June 9th. 1916.
Dear Miss Balch,
Your letter of May 30th. reached us, and Dr. Jacobs and I have tried to change our opinion. However we are sorry to say that it is absolutely unadvisable to hold a meeting now. Dutch women cannot obtain a pass to go through Germany, English women cannot come, French and Italian women cannot come. German women do not even get our letters or wires so we could not even let them know there is a meeting. So we think that if a meeting was held it should be far too [one-sided], as we do not think Miss F. would like to be called as the representative of the other side.
We also received another wire from Miss Macmillan saying: "I agree meeting impossible if Dutch cannot attend."
Should you call a meeting notwithstanding all reasons, mentioned by us for not holding it just now, we shall be obliged to say to our Committee-members that it is not an official meeting of the I.C.W.P.P. as not one of the officers of the board can be present.
Of course you are free to ask Miss Addams to call the meeting, but we do not think Miss Addams can judge about the present condition of Europe. We therefore sincerely hope and trust you, who are assembled at Copenhagen, will see and understand our point of view, we are sure Miss Macmillan agrees with us. We still believe it will be <most> useful to let us know what proposals you can make, as then we might be able to undertake some new work at the Headquarters. [page 2]
Perhaps it would be possible for some of you to come to the Headquarters and help us to do some work.
I have also asked in my last letter if you would let me have a report for "Internationaal" of your last meeting.
With kind greetings from Dr. Jacobs and myself,
Yours sincerely,
A copy of this letter has been sent to Miss Addams, Miss Macmillan and Miss Daugaard.
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