Dear Jane Addams, --
I have been trying for some time to get a chance to write you a personal letter. I should like to send you one each week, but until I have [someone] who can take [shorthand] it is almost impossible with all the work there is to do.
I have already taken Ann Zueblin on at fifteen a week until I can hear from you. She cannot yet do [shorthand] but is a great help and I could not have gotten through the work without this extra assistance.
By this time you will have had a copy of the first Bulletin and that will give you a lot of news. You will never know the agony it was to get out that first copy with a printer who didn't speak English. It was at first a hopeless mess but by staying up until 2 A.M. a couple of nights and spending one day in the printing office it was finally achieved. The next time I am hoping it will be much easier for I think I have at last got it into the Swiss mind that we must have both exactness and speed. The night we got off the copies to our American International members, I actually had the printer dashing back and forth from the Maison Internationale in a taxi with five volunteer women workers putting the Bulletin in envelopes and shipping them to [America]. I don't think this quiet little town of Geneva ever had such an exhibition of speed. The speed was necessary because if it hadn't gotten off Thursday it couldn't have caught the steamer Saturday and the next steamer a week later would have made the delivery in [America] in December when the Bulletin is a November issue, which would have been bad.
But it was only the 915 ↑U.S.↓ International members to whom I got the "Pax International" off, the 7000 copies had to go a couple of days later and I fear that will mean they will not reach the members until the first of December.
We are now in the throes of getting out the French and German editions. There are many complications in all this for each section has to have its own particular set of Objects which will suit that section to say nothing of differences in [page 2] addresses. Also I see I have got to take quite a strong stand about the Bulletin and use my own judgement a good deal.
For instance Mlle. Gobat while approving of the English edition of the Bulletin wanted to change it very much in the French edition leaving out Ella Boynton's article and putting in only the things that the French people would like. With a great deal of difficulty I persuaded her that there were plenty of French papers written just to suit French people and the whole value of our little news sheet was that it was International and meant to represent the feelings of all our sections and all nations and not for the benefit of any one.
You see no two people think alike. Mrs Zueblin and one or two of the people in the League of Nations group particularly liked Ella Boynton's article. So it seems to me the thing to do is to be quite impartial with all the sections. This I think you will approve of, for it is just what you manage to do so splendidly. I shall take articles from all our members if they are well written and interesting, have a fine spirit, express our faith and do not make tactless blunders. To try to suit [everybody] in the "manner" of writing is impossible. Mlle Gobat felt Ella Boynton's article was written in too light a vein. Imagine Ella Boynton being thought too "light"!!! I submitted the English edition to Madame Duchene before going ahead with the French edition and she was quite satisfied and did not agree with Mlle Gobat.
Then the Germans wanted to put the "Pax International" in the "Frau im Statt." It was hard to resist them on this for I knew what a help with the printing bill it would be to Lida Heymann. But of course it would never do. Each section would sooner or later want to incorporate the "Pax International" in some paper of their own and we would not have an official organ at all. The great value of "Pax International" is that it is a message every month from International Headquarters about what is happening there and in the different sections. It is the thing that will pull us together and more and more it ought to go to every individual member and not just to the heads of the sections. I am [everywhere] begging for the names of local members in order to send them a complimentary copy and see if we can't build up a fine group of subscribers.
At the present moment our friends like Lida Heymann and Anita Augspurg are in the Maison Internationale making the German translation for me. They have just had another disaster in their existence. They sold their country house and put a large part of the money, (the first payment) in the bank and a few days ago the bank closed the doors. Which meant the poor things were [penniless]. So I invited them to come here for a couple of weeks until they could turn around. I had a little money of my own which I used for their [carfare] and then I insisted that two of the bedrooms which are unoccupied should be given them free of cost and that the League would pay the house their board bill for they are working eight hours a day for the League. Not only are they helping with the translation but they are going over our German papers and weeding out for me those that have value so the rest can be disposed of.
Also it will be the best thing in the world if our different members particularly the Board can come here and stay. It gives them a better understanding of all the work there is to do how little money we have to do it with and the great difficulty of pleasing all sections and treating [everybody] alike. [page 3] There is no doubt about it association breeds tolerance.
It interested me enormously that while Gertud Baer was at first very positive that the Subject for the next congress must be Non-Violence and the English were equally positive it must be Arbitration and International Law the program as outlined by Gertrud Baer included for the topics to discuss, Colonial Imperialism, Compulsory Arbitration, and Total Disarmament, and that these three things were also in the English agenda. You ↑see↓ the difference was much more of a surface thing than either section realized and with the subject "The Next Steps Towards Peace" I think every one will be happy.
