November 18, 1917.
My dear Mrs. Karsten:
I sent to you and Miss Addams yesterday in haste a carbon of a letter I wrote to Mrs. Hull and Mrs. Mead. On the margin I asked you if you would not please ask Miss Gale if she could speak at the banquet of the Annual Meeting. I had rather given up the idea of asking her, since we were to have so few speakers, but I found that the other members of the Committee and Miss Addams thought well of having her, and the time is short, and I do not know her address at this moment and you may. We may not get an acceptance from her in time to put it on the preliminary program, but my idea is to put on that program the general subject and all the names of speakers from whom we have had acceptances, and add more names and all the special subjects to the completed program which will be put into the hands of the members at Philadelphia.
As you know from the carbon sent you yesterday, I have written Mrs. Hull asking particulars as to the places of our meetings, and if they have been able to arrange for the evening meeting on the 6th and the banquet on the 7th. As I understand it, Mrs. Hull and Mrs. Lewis and the Chicago office are the Committee looking after these things. My correspondence with Mrs. Hull and Mrs. Mead has had to do with the speakers for the banquet, though I really do not yet know whether they have been able to arrange for the banquet. If I get these particulars from Mrs. Hull Wednesday, as I hope to do, with acceptance from those to whom I have written in regard to speaking, I can get the material in the hands of the printer that day, and I think he will be able to get the preliminary programs into the mail -- parcel post -- for you by Thursday evening. Shall I send them to 116 South Michigan Avenue? How many do you want?
I am going to use the Tentative Program you sent out a while ago. ↑(It was↓ written on thin paper.↑)↓ I will add, after "Report of the Treasurer," "Report of the Executive Secretary." In the little group of sentences about Committees I will indent "Nominating Committee" and "Resolutions Committee" to show that they are the Committees to be elected. "Discussion of change of names" I will correct to "name". Do you think of any [page 2] other changes that ought to be made? Please send me a night-letter when you receive this, either telling me of small changes or additions, and about Miss Gale if you have heard from her, or asking me to wait for letter before printing, if that seems more desirable.
I will recapitulate about the speakers for the banquet so far:
Miss Richards and Mrs. Young have been asked and are unable to come.
We are counting on Miss Addams to close.
Miss Abbott has accepted and Mrs. Evans has accepted to Mrs. Mead.
On the advice of Mrs. Hull or Mrs. Mead or both I have invited Mrs. Cothren, Miss Balch, Mrs. Harold Buttenheim of Madison, N.J., Mrs. Martha P. Falconer, Superintendent of Girls' Reformatory, Philadelphia.
I have asked Mrs. Karsten to invite Miss Gale.
This makes seven besides Miss Addams, which is the number Miss Addams recommends. But of course we are likely not to get Miss Gale. Then I think it would be fine to have Mrs. Lewis make an appeal for money. I think that comes better from a local person, and Mrs. Lewis has so much sweetness and dignity that I think she would do it splendidly. Had her name better go on the program? Perhaps she had just better be introduced at the time. And I think it would be fine if we could get Mrs. Charles R. Crane there to say a few words on Russia, and Mrs. Fels to [illegible] say a few words on international experience, as Miss Addams suggests. We need not put their names on the preliminary program, and perhaps not on the other. And Mrs. Crane might not take her full time as she is not accustomed to speaking. Still I think it would be fine to have them. Will you not ask Miss Addams about this and let me know, please?
In her letter to me of the 15th Miss Addams asked if we had not better have, say Dr. Hull and Mr. Rowe, so as not to have it exclusively our own members. I am not now doing anything about that, both because we seem to have our lists full anyway, and because I am thinking that if they do not get Mr. Angell and Dr. Lynch,[1] or only one of them, we shall have to fall back on just those two men if we can get them. Will you ask Miss Addams about this, please, and let me know. If we had better get them for either meeting I think the Philadelphia people had better undertake it.
Cordially yours,
Alice Thacher Post [signed]
[1] For the evening of the 6th.
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