INTERNATIONALE FRAUENLIGA FÜR FRIEDEN UND FREIHEIT DEUTSCHER ZWEIG
TELEFON: ↑Lützow 2046↓
Dear Miss Addams,
I was extremely glad to hear by Miss Balch that you are back in Chicago and we all hope that you are enjoying full health again. I should like to be with you in Hull House this afternoon discussing these horrid conditions of our old Continent with you. We sometimes say a wise, kind woman ought to come & say a redeeming word that all those quarreling parties: France & Germany, the Separatists & the Non-Separatists, Jews & Gentiles, peasants & town-people, workers & employers could find a basis of negotiation. But it seems as if the gulf between all of them is becoming deeper & deeper. You certainly heard about those dreadful Putsch-days in Munich, but probably we shall have a dictatorship of some kind throughout the whole country. We feel very strongly that all those circles who are again giving their generous help in America should use all their influence possible to have the German Republic secured.
The League is doing or better trying the utmost [page 2] to keep the work going. Reconciliation with France seems to us the key of the pacification of Europe & therefore we are collecting jewels, gold & money to contribute to the reconstruction of North France. I had -- after my visit in Paris at the Quai d'Orsay -- some most interesting days in the devastated areas which left a very deep impression in my soul and stirred me up so that I am speaking for the reconstruction of France 3, 4 & 5 times a week. And it is the unemployed or nearly unemployed who are keenest to contribute & who thank us for giving them the opportunity to repair & repay. And it seems ↑to be↓ very similar in France. Good-will breeds good-will. Our comrades there are organizing a most generous campaign for the children & their families in the Ruhr district. They are going to correspond with 300 children sending them books, food, clothes etc., thus preparing the ground to invite them for future holidays. The W.I.L. Ruhr Commission (Mrs Beskow -- Stockholm & Lady Annesley -- London) did splendid work in Essen-Duisburg, [Bremen] etc. & we hope very much that it will be possible for them to return to the Ruhr as soon as possible.
Except this Franco-German reconciliation work there is always lot of political work. The 8 hours day is in danger, the Reich is going to reduce 25% of their employees and the women are the first to be dismissed !!!]. The horrible danger of all the illegal bands being [page 3] armed & sent to the Bavarian frontier etc. etc. Patience & Zielsicherheit are the tools we are needing [today]. Our goal is [nonviolence] at any rate & this tactics mean a serious struggle with most men pacifists who want to protect the Republic with "physical means." These times are more than any others a touch stone for the consequence of men.
I am just coming back from meetings in Saxony. Conditions there are dreadful; 1, 2 millions of a population of 5 millions are starving. To suffer ↑from↓ hunger & cold is bad, to be sure, but to see people starving & freezing & not to be able to help is worst of all. The tension between the salaries -- if they ↑people↓ are still working -- which are paid in paper money & the prices which are to be paid in gold mark & which are already at least 3 times as high as [1914] is so enormous that nobody knows how to get along. This winter will be hard for many, many people.
The French Section asks me to come & speak in a big public meeting in Paris. I expect to [page 4] go in December or January passing Geneva on my [illegible] way in order to help Vilma Glücklich for some days.
Did you get any news from Tomi Wada & our other Japanese friends after the catastrophe. She wrote me an extremely good & clever letter on your stay there & their work & I should be glad, indeed, to know whether they suffered from the consequences of the [earthquake] or whether they were safe. Have you been in China? And are there any young people working in our spirit? I am getting news from different countries now & am trying to get the young people [illegible] in touch with each other.
We are, of course, extremely glad & grateful that our American Section is going to [organize] the next congress. I personally, however, would have preferred to see you here, because your presence would help us enormously. Thus we Europeans will have to be very patient, until we shall see you again in 1926.
My very best wishes to you! May I ask you to give kindest greetings to Miss Smith, Dr. Hamilton, Mrs. [Kohn], Mrs Jowitt, Miss Norah Hamilton & the whole of Hull House. Yours very gratefully
Gertrud Baer.
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