INTERNATIONALE FRAUENLIGA FÜR FRIEDEN UND FREIHEIT DEUTSCHER ZWEIG
My dear Miss Addams --
As you have probably seen from the March Geneva minutes, it was proposed and decided to have an East European Conference this year. I submitted this suggestion to the Executive in view of the most complicated and critical situation in the East, especially between [Lithuania] and Poland at that time. My idea was to call a Conference to discuss the common problems of these states: 1. [Fascism] & its terror (suppression of free speech, of political liberal [organizations], prison conditions etc.) and 2. the danger of these states being misused by the western powers to serve their coalition bloc against Russia. (It was not meant to be a Conference of Minorities, nor to discuss Minority problems, but we want it to be a small Conference [page 2] of about 20-25 people, 2 delegates of each country down the border line from the Baltic to the Black Sea.) A Committee was formed with Hilda Clark, Frau Hertzka and myself as members. Unfortunately Dr. Clark resigned on her way back from Bulgaria, where she went immediately after ↑the↓ Geneva meeting, her time being taken up with work in Bulgaria and in the [Kellogg] Campaign.
Having had time in Berlin, where I worked the whole winter until June 1st, much opportunity to speak to [Lithuanians] & Poles about the [Vilnius] question and others, I felt that their feelings are still running so high that the success of such a Conference as accepted by our Executive Committee largely, may, wholly depend on the personality who is going to preside. And though it seems a pity to postpone the Conference until next year we all feel that your presence and your presidency are so vitally needed [page 3] that we have to postpone it until your being in Europe next year.
As chairman of the Committee I beg to ask you:
1: to be kind enough to accept to preside over the coming East European Conference &
2: to tell me whether you agree to hold it immediately after the Prague Congress
3: whether you prefer to have it in Prague or Vienna.
Following yesterday's news from Geneva, the Congress will be held late in June, as people are away from Prague in July. As we are expected to go to the Balkan states before the Prague Congress, it seems impossible to hold this last European Conference before Prague. [page 4]
Would you do me the great favor of answering at your earliest convenience, so that I may inform the Committee and our International Executive. I would be deeply obliged to you.
I am very glad to tell you that we all feel ↑are↓ very satisfied with Miss Sheepshanks' efficient work at Geneva. We in Germany tried to do our share in the question of the sale of armaments to China, during our Elections just held, selling 30,000 leaflets "No More Colonies," 40,000 leaflets against corporal punishment in German Schools, arranging lecturing tours for foreign and our own speakers etc. We are just contested the validity of our Elections, as in many towns men & women had to vote separately, women's ballot sheets being marked "women." I wonder what the Reichstag's & the Government's answer will be!! [page 5]
Sitting in the beautifully green English Garden of Munich on this Sunday morning, my thoughts are flying over to Hull House, asking you to give my greetings to all our good friends, and to transmit my very best wishes to Miss Smith and sending you my love.
Yours most gratefully and devotedly
Gertrud Baer
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