February 8, 1927.
Dear Mary Sheepshanks,
Many thanks for your good letter. I am having copies made of the formal one, namely your application for the secretaryship, and sending copies to the officers of the Executive Committee so they will have it in hand for the Executive meeting.
Now about your personal letter to me and the many problems you raised. It is true that the Maison has much too feminine an atmosphere but this is much less the case this year than it was formally ↑a year ago,↓ and I suppose if one gets a sufficient number of men interested in coming here this can be changed. I would do more in this line if I had more time. As it is I urge any men who are coming to Geneva to come here and not only to dine with us but to stay in the house if there is a vacancy. This can be legitimately done, particularly if you get the men to become associate members of the League. There are, of course, interesting men in Geneva and ones whom one could get into the habit of visiting us regularly. My husband while here found many men to his liking and I am sure when he comes back in April he will have a steady stream of male visitors. I will do my best to get those men to continue coming even after Roger's departure.
As to your desire for retirement and privacy, I appreciate that profoundly. If you live in the Maison I should certainly advise taking the garden room. I will see in the course of the next two or three weeks if it is not possible to have a tap connected with the kitchen water tank so that you can draw water on that floor and I will also see if it is not possible to have a gas connection put in so that you can have a constant supply of hot water. Then you will be pleased to know that an American has given £10 to have the room done over. It is quite large, you know, with three windows and could be very well made into a bed-sitting-room. How would you like to have it done with orange walls and black wood-work and gay chintz curtains? Perhaps we could pick the chintz out if I come to London after the Liège meeting.
Your third difficulty, money raising, is much more serious than all the others and I confess that this year I have found it difficult. Taking the balance of £1200 that I had after the Congress and putting it in a Reserve Fund may have been a good thing to do, but it has made it much more difficult to carry on the work. In the first place the sections, knowing about the Reserve Fund, have been much less ready to make contributions and the psychology of having to hustle each month for what is needed produces a bad effect upon the money raiser. Our financial situation is this: It costs about 50,000 Swiss Francs, (£2000) a year to run this office with its present staff and equipment. Miss Addams sends us £2200 and with the new international members which we have gained this year and the contributions from individuals and the sections which I hope will continue automatically after I leave will bring you in from 400 pounds to 600 additional pounds. [page 2]
This means that you will have from £200 to £300 a year to raise on the present basis. But! This budget does not count at all on the printing of "Pax" which is a very large item. When I left America with Miss Addams aid I was able to secure from the American Fund £480 a year for the printing of the paper. It has cost us just this to get out a total of 12,000 copies in the three languages, English, French and German, each month. Now the American Fund has voted us the same appropriation for this year, but the American Fund is now going out of business having given away all its money. Therefore, if you continue "Pax" here you will have a sum of £480 as well as the £200 already mentioned to raise.
Now I know how difficult it is to raise money and to do the endless detailed work involved in getting out the paper and yet have time for the formulation of policies and the direction of the W.I.L. into new and better channels. It is with this in mind that I suggested that I should continue "Pax" in America as an International paper and raise all the money needed for it there. Let me say right off that the American section have already asked me to come back and run the paper for them in America so that you need have no feeling about me personally in this matter. It is only a question of whether I run the paper for the American Section alone or whether I keep it an International paper and run it in connection with you and the work here in this office. The kind of international paper as I see it, that is wanted is a popular little news sheet to reach the average uninformed woman. This is a task which I think you are not particularly interested in, for if I am right in my impression, you would rather write for the more intellectual and informed group. Yet this popular paper has to be done if we are to raise money and gather in new members. As I see the work of the W.I.L. it ought to be firmly founded on an international or associate membership of from 3000 to 4000. If we work up such a membership there would be an adequate income for all the work at International Headquarters. I have talked with my husband about his work in America and the way he runs the Civil Liberties Bureau. He has done just this thing. He has a contributing membership of from 2000 to 3000 who give him anywhere from one to four pounds regularly each year. This means that the income goes on whether he is there or not. Now I think that if I could devote myself wholly to a little international paper and the working up of the International membership, I could undertake to raise the additional money needed for Headquarters so you would not have that burden upon you.
Of course I recognize that you will want to get out material from Geneva when anything important occurs but it seems to me this can be managed by your having an extra [center] page printed and inserted in the paper whenever you felt the need for it. This would certainly to the case after the meeting of the League Assembly for I would get the news much too late in America for me to make a valuable contribution. If I brought the paper out the first of the month and shipped 5000 copies to you for European distribution, you would receive it the middle of the month and could have your news sheet ready to insert in it and then send it out. Also if you prepared your news sheet for the first of the month and shipped it to me, I would receive it the same way by the middle of the month and could insert it in the American edition before sending it out for distribution.
As to the [illegible] ↑news↓ of our sections, I think that could be sent to me in America just as well as here and one of the staff here, Anne Zueblin for instance who knows the kind of material I use, could ship me regularly every week anything that came in, while you yourself could make extracts from letters or send me any news about Headquarters that you wish printed. [page 3]
I do not wish to urge this plan on you for you may feel that you would prefer to run the whole thing yourself only as you will see, if I write only for the American Section I shall have to confine myself to raising money for the national work, where as if I were editing an international paper I could devote myself to getting International members and raising money for International Headquarters.
It probably is important that you should decide about this before the Executive meeting in Liège for I see by a letter that I have had from Miss Courtney that she ↑is↓ at present opposed to my editing the international paper in America.
Personally I feel that it is important that you should be at the Liège meeting if you really are going to take this job because there are so many points that will be brought up and decided upon by the Executive Committee in which you certainly ought to have some say.
About Miss Bryant's hint that there might be some work in Geneva now. Of course there is no lack of work here to do but the problem is: money! I am managing to get in besides the £100 Miss Addams sends me every month, an additional £30 but that is about ↑all↓ I can do for the moment with all the work there is to do here. For instance I must raise the [traveling] expenses for at least three members of our Executive to go to Liège who could not go otherwise. It is fortunately or unfortunately easier to raise money for the Maison than for office work. An appeal for funds for the house in "Pax" will always produce results but people do not seem to want to put up money for an additional secretary or for postage.
I shall do my best to go to England directly after ↑or before↓ the Liège meeting. I have written Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence I could go to her then for four or five days. I am hoping my husband will be in England then and he and I are planning a weekend with Mr. and Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence in the country, but of course I will reserve a time for a long talk with you and I very much want also to have you meet Roger.
Yes, I often get homesick for America and I confess I shall be glad to be going back there next year.
I certainly am glad that you are going to undertake this job and I know that both Jane Addams and Emily Balch are much pleased at the prospect.
With my warmest greetings and looking forward to seeing you soon.
Always sincerely,
International Secretary.
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