Dear Mrs. Clark,
Since Miss Jane Addams wrote to you early in May about the proposed "mission to China" of this League of women the plan to get three women to go [to] China to talk with women there on our behalf has developed further and partly on that account and partly because Miss Addams has had no reply from you as yet and we do not know your reaction to our eager hope that you are agreeing [to] be the American member of this group, I am writing to you again, especially as you may have failed to receive the other letter in view of the disturbed times.
Miss Addams has had a letter from Sophie Chen Zen which although it does not say that you will be a delegate for us speaks of your talking of the possibilities of the Chinese Section of this League and gives us good hopes that you will do so.
I will send you either enclosed or by an early mail a statement of the purpose of the "mission" which has been sent to us [illegible] from our Geneva office and a copy of a letter from Rufus Jones recently returned from China, commending our plan, also a [page 2] copy of Mrs. Zen's letter.
Our present hope is that Miss Edith Pye and Madame Camille Drevet will be starting in September for China as the two European [members] of our little "mission."
Miss Edith Pye is a very able and very lovely Englishwoman, a prominent member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), who has had high recognition from the French Government for her relief work during the war, who also worked in Vienna and who has [traveled] widely in the interests of international good-will.
Madame Drevet is Secretary of our French Section and evidently very much admired but I am sorry to say that not knowing her personally I cannot tell you so much about her.
Miss Jessie Hughan of New York is also as we learn planning to go to China on her own account. She is going with her sister Miss Evelyn Hughan who is on business for The Ginn textbook publishers and they expect to arrive in October. Miss Hughan is an extremely able a Ph.D., author of [various] books [including] one on International Government. She teaches in a N.Y.C. High School and would doubtless have had a more ambitious academic career if she did not call herself a Socialist though she is not such in the sense now so commonly given to the world. She is a Christian, [a] Tolstoyan pacifist and a devoted member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. It is possible that Miss Hughan [will] be able to help with this W.I.L. undertaking, possibly if you desire her to do so, as your understudy. We trust that she will get in touch with you as soon as possible after starting.
We do hope that you will enjoy all three of these women and that you will not find it burdensome or difficult to open to them all such opportunities as may be practicable.
When Miss Addams wrote before she told you that the U.S. Section of the W.I.L.P.F. has appropriated a sum of money for your expenses of travel and so forth. (Unfortunately we neither have all our papers at hand and we are not sure if the amount was [illegible] three hundred dollars or five hundred. Would it be a convenience to have this money [page 3] sent to you at once or would you prefer to wait till you are already to send in a statement of expenses incurred either directly or through Miss Hughan.
We are very eager to hear from you and are a little held up until we do so but we realize both that you may have written letters that have never come to hand and the immense demand that the present situation must be making all the time upon your present time and strength.
Faithfully yours,
Comments