My dear Miss Addams,
I have had a long letter from Madame Ramondt-Hirschmann, which, together with one or two things you have said in your recent letters, I find a little discouraging.
You both talk about not increasing expenditures and not enlarging the staff, but, except for taking Anne [Zueblin] and paying the necessary current expenses, there has been no enlargement. It is true I am spending 3,000 ↑to 3,500↓ instead of 2,500 Swiss francs a month, as you will see from the financial statement I have sent you. But I cannot work on less.
The position is really this: suppose you arrived at Hull House for the first time and were told that you could not spend more than a certain amount on electricity and a certain amount on food, and you knew that it meant that half the rooms must be dark and half the people unfed. What would you do?
Frankly what can I do? We have the money to print 12,000 "Pax" every month. Shall I pile them up in the closet because I must not use the money for postage? I have a huge amount of mail to answer; often I get a week behind and cannot help it. Shall I let the letters of the sections go unanswered? Shall I not get the "Pax" completed for want of someone to do the English typewriting? As it is, I work often ten or twelve hours a day. Without Anne it would mean I must sit up all night doing typewriting. [page 2]
The truth is you ought not to have the Maison Internationale or get out a "Pax International" unless you are willing that the money should be raised for postage and stenographic work. If we are to run on a smaller ↑a↓ scale as 2,500 Swiss francs, we should take an office of one room in Geneva and have a secretary and a couple of assistants and not attempt to do the work we are doing here. You see it is really foolish to have this house and run it as we are now running it. The board of my father and myself really pays to keep the house going, and I am sure that it is not a good principle to pay your secretary a salary and then take her salary back to keep the house going. Of course at this point I am being a little humourous, but really $200. or $300. spent on the house would make the rooms comfortable and would get in a real income if they ↑were↓ rented the entire year round. Not to do this is being penny wise and pound foolish.
It is the same way with the work in the office. If I can by correspondence and by the "Pax" keep the sections interested and active, we get money from them and the work prospers.
I do not think that anyone except the person in charge here can judge of these things. I quite agree that in all matters of policy as to the right stand for the League to take as to the terrible things that are happening in Bulgaria, or on the war in Morocco, these must be determined by the Executive Committee, but in details of management, both as to the office and as to the house, you will have to trust to your secretary in these matters.
For instance, this month I have had to get out new membership cards. It is much cheaper to do it in bulk, but this means quite a little sum. Then every section is [clamoring] for some kind of circular stating what the League is and what we have done. I am now trying to get these out in the three languages, two or three thousand copies of each issue. This with a picture of the house, exterior and interior, is going to cost about $60. Then I have to pay the car fare of Vilma [Glucklich], Gertrud Baer, Lucie Dejardin, Marguerite Gobat and myself to the meeting in Paris. Otherwise we none of us could afford to go. All this will bring my expenses up this month two or three hundred dollars extra. [page 3] As I indicated in the expense account I sent you, with the regular monthly amount you send me ↑2,500 Swiss fr.↓ and with what I have raised, I have enough to carry me for six months, but there will certainly not be enough to hand over money for the Dublin Congress as Mme. Ramondt-Hirschmann suggests. ↑I intend to send out a special appeal for funds for the Congress. We will bring this up in Paris.↓
Now as to the size of the Dublin Congress, I do not see how you can limit it. There is beginning to be a good deal of enthusiasm about it, and without doubt you will have a full allotment of delegates from Germany, England and Ireland; that alone will be ninety people. From America it looks to me as though you will have at least fifty. Canada and Scotland are planning to send good-sized groups. Then there are all the other sections. I do not think you can count on less than two hundred delegates, besides the large number of people in Ireland who inevitably come to our meetings because, to them, it will be a new and interesting event. In other words, we cannot plan for a smaller hall than we had at the Hague, or for meetings of much under 1,000. ↑The last letter from Ireland indicates that we are to be allowed the use of the National University for our meetings. This will be splendid if true.↓ I am sure you will [realize] this means a huge amount of work. The Irish Section frankly say they have never handled any kind of congress or even big meetings, but they show an extremely fine spirit by saying: "If you will come over and tell us what to do, we will do just what you say."
Unless we are to have confusion and disorder, there is nothing for it but to have me go two weeks ahead. This can be arranged, because by that time Katherine Blake will be here helping with the Summer School, and can temporarily look after headquarters.
But, if you do not want to have me a "corpse" on your hands, you must let me have adequate assistance. Roughly speaking, what I want is this, -- I want Miss Surles from America to handle all the finances, bookkeeping and the details ↑of the Congress↓. She will come over for a third-class passage on an ocean steamer, paying all the rest of her expenses and not asking any pay for her services. That is, she will work for us for four weeks and I suppose we shall ↑have to↓ give her $200. As you know, she has been through one congress and also, as Mrs. Taussig will tell you, she is extremely accurate about money matters, and that is very essential in handling the congress funds.
The second person I want is Frau Tunas from this office. She, as you know, speaks the three languages, French, English and German. I want her to help the Irish [page 4] in receiving all the delegates, many of whom speak only their own language. It is important we should have someone like Frau Tunas to straighten out all the personal difficulties, such as changing unsatisfactory rooms, finding doctors, looking after all the many needs of the mixed group we shall have; someone who does not get ruffled and this is where Frau Tunas shines.
