and seven
My dear Miss Addams:
I feel that, perhaps, no one can give us such vital help in the quiet and necessarily restricted campaign which we are trying to conduct in our magazine on the general subject indicated in the enclosed articles. May I ask if you can find time to read these expressions, and, then, let me know if I may not have the benefit of your effective cooperation to the extent of a brief article from your pen?
I am taking it for granted that necessarily this dire necessity of sending [page 2] our boys and girls out into the world with a clearer knowledge of the vital truth of life must have many times come home to you in your great work. And it is an article based upon such experiences that I would ask you to consider for us, pointing out, if you agree with us, the necessity of a more honest relation between parent and child.
We feel strongly that much of the social evil finds its beginning in this root of the whole question, and our whole object in this discussion of the matter is to awaken parents to the danger which confronts their children. It is needless for me to add, I am sure, that, of course, we must be conservative in our treatment of the subject. But two years of the closest study [page 3] of the whole question has convinced me that the question is one that, treated with a certain reserve and within prescribed limits, is distinctly one for us to take and carry up to the parents.
May I hope that, in this matter, we may receive that assistance from you that I feel would be so valuable to the effort? I may add that Mrs. Deland's article will be followed by a similar expression from Doctor Henry Van Dyke, and I am now in correspondence looking to the cooperation of Judge Mack, Cardinal Gibbons, and President Stanley Hall. It is essential, I feel, that parents shall understand that there is a widespread [page 4] concurrence of opinion along the lines of our argument from those whose experiences have touched large numbers of young people.
As to what particular phase of the matter such an article by yourself shall touch I would prefer to leave to your own inspiration and preference: likewise the length of such an article and its time of delivery.
Sincerely hoping that you may give this matter your favorable consideration, believe me,
Very cordially yours,
Edward Bok [signed]
Miss Jane Addams
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