June 11, 1927.
My dear Miss Addams: --
Mrs. Kellogg and I have gone very carefully into the matter of special studies made from the records of the five wettest cities. It seems to us that good studies could be made of Greater New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cleveland and Boston. The records of San Francisco are not full enough to justify very much more than was in the book, and the same is definitely true of New Orleans. St. Louis made a very poor showing and I think that Detroit has been as adequately dealt with as the material warrants.
I took the matter up with Mr. Wells, head of Harpers and editor of the magazine. He said that he didn't think another book would be justified or would have any sale, that probably they might be willing to publish it if the association paid for the publication as it would for any report; but they didn't wish to do it in any way which would interfere with the sale of the book already out. Mr. Wells said he might be interested in one article for the magazine, and I will submit to him an outline of such a possible article along the lines of the five wettest cities at some time during the summer.
Paul Kellogg says that he feels that we have treated the matter geographically in the book, and that the Herald Tribune, also, did its publication by cities, and that the same sort of division would hardly be justified again. I think that Mr. Kellogg might be willing to publish in the Survey some further articles based on the material which has come in. I will take that up with him further before he goes away for the summer.
Mrs. Kellogg and I have gone through the material very carefully. I think we could put the articles together on these five cities, or any part of them, out of the wealth of material, particularly from Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New York. So far as we can tell, it would take about a month's work and it simmers down to whether the committee thinks they can pay for another [page 2] month's work on this subject in case the articles don't find a publisher in the magazine field who will pay for the work of writing them.
Let me know what you and the committee feel should be done. If this is to be done it ought to be put through before the real work of the winter begins.
The subject which interests me particularly now is the possibility of a rural survey. Have you any suggestions as to how it could be financed? I feel that if we could really make this, we should have done a thoroughly comprehensive job within the limits set for it.
With most sincere regards, I am
Very sincerely yours,
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