My dear Miss Addams:
I am taking the liberty of sending you personally the results of my efforts. I am very glad to have succeeded in getting twelve new members. I am writing to you, however, not altogether because of these names but I wish to call attention to a phase of the work which has impressed me very much.
It seems to me that when the organization for peace and freedom becomes quite general that the women of the world will be able to settle the question of war, not so much through legislation as by raising a generation of men and women who will hate war. You and I are old enough to remember when the temperance movement started and the little W.C.T.U.'s began to spring up over the country. I watched the progress of that movement and feel sure that the success of the prohibition amendment was largely the result of seed sown a generation ago. If we can only get the women to feel their own power!
Would it not be possible to have war-like toys taken out of the hands of children and let mothers train them in a knowledge of the victories of peace rather than those of war, and impress upon them the horrors of war and the uselessness of it? I wish that our organization might stress this part of the work a little more, if you think it is wise.
Just as I was coming down with arthritis, the women were good enough to appoint me a delegate to Genoa and it was with a very sad heart that I gave up going. Five years have passed and I am still crippled. Am now in a wheelchair but, thanks be to God, I am greatly improved and am expecting to walk. When that glad day comes, I hope to attend some of the meetings. I do hope you are in good health again and I send my very best wishes to you and your [coworkers].
Very truly yours,
Mary B. Bryan [signed]
P.S. I am appending a note or two about the members whom I have secured -- it may be of use to the secretary.
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