21st May 1926.
My Dear Miss Addams:
Having for years tried in vain to stop certain malicious rumors spread against me by people out of our own international ranks, I hereby appeal to you for official help in the following two cases:
1. Dr. Aletta Jacobs has since August, 1915 (nearly eleven years) conducted a campaign of slander against me, which though it did me great harm, I ignored because I considered her insane. But last October I learned the following:
Without my knowledge Mrs. Nelly Mansfeldt de Witt Huberts, shocked by the libel and slander spread against me started an international campaign for the clearing of my name. When she appealed to the [Staatsbürgers?] on association, the former Dutch Woman Suffrage organization, Dr. Aletta Jacobs declared in the meeting of the board that
I was a German spy during the war and that even now I have all the money I want. (My being the "best dressed woman" of the movement at all international congresses mentioned as proof of her assertion!).
On ground of that statement, the Dutch board did not feel justified in lending its moral help in my rehabilitation.
Disregarding all the other stories Dr. Jacobs has spread about me during all those sad years, I cannot let her continue in this insane or vicious course any longer.
My efforts to stop her are in vain. May I therefore beg you to take the matter up with Dr. Jacobs?
2. Miss Rosa Manus favored me during all these years also with spreading stories of similar character. These, too, I can no longer tolerate. Disregarding also all the previous stories, I [page 2] refer only to the following one:
Last October I dined in company of Mrs. [Wilhelmina] van Wulfften Palthe-Broese van Groenau as guest of a prominent American Suffrage leader in New York. In the course of the conversation, we learned from our hostess that Miss Manus who was her guest a few months before had told her that I had mishandled funds of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
I wrote Miss Manus twice (copies here enclosed) without getting an answer. The letters were registered, therefore, they must have reached her. If I could trust that these preposterous lies were not believed, I would not worry about them. But, unfortunately I have the proof that they are believed.
I am sick to the bottom of my heart that after decades of work in the international movement for feminism and pacifism I should be subjected to such abuse and be unable to stop the campaign.
Thanking you in advance for what you are going to do in this matter,
Cordially yours,
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