Hotel Pomona The Hague Holland
My dear Mr Hudson
During the week Miss Hamilton and I were in The Hague waiting here to have our passports arranged for Germany. We met the Austrian Ambassador to the Netherlands Baron Franz. He was of course much distressed about the terms of the treaty and had refused to be one of the Austrian delegates in Paris because he felt so hopeless.
We returned here from Germany yesterday and met him quite by accident in a hotel at Schevenegen last evening.
He had evidently reconsidered and was starting to Paris [today]. He begged us with great earnestness to do anything we could which might ↑make↓ it possible for him to talk with an American or English member of the Peace Commission. He said that all of his negotiations would have to be carried on through M. Dutaste whom he knows and considers much too conventional and formal to treat satisfactorily so complicated a situation.
We were so well impressed with his sincerity and evident distress that without mentioning any names we said that we would try to present to some American member in Paris his very strong desire. We of course wish very much that you yourself could see him and at least get his point of view. [page 2]
May we venture to mention still another matter.
Here at The Hague we have seen several people interested in the meeting that is being arranged for Sept. by the International Organization of the Protestant Churches.
They are much troubled over the condition of the Calvinists and Unitarians in that part of Transylvania which has been given to [Romania]. The Bishop of the Unitarian Church has been imprisoned and [although] now released is still under guard in his own house; all Protestant schools have been closed.
They tell us that religious liberty is not safeguarded in the [Romanian] Treaty as it is in the Polish, that article 12 in the Polish treaty in which the provisions relating to freedom of worship and education are made of international interest and placed under the control of the League of Nations, fails to appear in the [Romanian] treaty.
They also say that in article 10 the word Jewish is used instead of "denominational" which would cover the dissenting Christians as well as the Jews.
The [Romanian] treaty specifies only Saxons and Czecklars and as Magyars are not mentioned, the Roman Catholics, Calvinists and Unitarians of that nationality have no rights [guaranteed] them.
I am sure you will understand the motives with which we write and will kindly forgive the vagaries of the horrible typewriter which we have rented for the purpose of making a report to the Quakers on our German trip, until the sailors on our ship cease to strike.
Faithfully yours,
July
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