WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM
12, Rue du Vieux-Collège, Geneva, Switzerland
22 March 1926.
Dear Jane Addams,
It is some time since I have written you, but I knew you would be away on your trip and I imagine this will reach Chicago in time to greet you on your return.
You do not need to worry a bit about our understanding each other. I know that the minute we get together everything can be worked out satisfactorily. As a matter of fact I have been feeling very close to you this winter and it has been a great joy to feel that I was working not only for the cause but also for you.
[Katherine] Blake arrived two days ago. She tells me that one of the things that worries you is the fear that I will expand our little paper and then at the end of the year not be able to go on with it and that that will make it difficult for the W.I.L. You need have no worry about this. I have not the slightest wish to make "Pax International" any bigger. I do not think it should be increased at all until we have secured enough subscribers to make it pay for itself. If the paper is valuable, then folks ought to care enough for it to be willing to support it. Also let me assure you that I shall not desert the paper but shall continue another year or longer with this work if you people desire it, even if I am in America instead of Geneva.
I do [recognize] every day that it is important that an international secretary should stay on longer than a year, because I shall only just be well broken into the ropes when it is time for me to go. If there was any way of getting Roger over here, either to make a visit or take a year [traveling] in Europe, I would be willing to stay on provided the rest of the Executive Committee voted for it. [page 2]
I suppose you will [realize] that it is very difficult for an American to suit all the Continental people. As you know, my friends were particularly ↑the Germans↓ determined, as well ↑as↓ the French, yet I find that I am much more satisfactory as a secretary to the English, Scandinavians and you people, than to the German section. For instance, read my editorial in this month's Pax, the March issue. I know my German friends will disapprove of me strongly for it, yet I [felt] it ought to be said.
The encouraging thing about this work is the unknown people in the different countries from whom I am getting letters and words of encouragement every day. I can see we are building up a background among the common folk, and that seems to me of vital importance, though I do not feel that our Executive Committee, as I saw them in Paris, have any conception of the importance of this and what it means.
Re DUBLIN CONGRESS: Now for our plans for the Dublin Congress. Yes, I know you always raise the money for the Congresses. Only I hate to have you do so much and I want to do all I can to help over here. As I told you in my last letter, I already see that I have about 800 Dollars towards the Congress. The 500 Dollars you sent us on February 17th we are using as our March allowance, but even so I have managed, from the contributions that England and Ireland will make, to secure about ↑$↓800. I am writing Madame Ramondt about my plans. I know of course that she is financial and recording secretary and that all the Congress Budget must be submitted to her. But I visualize her as rather bearing the relation to the International that Mrs. Taussig does to the National and my idea in having Miss [Surles] was to have someone who could do what I call the "dirty work!" Every penny spent must of course be accounted for and submitted to Madame Ramondt. It was for this kind of work and also to keep track for me of the hundred and one details of the Congress, and to see that everything that went out in English was correct and in shape that I needed someone, -- in other words a person whom I can trust to carry through the plans which I had worked out. Of course it is impossible for the person who is [organizing] and directing to read over everything that leaves the office. It is one of my great difficulties here that I have no such person to help me, and I feel I must have someone in Dublin. I have written Miss [Surles] that the best I could do for her, if I asked her to assist me, was 200 Dollars, which would be 50 Dollars a week for four weeks. That will of course not only pay her ocean passage 3rd class both ways, but I pointed out to her [page 3] that I could get someone over here for 35 Dollars a week and therefore I would not feel justified in paying her more than 200 Dollars. I would rather have her to carry out my directions because I know her and have found I can trust her to be exact.
At the executive meeting in Paris it was voted that I should go to Dublin two weeks ahead and have charge of the agenda of the Congress and the publicity; that is I was to arrange for the meeting rooms, seeing our speakers arrive and securing substitutes in case they didn't, and following up the sections to see that they send in their reports, and generally supervising the programs every day, seeing that it was carried through. Also I was to make the digest of the speeches and give them out to the papers. The Executive Committee agreed that I would need two persons for this work.
The rest of the work, that is all the social arrangements, entertaining the people, seeing that they are properly housed, that the delegates present their credentials, etc., etc. was to be handed ↑over↓ to Louie Bennet, of Ireland, and her Committee. She is to have two people to assist her: [Gertrud] Baer and Frau Tunas of this office.