The third and last person I want is Marguerite Dumont. I want her because she is an expert in both French and English shorthand. I want her to help with the publicity work, making a digest of all the speeches, etc., and getting the material out for the press.
These last two persons will not cost anything beyond their [traveling] and living expenses, ↑ and need only arrive a day or so ahead of the Congress.↓
I am now going over all the old Congress Reports, and I think we can conduct this one on a much less expensive scale than ever before. But, of course, America will undoubtedly need to raise a good share of the money, though I will see what I can do to get funds here.
I am sure you will understand this letter in the spirit in which it is meant. It is really not the work as much as the conflicting points of view that are terrifically wearing on anyone who occupies the position of international secretary.
Personally, I wish we could have Executive Committee Meetings at least every other month, just as we in America have National Board Meetings at least that often. It is much more satisfactory that way, because then the Board members can see the problems which the secretary is up against, and unless this method is pursued there is no other alternative but to trust the secretary in all matters of detail.
I know how difficult it must be for you always to raise the 2,500 Swiss francs every month, and I am not asking you to do more. I am only protesting that if I can get money out of the sections and see that it needs to be spent here for postage and stenographic work, you must trust to me that that is a wise thing to do.
Frankly and confidentially, quite a little of the money when it was given to me was given with this remark: "We are glad to give it to you because we know you ↑will↓ make good use of it and something will happen." Also some of it, such as Mrs. Lawrence's £9. was given on [page 5] the understanding that it should be used with such other sums as I could collect to arrange for a tour for Marcelle Capy, and that cannot be spent any other way.
By the way, I was so tired out the last [weekend] that, having received a little money from America which was due me, I took it and went and spent the [weekend] in the South of France with Marcelle Capy.
I am glad I did so, for I found her ready to leave the League altogether, being quite discouraged by the way things are being run, particularly in France. She feels there is no reason why we cannot get a lot of French women interested if we go about it in the right way; that Madame Duchêne and Andrée Jouve just move in one little circle in Paris, and that the French work will never grow unless we get both outside that circle and into other cities as well as Paris.
After a good deal of talk, I persuaded Marcelle Capy that she must come to the Dublin Congress and continue to stand by the League. I wish very much I could send her to Poland and into the Balkans.
Do you know that Mme. Karavelloff, of Bulgaria, who came to America, has been going through a most terrific experience? Her son-in-law was sent for by the officials and then murdered and his body was afterwards found in the street. ↑Madame K.'s↓ daughter. The and the ↑son's brothers↓ wife [is] temporarily crazy as a result. Mme. Karavelloff's house is watched night and day by the police. It seems dreadful that we should do nothing about this. If I had not been so new in the work and did not like to act without instructions, I should have telegraphed to the American office ↑Fund↓ for money and sent someone down to see what could be done for our Bulgarian delegates. ↑I will take this matter up in the Paris meeting.↓
To return to the work here, I hope very shortly after the Paris Meeting to get out a [program] of the Congress and the Summer School for distribution ↑which again will be a big item of expense.↓ After I got your cable, we tentatively put the date as the 10th ↑of↓ July. If you cannot leave Paris until the 5th, it ought not to be earlier than that for we surely should have several sessions of the Executive Committee before before the Congress itself begins.
I do not think it will be possible to crowd the Congress into a week. It will take at least ten days if [page 6] we are to give each section a chance for a hearing, and only by so doing can we keep the sections really interested. Also it is a pretty expensive trip to go to Ireland, and those who put up the money for the journey will feel it much more [worthwhile] for ten days than a week. We have tentatively fixed the Summer School at Gland to begin on Monday, the 26th July, so that if the Congress is over, say, the 17th July, it will give people a chance to spend a couple of days in London and a couple of days in Paris sightseeing on their way to the Summer School.
I had your cable about the Paris Meeting and ↑the↓ nomination ↑of↓ Edith Hilles as consultative member. I have not heard one word from Edith Hilles since she arrived. I am today telegraphing her to the American Express Company, Naples, which is the only address she gave me. I do hope she will turn up in time. I am counting much on her to see the situation here and report to you fully the problems with which we are confronted.
The truth is we have the biggest opportunity in the world to do something splendid, but, if we do not get busy, others will do it for us.
Have you seen the splendid campaign that Arthur Ponsonby, [Undersecretary] to the Foreign Office ↑England↓ has launched? It is a "No more war" crusade, with a huge meeting in Hyde Park of people from all corners of England in July. Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and many others are flocking to him. ↑Just today I have received a letter from the British Section and Mrs. Lawrence and the W.I.L. (British Se.) is planning a pilgrimage from all over England from May to July to meet in London in Hyde Park with the slogan "Arbitrate."↓ I cannot help feeling we should be doing this work.
Well, this is a long letter and I must close. If I keep on writing you in such detail, I shall have to have a stenographer just for my letters to you, and then what will you say? ↑??????↓
At least be thankful you have a secretary who doesn't take things personally. Poor Vilma [Glücklich] came to the conclusion that all the sections disliked her, but I know better. If they pull me to pieces in their [overeagerness] to get what they want, I may end by being a dictator instead of a democrat in order to survive.
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