You will be glad to hear I am carrying on a most friendly correspondence with the English, even though I have been hot on their trail to send us some money or else let me appeal to the English members for funds for they have sent nothing as yet this year. Miss Courtney has invited ↑me↓ to attend their Executive Committee on December the eighth which I am planning to do and they are arranging and "at home" for me on the ninth when I am to be allowed to appeal for funds.
Then the Irish have offered to pay my expenses from London to Dublin if I would come to Ireland for two or three days and help them and this I have agreed to do. It is difficult to be away from here so long for it takes two weeks solid, to get out the three editions of the Bulletin. But I will get out the December issue before leaving and dash back in time to get out the January issue.
As to the house I am trying little by little to do what I can. I am attempting to make it less like a boarding house and more like a home. Fraulein [Hattinga-Raven] is awfully good hearted underneath. She will do any thing in the world for you but she always says "no" and "I can't." I discovered however that she was a Theosophist and believed in working out her Karma so I suggested if she always said no she might have to come back and do it all over again, and she agreed and now she nearly always says yes to me.
Jesting aside, I am persuading Fraulein H. that it a better principle to have the members who come to the Maison Internationale pay a lump sum whatever was ↑is↓ necessary to cover expenses and then let the members use the place as though it was [their] home. The custom had been to charge every time you took a bath, or a cup of tea or had a fire when you were freezing and personally I found it was very irritating. The lump sum will amount to just as much money and I am seeing to it that I average more a week for my board than Vilma Glücklich ↑did↓ but it is much nicer having the feeling the house is my home and that I can use the things in it freely instead of having the Board feeling it is a boarding house and the land lady is watching every move I make, to charge me for it.
Of course with an outside person like my father it is quite right to charge every little thing extra, but I think it would make these of us on the staff much happier if we figured up each month what the house cost and each paid our share. Also I think it would be more in the spirit of the League if those of us who lived here regularly made out own rooms and did not put so much work on our one little maid. We could use the [bathroom] instead of having wash basins in every room which would lessen work. But all these ↑things↓ I can in time, I think work out with Fraulein H. She is very friendly it is just that the Swiss and Dutch temperament which she [possesses] finds it difficult to make changes or to live for any thing but the house. To her the [League] ↑exists for the house.↓ [page 4]
As to the different sections I am sending them a copy of the attached letter in the hope of getting them roused and more active. I am also sending them complimentary copies of the Bulletin and offering to send copies to their members if they will furnish me with the names and addresses. I don't think there was any boycott of Vilma Glücklich as she seemed to think by different sections, for they are behaving the same way with me. It is just that they are not used to working ↑with International Headquarters↓ and have got to be waked up. I shall keep right after them and give them no peace until they do answer my questions.
About the ↑Geneva W. I. L.↓ work here the Quakers had a reunion on Armistice Day in their rooms of all the different organizations and that gave me an introduction to every one and I made my first little speech. Friday I am having a tea here and inviting all the Geneva group of the W. I. L. and the International League here. Vilma Glücklich found this very difficult for they are such a mixed crowd ↑that↓ I don't wonder.
For instance one of the best known women one who is very active is Madame ↑Claparède↓ who is a socialist. On the other hand a Mrs Bagg an American a friend of Miss Balch [complained] to me bitterly that Vilma Glücklich put Socialism? in her News Sheet (what she will think of the Bulletin heaven only knows) and yet she comes to the same meeting with our socialist member, Madame ↑Claparède↓ so if there isn't murder on Friday I will be lucky. Also there has been a bitter fight going on here for and against the Jews which poor Vilma Glücklich had to battle against. But I have the advantage of being new and ↑shall↓ make believe be innocent of all these undercurrents and simply try to be impartial and like [everybody].
The trouble with ↑the↓ town is that it is small and there are a lot of idle women and much gossip.
↑I must close this lengthy letter. I hope you won't mind if I send a carbon copy ↑of it↓ to Hannah Hull. I know how interested she is to know the situation here and I haven't time for a similar letter to her. By this time Miss Balch has had my letter about having the summer school at Gland & I am waiting to hear further from her. Madame Jouve is writing me an article on Thonon for the next Bulletin. Personally, when I have time to think, I find I am very much at home here, that I like the town the house, the people & the work. My Dad also seems happy.
↑[written up left margin] I am hoping everyday to hear from Anna Garlin Spencer or you so that I can keep Ann Zueblin.↓
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