I cannot tell you how glad I am that Miss Bennet has agreed to undertake this work. She has such tolerance and such understanding, and we have both taken the view that we will get some fun out of our work and not act as if the world was coming to an end over our endeavors. I want if possible to have the Congress so well [organized] beforehand that we can eliminate a great deal of the fuss and struggle that we had to go through at Washington. One of the greatest things it seems to me is somehow to get our women to take their work within some kind of joy and faith and trust. I had an amusing dream the other night. I dreamt that a man had invented a laughing gas, a real laughing gas that sets you to [laughing] and that there was a big war and they shot the laughing gas into both armies and they all began to laugh and it brought an end to the war. I am not sure that this dream is not prophetic and that a little humor and light-heartedness might go a long way with all of us. I am sure you will think so after you have read the minutes of the Paris meeting.
I am enclosing herewith a copy of the March Pax in case yours has not reached you. I shall be very grateful if you will impress on everyone at the annual April meeting ↑in the U.S.↓ that they must send their names in at once if they are going to attend the Dublin Congress or the Summer School. [page 4]
I note what you say about bringing Mary [Kenney] O'Sullivan with you. I should think it would be extremely good to have her come. The Irish people are fine about having all the different groups represented. As I think I told you, the Irish Committee has members that are Republicans, others that belong to the Free State and others who come from Ulster. Also the Irish Committee is considering securing on one Sunday as speakers a Catholic Bishop, who is wholly against war, a Protestant preacher, also against war, and possibly a Quaker; all to speak at the same meeting, if we can arrange it.
By the time this reaches you the failure of the special Assembly of the League of Nations to admit Germany will have become an old story. But it was certainly a tragic event for us here. I understand it, however, very much better after my experience with our Executive Committee at the Paris meeting. It [illegible] shows how important our work is and how much we women ↑need↓ get to take a united and generous stand.
You may be interested to know that I was given a press ticket ↑by the League of Nations↓ and was therefore able to attend all the meetings of the Assembly of the League, and that listed in among all the big American dailies was "Pax International" with me as representative. This was very good ↑I had to chuckle over this↓ because even the "Nation" did not succeed in getting a press card.
We had a very crowded house ↑Maison↓ during the meeting of the Assembly. We even sat down 12 people to dinner and had 8 nationalities represented. It is of course important to gather people into the "Maison" this way and get them to know each other, but again it is a huge piece of work and this month our task has been gigantic. Briefly it has consisted, first, in 18 copies of 54 pages ↑typed↓ pages ↑of minutes↓ of the Paris meeting being typed, then securing the corrections from the 18 people, in incorporating [these] and sending out 70 multigraph copies ↑to consultative members & national chairmen↓. Next there was the regular monthly edition of Pax in the three languages, with an addition to this of 4000 extra copies of the [program] of the Summer School and the Congress, which forms the [center] page of Pax. We are sending out these 4000 copies ↑programs↓ with multigraphed letters broadcast, for advertising purposes.
Then our correspondence grows by leaps and bounds, so you can see why I got tragic ↑&↓ pathetic about only having one little typist to do all the stenographic work. Of course I could not meet the situation this month and have had to get in outside help temporarily. [written in left margin] ↑I have sent 1000 programs & 500 letters to D. Detzer for distribution in the U.S.↓
I shall send you in a week or so another itemized statement of our expenses. We are still in sound financial shape, even if I had to spend a great deal more for postage and typewriting. You may be amused to know that I am now [page 5] combining with the Y.M.C.A. and hiring a taxi and going over to France to mail our "Pax International." This month I saved 15 dollars ↑in postage↓ that way and promptly bought a rug for the drawing room in France for that sum, while ↑the rug↓ would have cost twice as much here. and ↑I↓ brought it back with me in the taxi. This, as you will see, is killing two birds with one stone.
I do hope that your trip did you a lot of good and that you are feeling very fit for all that lies ahead.
With very much love to you,
Always Devotedly.
Madeleine Z. Doty [signed]
P.S. I note what you say about international dues. I have [made] no attempt whatever to have the U.S. pay dues here. In the little leaflet I sent out asking everybody to pay promptly, I gave the address of Dorothy Detzer of the Washington office. The only trouble with this arrangement is that until this past week I have not had the name of one international member in the U.S.A. who joined since I left America. Now of course a lot of people have joined, and it is I think very bad for me not to receive their names so that I could send them the International membership card from this office. This last week I have had from Dorothy [Detzer] about 30 names, but I feel sure there must be more than that in all these months.
I am afraid these people will not be satisfied [illegible] only to have recognition from Dorothy Detzer and not from me also, when they pay their dues but of course I cannot help it if I ↑do↓ did not get their names.
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