Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
SECTION FOR THE UNITED STATES
7 High St White Plains New York
March 15, 1920
Dear Miss Addams
Thank you for kind letter of the 10th. The title you suggest for the New Orleans meeting is excellent and will be listed at once.
The time will be Friday Afternoon the 16th of April. I hope the place will be the Unitarian Church as I have asked for it. The pastor is away I fear just now hence delay.
I am writing today to all listed as desired for the meeting and am writing also Miss Grace Abbott to see if she cannot act as alternate for Miss Lathrop in case Miss. L. is not back in time.
I will keep you informed as to all matters connected with New Orleans meeting, but do not want to bother you since you have so much to do.
I am sending out an appeal with the Call for the Annual Meeting of April 23rd and 24th.
The Appeal is rather a personal one from my own point of view of what is needed but as it is my valedictory I felt it right to urge the things that seem to me vital for the future of the organization.
I leave ↑home↓ at the end of this week for a little mission trip in interest of W.I.L.
There is one matter about which I wish to speak to you and to the other general officers and perhaps to the Vice Chairman. It is about Mrs Karsten's compensation for her six months work for our Section. The task of circularizing old and new members and all the detail work of testing whether or not we could have a live Section has given her more than half-time work and that of a sort which is least interesting. I feel we should not accept from her so great a sacrifice. I want to increase the compensation, from the $75. she so generously fixed, to at least $100. for each month. That would make us give her $150. at the end of the engagement at the Annual Meeting.
I wanted to speak of this at some Board meeting but Mrs Karsten was unwilling. So it seemed I ought to try to secure a quiet acquiescence of those of the inner circle and fix it right for the end of her engagement. I have not spoken to any one else of course as you are the one to be first consulted. There is no haste for your answer unless you are writing about some other matter as you must be overwhelmed with duties. But I wanted you to know what I felt about this. [page 2]
I have received the letter from Miss Balch about the Summer Institute. I think the idea excellent but wonder if Miss Balch realizes the detail work involved. As I have conducted ↑Summer↓ Institutes for ten years in the past I know that she needs great support for such an enterprise and it in ordinary circumstances should have been started in February to get ready in season. However if she can do it I shall be more than pleased. One thing I am writing her in response to her request for suggestions and that is that the Institute should be held in a neutral country, not in any other; and especially not in Germany which she mentions as a possibility. That would hamper your work as International President in a most serious manner in any of the Allied countries, especially in our own. You have more than a year of service to which you are pledged and nothing avoidable should be done to make your task harder here or elsewhere.
↑I think you will approve the form of Program sent out with my appeal [and] the ball.↓
Yours sincerely
Anna Garlin Spencer
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