17 January 1913.
My dear Miss Addams: --
Please do not feel the least embarrassment about that luncheon. I understood from the first that I had invited you and I was glad indeed to be able to convert it into a little luncheon party by having Miss Wald and Mr. Kellogg with us. You won't mind my telling you though that I was a little disappointed not to have had a real heart to heart talk with you about the welfare of our party. I cannot help fearing it is in the hands of some who are interested in making it difficult for us to really achieve what we want to achieve. It worries me not a little to have our leader surrounded by the men who are now closest to him, and to find him suspicious of men, who, whatever may be said of their political judgments, are nevertheless men whose motives are above suspicion.
I know that you won't misunderstand me. I am not attacking the Colonel's motive. I feel simply that the defeat has thrown him clear back into the lap of the most conservative counsellors of our party, -- men who don't fully know what it is all about, or at least what I believe we all think it's all about. I think the Colonel himself in the long run is going to come around all right. Gifford Pinchot tells me that he acted just this way about the Taft matter when he first saw the Colonel in Europe as the latter was returning to civilization. He thought Gifford was all wrong about Taft, that he had made the mistake of his life in taking the position [page 2] he had taken, and that he was forever and always destroying his usefulness. In the end, of course, we know that the Colonel came right around to Pinchot's position.
Early in this struggle he took counsel with the "extreme wing". He had their confidence and I think they had his. You remember what he said to us that evening in Chicago. That I think is a pretty fair index to his feeling at the moment. It seems to me that it is up to us to change that feeling. While I realize it will be a great thing for us when we develop another great leader, I am convinced that at the present moment the Colonel is our great asset. If we pull through and make the Progressive Party a real Progressive Party, I am sure we will have to depend on him. So I feel strongly that we must recapture him so to speak.
Now I hate to say anything to you which sounds in the least as though I were throwing bouquets, because I know you dislike it, but (whether you like it or not!) you must hear us say, and believe us when we say it, that you are the greatest asset which the real Progressive cause has at this time. As the men at Mr. Pinchot's house said last Saturday evening, "The Colonel has become suspicious of the whole social worker crowd except Jane Addams, and he is afraid of her, and we must depend upon her to save the situation."
You said you would be glad to know the results of the meeting at Mr. Pinchot's house. What I have just stated really sums it all up. We spent a good deal of the evening in interesting but more or less fruitless discussion trying to decide just what is the least that we should demand for the present. We heard again from [page 3] Mr. Record, who is always very convincing, and those of us who were spectators enjoyed an interesting and spirited debate between him and Dean Kirchwey, and I must say I think Record nearly always comes out on top in debates. Summed up, the feeling is that we can't get anywhere with the Colonel or with the rank and file of those who ought to be with us, until we are agreed among ourselves as to just what we ought to stand for, say when the next convention assembles, but we ought to determine as early as possible what our fundamentals are to be, and then when a fairly large group of leaders are agreed among themselves, as Pinchot put it, "we ought to set sail for Roosevelt and we will take him aboard our craft."
Now I would like to write you more and I know that I promised to send you some names, but I shall have to put that off for a day or so, as I am dictating this in the midst of one of the busiest mornings I have had for years. I do hope that I can have the chance while you are here to see you alone for a little while, or perhaps only with Pinchot and not more than one other person, and I sincerely hope that you can attend a meeting at Pinchot's house. I see that you are tied up on Monday, the 17th, and that you are to sail for Egypt the following day. It looks, therefore, as though Sunday is our only opportunity, unless you would be free Monday evening. Would you object to a small meeting on Sunday evening at Mr. Pinchot's house, if it could be arranged? If not, perhaps I could plan to see you a little while before the meeting for a little chat and then we could go together to Mr. Pinchot's, or we might conceivably meet there at Pinchot's before the others arrived.
I hope you will pardon this hasty and I fear fragmentary [page 4] statement. I seem to read between the lines of your letter that you feel some concern, as I do, and so I have written to you freely just how I do feel.
Faithfully yours,
John A Kingsbury [signed]
P.S. Since dictating this I have seen Amos Pinchot. He has asked me to urge you to dine at his house Sunday evening Feb. 16th with a small group of the "extreme wingers" who will be invited in to meet you.
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