January 27, 1915.
My dear Miss Addams: --
At the instance of Mrs. Henry D. Villard I am writing you with regard to the publicity campaign for the Woman's Peace Party.
The launching of this party is the most enlightened movement in the history of the world and humanity is ready for it, if only it can be presented convincingly.
To gather an ever increasing membership pledged heart and soul to peace, to disarmament, to all the other humane purposes of the Woman's Peace Party is the function of publicity. The mere reporting of meetings and speeches will not suffice. Real news stores must be worked up, stories keyed to the policies of the various types of publication. Channels as widely different as the San Diego News and the Atlantic Monthly must be used.
An interesting commentary on the dearth of peace news appeared last week in the Independent. It said "Not a line about the Conference appeared the next morning in five of the six leading New York newspapers which found space to devote sixty-three of their valuable columns to the man-killing in Europe."
It should be the part of the Woman's Peace Party to furnish the press with an adequate substitute for at least a part of the war news which it now so sensationally exploits.
Last autumn I opened an office for publicity. Therefore I am equipped to undertake just such work as the promotion of the Woman's Peace Party. My long experience as a reporter and an editor leads me to believe that it is quite possible to win over a now indifferent press to the furtherance of this greatest of all conversation movements.
Sincerely yours,
Katherine Leckie [signed]
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