May 12th, 1915.
Dear Miss Addams:
I fear you could not make out my hastily scribbled post-card note which I left for you at St. Ermin's this afternoon, so I send this. I could not get there in time to hear your speech, and although I am going tomorrow night to the meeting in Kingsway Hall, I yet wish I could have a private talk with you sometime this week, if you find it possible.
I worked and wrote against the Conference in The Hague. I believed it was ill-advised. I believe in peace and the war makes me unhappy, and I have to work hard all the time for Belgium and the Cause of the Allies, or I should go mad. Yet, I believe in this war as the only way to peace. I work for the dismemberment of the German Empire, I wish that the United States, the land of my birth, would come into it. I do all I can to bring the United States in. I want to see all the world against Germany. I was amazed at Mrs. May Wright [Sewall's] letter saying that for her "this war could have no victories, but she felt all its defeats" and asking me to send a message to the Congress to be held in San Francisco. It was a circular letter, I think, and hundreds of other women must have got one like it. I sent her my message and asked her to read it at the Congress. I am afraid it will not be read, for it was <not> the message she could have expected.
Miss Addams, I want you to tell me the way all this seems to you. We are countrywomen and fellow Suffragists. We met first in New York and afterwards in Budapest. We work for the same ends.
With my very best wishes and thanks for much that you have done for me, believe me,
Yours sincerely,
Elizabeth Banks
("Enid" of the Referee)
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