WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM
October 7, 1927.
Dear Jane Addams,
Just a short letter to tell you that the China mission is really getting off. By using the Reserve Fund together with what we had raised for China, we had enough for one delegate and it was decided that Camille Drevet should go. The British Section then got busy and two or three days ago we had a telegram saying that they had secured the funds for Edith Pye. Our two delegates are planning to leave from Marseille on October 28th on the "Cap St. [Jacques]." They are to stop in Indochina for about two weeks on the way. Mme. Duchêne has been arranging about this part of the trip and the expenses.
I have written Mrs. Grover Clark and told her that our delegation would be in China towards the end of December and have also told her that as soon as they get to Indochina they will wire her the exact date of their arrival so that she could arrange for their reception.
Of course I suppose that you realize that the delegates are counting on coming back by way of the United States and expect the U.S. to provide for their travel across the country. As a matter of fact I do not think it would be very difficult for you if you take it up with the U.S. sections early enough, for of course Edith Pye and Camille Drevet will speak for our groups and I imagine that each group for the sake of having them speak, could pay their [traveling] expenses from one group to the next and give them hospitality and in this way they would be taken across the United States. If they reach China the end of December, I should imagine they certainly would not get to California before the end of March or early April. I know you suggested that they should remain and attend the Honolulu Congress. I think Camille Drevet might do this if you thought it wise, but I doubt if Edith Pye will want to be away from home for so long. [page 2]
Mary Sheepshanks and I are getting along famously here and finding that two [secretaries] makes the work just about right. It has certainly grown to be far too much for one. We are now planning some interesting changes in the Maison. We hope, in the course of the next week, to cut the door through into the garden room and the plan now is to have the main office in the garden room. This will afford a separate front door for the office and be much better than having everybody come through the Maison. Mary Sheepshanks will have what is now the small office for her private office, which with the door cut through will adjoin the larger office, and then she is to take what is now the office where I work and turn it into a bed-sitting room. All these rooms now sadly need a coat of paint and paper and I shall appeal for money for this purpose either when I am in America or in "Pax."
I know you will be very pleased to hear that on ↑Sept 30th↓ October 1st I was able to start Mary Sheepshanks off with a 5000 franc balance in the bank. I did not think it would be possible to achieve this, particularly as most of the money these days that comes in is for China, but somehow it has been done. Only I am not telling anyone about it because it is very distressing to be here without a balance in the bank. I fear if the Executive knew they might spend it or put it aside as a reserve fund and until the next Executive meeting at least, I think Mary Sheepshanks should have this much ahead. You see our current expenses are $600 a month so that even if we do have a balance of $1000 in the bank it only means that in case the allowance from America is slow in coming in or dues from the sections are late, that we can get along for a month without going bankrupt. I am enclosing a little statement from Madame Huber showing this balance. It is a little more than I have said but out ↑of↓ this, 200 francs must go to the Gland school because the Executive Committee engaged rooms there and then did not hold their meetings at Gland. This would have been a tragic loss if it had not been that it goes to the Gland school but ↑and↓ as Miss Thomas and her staff worked tirelessly for our Summer School it perhaps is well that they should have this little gift. Except for this payment to Gland our bills are all paid up to date.
As I wrote you in my last letter, I shall be leaving here about the end of November, probably on either the Baltic which sails November 26th, reaching New York the 4th or 5th of December or on the Isle de France on the 30th which reaches New York on the 5th or 6th. It certainly will be good to see America again and [illegible] all my friends.
With much love to you,
As ever devotedly,
Madeleine Z. Doty [signed]
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