↑Copy for Miss Addams.↓
Dear Miss Balch,
The news that you are not coming was a shock to us all. You have made all the arrangements for the school and, so far as I can see, there is no one to take your place. Madeleine announced that I would, but unfortunately she did that without consulting me, -- probably because she was desperate at the amount of work to be done, and entirely without adequate help to do it. I wrote you in my first letter that she was tired and worn. She has been suffering for some time with nervous indigestion, and has cut one thing from her diet after another, with the result that she has not had enough to eat, and has not digested what she did eat. I hoped that her four days holiday at Easter would bring her back feeling better, but it seems to have exhausted her, for she is [in bed] now with fever and sore throat, -- a sort of tonsillitis or grip. It is nothing to be alarmed at, but it means that she cannot longer be expected to do the three or rather four jobs that she has been doing, each of which could occupy the whole time of an efficient person. 1. The office work and correspondence 2. Pax 3. The Dublin Congress 4. The Summer School
If Madeleine does the first three things it is all that she can do. The S.S. must be [given to] [someone] else who will take the entire responsibility. I never intended to be here all the time, I came to help. I was, and still am very tired, and I cannot undertake it. I know none of the people over here, and they do not want Americans to run things. I came to study conditions, and get a first hand idea of present day Europe, so that I could tell Americans when I return. When I saw how tired M. D. was I immediately told her I would pay for a part time stenographer to relieve her and gave her $40. to pay for one to come for half a day, four days a week until May [1st].
In order to advertise the school I sent material and ten dollars to new york [illegible] the New York office, and I have sent an article with a request to publish to 75 educational journals in America, and paid to have them duplicated outside the office, because every one was too busy to do it in the office. Now I have promised $10. a month for May, June and [page 2] July, to help on the S.S. work. I can do no more.
I have answered all the letters of inquiry received thus far, 9 all told, only four who are not doubtful.
I have written thus fully about conditions here because I think you ought to know just where we stand, then you can advise us as to the best thing to do.
I have already advised you as to the speakers thus far secured. [From] what I have been able to learn, none of them expect to stay through the advertised six weeks of the S.S. Nothing ↑is↓ definite as to the time of arrival and departure, or the number of lectures per day or per week for each speaker. Miss Thomas is away at Arles with her whole school and will not be back till the end of April. I think she is our best hope as an executive head, but you know best. M. D. thinks we should have a committee and suggests Mme [Duchêne], Miss Gobat and Mlle. Rolland. What is your advice? Will such a committee be [acceptable] to the Germans?
I have advised Madeleine that if I were in her position I should ask you if you do not think it would be best to cut the school term in half, or -- I really am not competent to suggest. I have never attended a peace school, so I do not know what the students really want.
I am here to help and I want to do the best that I can. I am yours to command, but I cannot do the commanding. I hope that I have made it clear to you. I am not balky, I am only unwilling to undertake something that I am not competent to do with my present knowledge, and that I should not take up unless I can stay the entire time to the end of the school. If I am to return to ↑my↓ school as I have planned to do, I must leave the S. School by August 20th.
I await your suggestions, and in the meantime I shall do all that I can to relieve Madeleine and help about the work in general.
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