Dear Dr. Clark,
Enclosed I am sending you a letter from the Union des Femmes Bulgares. They wrote to us in Dublin that they had decided to become a member of our W.I.L.P.F., and I explained to them that only National Sections could be in direct connection with our International League. This is their answer, from which you can see that indeed they are an important body of women who are confident that they are pacifics. It does not seem wise just to cut them off from our work and not try to find some kind of arrangement, by which they might be able to form part of our League, even [page 2] though they cannot join our small Bulgarian Group.
I talked the matter over with Miss Addams, and we thought of the possibility of having them as our Political Group in the way [the Bulgarian] Section has its group or give them some other name.
The principal thing however is that we have to know whether they are real pacifists.
Now we understand that you are going to Bulgaria, and Miss Addams would be delighted if you would try to get into touch with them and find out things for us.
As you are coming here for the Assembly and Miss Addams will be there still, you can talk the matter over with her if you are willing [to do] any thing in this matter, but we thought it might be [useful] that you should know about it beforehand.
I had a talk with Madame [Karavéloff] while she was here the other day. I made several suggestions to her and asked her to call her members together as soon as she comes home and make them understand that they cannot work for conscription even though in their opinion it might be an [approvement on] their militia [army] which only consists of the lowest type of people. If she suggests in persuading them, she is going to send us a statement which will make clear that they are good pacifists after all. It seems to me that [page 3] it is [useful] that you should know this in case you will go and do some work for us in Bulgaria.
It is a great disappointment to me that I am not able to stay for the Assembly and should also miss pleasure of meeting you and Miss [Courtney] as well as Mrs. Swanwick who, as I understand, is coming too.
Comments