Dear Miss Addams --
Your article on the aftermath of the war has just come, & I have read it with great interest. It is a very moving statement, & your historic parallels are most enlightening. Your Survey chapter about Mr Wilson is a most important contribution to the study of political [page 2] psychology, & will have to be reckoned with in the final summing up of his career.
We hope much from your book -- it will interpret and so do a great deal in the necessary work of reconciliation. It is a great thing to bring people to see that a great ideal is a [page 3] living thing among a group of true souls -- perhaps the lesson of tolerance is one that must be learned before either pacifism or peace shall become possible. Both my heart & my mind cry for the pacifist position in its most positive [non-resistant] [page 4] form. Along with it however is a horrid instinct to act & with force. This dualism is I imagine common enough among the run of men. Interpretation of the [mind] you better than any one else can do helps us greatly.
I am much impressed by what you [page 5] say of the strain which the pacifist group had to bear. I saw a good deal of Walter Rauschenbusch and know some thing of the physical & mental agony he suffered -- the difficulty he had in finding peace, fellowship or understanding. [page 6] The position of the Quakers was the best, they having an honorable tradition on which to rest & spiritual fellowship. I craved a Quaker parentage for Rauschenbusch.
Many thanks for sending me the article. If there are reprints I will gladly distribute some of them.
Faithfully yours
Albert Kennedy
Feb 14/22
Comments