My dear Miss Addams:
Your solution of the New York difficulty is, I believe, a very good one. Do you think it would be well for our board to send out a statement to the New York state membership, telling the ↑what↓ adjustment the arbitration committee, appointed by the National, had made? The situation must be very confusing to the minds of many.
I cannot see how the board could have acted differently at the Philadelphia meeting. We all felt we had to give Mrs. Williams a chance to act voluntarily. After the broad hints given, it did not occur to me that she would fail to act. I cannot understand Mrs. Williams nor can I understand Miss Eastman. I am in sympathy with the end Miss Eastman was striving to attain, but why did she not get up a petition signed by members in various parts of the State demanding a meeting in January or February, for the purpose of [reorganization] and send a copy of this petition to both the National Board and to Mrs. Williams? The Board could then have arranged the convention without any personal feeling. Furthermore, I consider that the first duty of both Mrs. Williams and Miss Eastman was to avoid what actually happened, if not out of consideration for the National organization of which they are a part, then at least [page 2] for the sake of clearness of issue and unity of purpose in their own state membership.
With regard to Mrs. Kent's admirable suggestion, Would it be better to try to get the Department of Agriculture to appeal to the War Department, it being the Department of Agriculture which is handicapped by lack of proper recognition. Why should the War Department dignify this National service? Why couldn't the Department of Agriculture dignify its own National service? You see the War Department and I are not very friendly. I begrudge it everything.
I will send you a quarterly statement of our finances, Miss Addams, if that is satisfactory to you.
Very cordially and gratefully yours,
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