My dear Miss Addams,
I have just written to Mrs. Post that I endorse her letter to Mrs. Cumberson. While I personally have approved the Russian terms as a rough and ready slogan, I don't think it wise for our W.P.P. to officially endorse it. It would do neither us nor the cause any good. I think such a statement as I drew up is as far as we want to go just now and perhaps even that [page 2] would better be deferred until after the President acts on the Pope's message. I leave that to your decision.
I fear the Allies will act separately and present no united front and show no wisdom. If Pres. Wilson could write a statement that all could agree to and could put the League of Nations and economic freedom in the forefront, it would, I believe, enormously lessen the tension and lead to negotiations.
Mr. Cohen wrote to me that I was put on the committee for drawing up terms of peace for discussion at Minneapolis. [page 3] I declined to serve on any committee but wrote him in some detail as to what I thought and I wrote Prof. Hull a long letter upon his terms of Peace of which I suppose you received a copy. I think it should be revised and rearranged and it made plain what can be stated now, what should come at the Peace Conference and what The Hague Conference can and ought to do.
I don't agree as to his immediate call for a Hague Conf. nor to his leaving to The Hague the adjustment of all the territorial problems, except as to detail. The main decisions should be arranged at the Peace Conf. and the main principles stated [page 4] now. I am distressed at the refusal of Congress, the press and the public to do any real thinking on these questions and <also> at some of the indiscreet statements of the pacifists connected with the People's Council: "impeach the President," "Kaiser Wilson" and some of the phrases in the typewritten memoranda on Purposes of War sent by Mr. Cohen are calculated to do more harm than good. I do wish that the repeal of conscription could be dropped from the permanent program, it is so futile and such a handicap to the rest.
I have tried to stir up Mr. Mous and some others to send a statement to our Congressmen, but since the Pope's message they say now is the time to be quiet. My efforts to [written in margins of page 1] stir up our editors but have accomplished little. I wrote to Messrs. Hull and Lynch about Angell's article. Dr. L. spent 4 hours with Mr. A and said "A. also met a group of Columbia men and would be here sometime trying to [spread] his idea. Dr. Battin & he say England is as sick of the war as Germany.["]
Yours
L. A. Mead
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