WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM
June 23, 1927.
Dear Jane Addams,
Re international members.
I have your letter of June 2nd and also the circular letter of June 8th enclosing the little leaflet of the W.I.L. I am simply delighted that you are making a campaign to get our international members to pay up their dues. We now have in this office the names of about 1200 U.S. international members. We have compared this list with the one that Dorothy Detzer has in Washington and they agree. Now, of course, it is not right for us to be sending "Pax" and the Congress Report to all these people if they are not paying their dues and I feel sure the majority would if they realized the importance. I think the letter you have written will have the desired effect but if it doesn't we ought to have the names of those people who fall to pay and we could perhaps write a little note from this office saying we regret to cross them off our lists but we cannot afford to continue to send them the material from this office without the assistance which the payment of their dues means, or any similar statement as you think is wise. You remember last year when 81 names were given up as hopeless many of them came back by writing a special little note.
Re China.
In regard to the China mission, our plans are going forward slowly. We have thus far only secured $400 towards the expenses of Camille Drevet but many of our sections have not yet responded and the English Section has not yet started its campaign. I think if the French Section will now meet the British Section half way, that the difficulties between them in regard to China can all be straightened out. Edith Pye has been here and she is the delegate the English wish to send. That section is willing to raise money jointly for Edith Pye and Camille Drevet. [page 2]
You will be interested to know that Camille Drevet was here ↑at the Maison↓ for a day and has just returned from a trip through the Balkans. She has become intensely interested in the situation there and feels in view of the crisis that has arisen in the [Yugoslavian]-Albanian-Italian situation, that it is most important we [organize] sections throughout the Balkans, particularly in [Yugoslavia], Greece, [Romania] and Albania in order to fortify our Bulgarian Section. You will also be interested to know that her reaction is the same as that of Dr. Clark in regard to our Balkan Section. They both have come back feeling that under the circumstances Madame [Karavéloff] is doing all that she possibly can. That while she has not reached our point of view on pacifism she is more helpful than anyone else there and that without her there would be no section of the W.I.L. in Bulgaria.
So much interested has Camille Drevet become in the Balkans that she has suggested if we do not raise sufficient money for China, that the money that is raised be devoted to forming sections in the Balkans and that she be allowed to do this work. Considering that Camille Drevet has given up her work in order to go to China on the strength of what the Executive said in Liège, we certainly owe her something. Also the report she has made makes me feel that she would be very well equal to this work. Yella Hertzka endorses her as well as the Bulgarian Section and it looks as though she would be persona grata with them all.
Of course this is only in case we cannot manage the expedition to China which would be a pity. I am enclosing a letter which Camille Drevet is sending out to the Executive and to the English Section.
RE Reserve Fund.
Catherine Marshall as well as Madame Ramondt have now signed for the 1000 francs so we have been able to withdraw it from the Reserve Fund in order to use it to buy a multigraphing machine. There is so much work to do here that it is very important to have it and Mary Sheepshanks particularly felt it would be essential in the work she wishes to undertake. Gertrud Baer's suggestion that we take it out of the regular fund was impossible for of course we have no margin in our regular fund from which to take anything. As you know we are running at least $100 over the money you send us every month so that with this to raise and the money for the China mission and money if possible for the Summer School, I find it impossible to make further demands for funds from the people here. By the way I hope that the American Fund will pay us $200 a month as they agreed to do if we preferred to have the total amount this year and as I believe you felt was what should be done. Certainly with the other things to raise money for it is impossible to try and raise it for the paper. [page 3]
Re future plans of M.Z.D.
This brings me to the question of my own plans. The time is getting near when I shall be leaving here and I suppose I must take stock of what I am to do. I promised when I came that I would stand by and if work and expenses increased, not leave you in the lurch. I still shall be glad to do this if you wish it but I ought to know so that I can make my plans accordingly. I am sure you will agree with me that Mary Sheepshanks can well take over the work here and that we need have no anxiety about that. The two problems involved are the question of the amount there is to do and the money that is to be raised. I see in your annual meeting that the U.S. voted that the international paper should be printed from Geneva. Now I am sure that Mary Sheepshanks feels that the job as it is at present is too big for one person. Also there is the question of finances. You will see from the little statement I sent you what the officers recommend in regard to "Pax." If you do wish to have me continue with the paper I am prepared when I go back to America to make a speaking tour if you wish to have me do so and campaign for money for the paper and for international members. I was not willing to accept an offer from Great Britain and Scandinavia that I should do this because I do not feel qualified to go around and beg for money. I am not successful in raising it that way, but if I have something I am intensely interested in, I can tell people about it and they often give me money without my asking. I am sure I could do this if I was editing "Pax" and also for international members through my keen interest in the situation here ↑at Headquarters.↓
There is a chance ↑after↓ if I have been in America for three or four months and seen my father and straightened out my own personal affairs, that I might be willing to come back to Europe. Roger tells me that he is seriously considering making his own work international and living half the time in Europe. This may mean that I will eventually come back and live over here probably somewhere not far distant from Geneva, perhaps somewhere across the border in France. This of course would make it possible for me to edit "Pax" from here.
I am very sure that I don't want a full time job. I am content to live very simply and work only half the time and have the rest of my time for my writing and reading. There are one or two openings along editorial and writing lines which will bring me in enough to live on and enable me to carry out my plans. But I do not want to cut myself off from the W.I.L. if I can still be of use and as I have already told you, the piece of work that really interests me, would be to raise money for Headquarters and edit "Pax." I hope you will give this matter your consideration and let me know how you feel about it and what the W.I.L. wishes me to do for of course I shall have to make my plans in the [page 4] very near future.
You will see from the June "Pax" what a very interesting month we had in May and June has also been equally active. We have had several of the women delegates who came to the International Council of Women Conference staying in the house with us and one day we invited 100 of them to tea in our garden. Lady Aberdeen did not climb our stairs but Mrs. Cadbury and many of the others did and I attended a couple of their receptions. You will be interested to know that several of the members of the League of Nations have expressed themselves as very disappointed with the International Council because "they are so reactionary."
We had a Mrs. Solly and Mrs. Jones from South Africa in the house with us and they have agreed that one or the other of them will try to go to the Honolulu conference.
Before closing let me tell you that Roger got safely in and out of Italy and that he is now on his way to Russia.
Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence is here now visiting me and loving every minute that she is spending here ↑in the mansion.↓
With my love to you and Mary Smith,
As ever devotedly,
Madeleine Z. Doty [signed]
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