↑Dear Miss Addams
This may [interest you
Yours
E Balch↓
Dear Miss Balch,
Many thanks for yours of the 9th. February, also for the copies of Pax et Libertas which I shall distribute.
The pacifist women's movement here is not ready to be developed yet for several reasons.
I. For obvious reasons, nationalist feeling is very strong all through the Balkans and with the success of Greece and her territorial aggrandizement, nationalist feeling is more than ever strong. There are however many women who are quite fundamentally pacifist, and many others who will be later. I, myself, do not consider the time ripe yet here. What I should wish to do if I stay on here would be to keep our paper "Pax et Libertas" before the women of all shades and later, when their organizations are more steadily fixed, to put before them the pacifist ideal.
II. This, to my mind, is a very important point: that any work done out here should be done, if possible as a Balkan main organization with, of course national organizations as well. The answer here and throughout the Balkans generally is [illegible] how can we be
pacifists
socialist {etc. etc.
communist
unless [Romania]
Bulgaria { etc. are more or less
Serbia
of the same mind. This applies, and will do, I'm sure, very much to any feminist pacifist work out here and I therefore feel that [organization] on this line would be extremely valuable -- even if for the [immediate?] present it has to consist [of] groups of individuals. I was awfully glad to note that [we], the W.I.L -- have already one Balkan correspondent at least, namely the Bulgarian and I should be awfully interested to know if she has made much headway in Bulgaria, and [what?] she thinks of the feminist-pacifist ideal in the Balkans generally. It would be excellent if -- for the present the paper, "Pax et Libertas" were to be read by even one or two of the leading women in each of [their] countries and they would -- with an occasional push from you in Geneva! -- spread [gradually] through the women's societies till there would be a society definitely W.I.L. The Serbians are the people I know best out here, after the Greeks, and that is only because I know their minister here very well. They have now considerable feminist movement but so far I do not know of any pacifist feminists though there must be many in a country which has suffered so much from war are. I shall either write you more fully later and hope to be able to give you a more useful report when I come to Geneva in June.
My husband is trying hard to get a job in Switzerland as we are afraid the climate out here won't suit Baby who is at present in England, as much as this part of the world interests me I can't leave my Baby for three whole years. I suppose there is now work I could get with the W.I.L. in Geneva or any other position you know of amongst the many international movements in Switzerland. I think I wrote you more or less about my qualifications before and I am adding to them out here by teaching enormous [page 2] classes of English and enjoying the work very much; the Greeks are so intelligent. Please do let me know if you hear of any thing I might do. It would mean much to me to get my family settled in Switzerland which I know so well.
Very sincerely yours,
(signed) Mrs. Winifred Giles.
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