to work here entirely under the name of the Party, [without] being dependent of it. She will report you on this matter.
If you could give me the simple commission to begin the information of the foreign countries I should love to start while I am here, so that those poor [page 2] European women shall regain their faith and the little hope they may have.
Miss Emily Hobhouse's suggestion that some of the English Stop the war pacifists should come over should be accepted and would be of infinite value. Not being mixed up with the [ill-famed] militancy they would be of purest value. Her letter was unfortunately lost in Mrs. Catt's desk and is therefore much delayed and surely requires an urgent answer. She was one of the women who had given me credentials before [I] left Europe.
Anyway I send today a copy of the Peace Party's leaflet to all our European presidents, to the neutral countries I enclose the slightly changed one of which Mrs Lloyd has a copy and which I am going to propose everywhere where I shall have a chance to help in forming Circles. It will show them that we remain in the line which they had supported at the beginning.
May I also draw your attention to an article of Mr H. Holt in the Independent of 10th August "The duties of the Neutral Countries" and to the Article on Holland for Stop the war in the Evening Post/N.Y/of 15. Jan/4. page. An editorial in the Chicago Daily News in December supporting entirely the stop the War idea together with the mentioned articles and other press material I could help to find, would be of suggestive value if reproduced and spread.
I think it is unnecessary for me to assure you that I am more than eager to be [at] your disposal in anything that may further the work of the W.P.P.
The world has come to such a point of [indescribable] misery that race suicide, an earthquake carrying us away at once seems to me the most desirable thing. Meantime -- work.
With deep gratitude for what you are doing
affectionately yours
Comments