WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM
December 12th, 1924.
Dear Miss Addams,
Many thanks for your letter which struck me like a motherly comfort to an orphan. I am awfully sorry to have given the impression that I am longing for more money from America and that I do not find it a matter of course to keep to a budget. On the contrary: I am worrying for the U.S. fellow-workers and especially you having so much bother with our financial difficulties and trying to cut down expenses, if income cannot be raised over here; and I am worrying about the budget being such that I do not feel able to keep to it, and still do not find the way to reconcile these contradictions. I beg to hint at a mistake of yours: the budget does not allow [$1000.00], but only Fr. [1000.00] + [$200.00] or even less for printing.
Perhaps it will interest you to see the enclosed letter, the second addressed by Miss Heymann to the European Sections, of which hardly one or two will be able to give a [favorable] answer. She has also written in the same sense to the Associate Members in Germany. Mme. Duchêne is also very much concerned with the question, and is calling the few members of the section who are better off to a special financial Conference.
As to reading the English text of our publications, it is not this our British Section has suggested: they propose an International Literature Committee for the approval of manuscripts. When -- on Miss Coutney's suggestion -- I sent them Dr. Woker's manuscript, they questioned the reliability of its statements and sent it back to me after about a month, as I told them that its publication had been voted by the Congress, without touching its text.
As to this Literature Committee, five of our Executive Members are opposed to it, Mrs. Ramondt would accept it only for Manifestos etc., Miss Balch, Mrs. [Hertzka] and Miss Marshall have not [page 2] answered as yet and I am abstaining. But I feel obliged to tell you that observing the [behavior] of the British Section, I should by no means feel sure of the international character of our publications if they were to be directed by them. If you remember Mrs. Swanwick's article on the New Reparations Settlement, you will understand that I had not translated ↑it↓ into French, because it was decidedly not impartial. Since, they have decided not to accept the invitation of the Cahiers' Commission to draft the second part of the Cahier on "The first steps to be taken," but at the same time addressed to the sections a questionnaire on the same matter. When I asked the sections to send two copies of their answer, so that it may serve at the same time for the Cahiers Commission -- which had asked for it before, but had not sent out its circular letter, waiting for the answer from England -- Miss Courtney almost protested against a second part of the Cahier being edited at all. When she was here, she told me that she could not accept to be a member of the Cahiers' Commission, but that she would appoint somebody else of the British Section to it. Their circular letter about our object does not show very much feeling for international work neither; if we only want to do what corresponds to our national habits and feelings, what is the use of keeping up an international machinery at the cost of great sacrifice? I am quite heartbroken since I have [realized] this; it is one of the worst disappointments that ever happened to me.
As to the housekeeping work here, I am enquiring about three people: a French woman recommended by Mme. Jouve, a Swiss suggested by Miss Heymann and Miss Raven, a Dutch woman who speaks French very well and has been here for a month in 1922. I feel that a French speaking housekeeper would make the house more attractive for Genevese people, who are somewhat disappointed when they come in and find us speaking English and consider us too much a foreign colony. Besides, Miss Holmes is feeling that our Japanese friends are showing less confidence than before the immigration bill toward our American members. Even Mr. Nitobe seemed to her changed in this respect. Of course, I had to send him our resolutions for his publication and he might have looked for a protest of the Congress. Should I get to a definite agreement with somebody, I will wire you in order to avoid double engagements. I wish you could send us a good voluntary office-worker even for half-day work, to make up for my deficiency in English.
Many thanks for your letter on accounts which we shall forward to the auditor.
Hoping very much to be able to send you less disagreeable letters in the future
yours devotedly
Vilma Glücklich [signed]
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