May Wright Sewall Papers

would send out in your character of president of the american national Council, a circular announcing the 4th repitition in America of the great May-manifestation and mentioning the intention of forming on this occasion the body of a permanent League by way of national Committees, adding the wish that the other Councils will again cooperate at least in the first sense, if not in the second.

I think dear Mrs. Sewall that such circular from you would help a great deal to encourage this year's action without compromising at all your obligatory restriction as president of the international Council.

In very frist line such a circular from you would be nessessary for England, where the peace friendly elements of the feminist circles have need of support and encouragement coming from without.

I shall of course have written in this sense to these addresses before so that no time may be lost and your circular is to come as a con[piece missing]ing and instigating element after. -- I think well also to hint in [piece missing] a circular to the efficiency of an interchange of telegrams between [piece missing]ational Councils on that day, which I consider not an unimpor[piece missing]t feature of solidarity in the whole action.

In this sense I also aks you instantly, dear Mrs. Sewall to provide this year for a telegram being sent in the name of the whole american action on may 18th to the address of Countess Hogendorp in the Hague who has been and will probably be again the centre of the annual Hague manifestation, where to I direct all international missives of cooperation, the Hague assembly being assisted by very high official persons as ministers, generals, and being the best suited ofr getting the report about the international action abroad in the international press. This greatly to be regretted that such an official message from the American to the European assemblies (the latter personnificated in the Hague assembly) should have failed until [word?], and I dearly hope this will be redressed this time. -- Of course the telegram

ought [piece missing] be [piece missing] in the morning of may 18th to arrive in time, and voted afterward in your assemblies retrospectively. -- As so the date it must of course be the 18th which is the day of the opening of the conference, and I believe also one year later of the installation of the Court in the Hague.

All European assemblies have also been on the 18th (excepting the first year of the Conference, where it was fixed on the 15th in order to make possible the arrival of the telegrams etc. in line for the Conference. Also the freemason's international manifestation for peace, which it is my deep consolation to see being realised already this year! is fixed for the 18th.

Of course dear Mrs. Sewall it is my wish and firm intentiona of meeting you in Germany this summer. I still hope that your next letter will bring me your acceptance of coming to Munich as my guest towards end of June, where I would also have you, if possible, speak in public. -- I am most glad to hear of your intention of devoting yourself even more broadly to womens propagation against war. - And if you will show me the confidence and honour to accept me as a serious cooperator you will probably give me the only and best support which can enable me to conquer the until word undiminished burden of my grief and save me for a life of usefulness and activity. -- In regard to this year's executive session in Liesden I shall permit myself [?] to make you some proposals [?] to promote the understanding of our matter in that corporation, even if we don't get them to a more decided [?] step this year. As to my position with our Council, dear Mrs. Sewall, you are quite mistaken in thinking it in any way hostile from one side or the other. --- I am on best terms with Mrs. Strill, the only one I know more personally of the Council leaders. The curious fact that though quite undoubtedly being the person who has done by far the most for promoting the peace question's in Germany for the last four years politically as well as in the feminist circles, all this has been done by me in quite an unofficial and outsider quality and much of it even half unknown. as I have shunned putting forth my personality in almost a pathologic manner. And as personal honours are generally not bestowed

on such who do not seek them I have not even aquired so much [piece missing] a [piece missing]icial quality in any of our feminist or peace circles. Most of the members of the ger- man Council know very little about my achievements these last years and scarcely appreciate them; and Mrs. Lina Horgenstem whom they have chosen into the arbitration Committee, which never yet gave a sign of life, is herself in the Council and has taken some pains formerly in propagation peace ideas in some housewifery way in her papers amongst soup and washing directions. She is a venerable old lady without any possibility of furthering our question in any serious way. Yet I am sure the will be chosen again to a happy sinecure this year in the arbritation Committee by sheer commodily, misplaced regards and want of a better proposal which surely cannot come from me. -- If you think, dear Mrs. Sewall, that my having a place and seat in the international arbritation Committee -(- and I indeed feel sure I could in such an official position do much more for our beloved Cause than without it, and this would be my only reason for accepting it), it would probably be best for you to propose or recommend my nomination yourself in Dresden to the german representatives, or what I personally would prefer by far to this, to arrange for me a postion as a sort of bye-conniceller or bye-sitter or any such extra quality which might perhaps be based on my having, in also outsider fashion contributed a little to the creation of the arbritation Committee itself by creating the succesful manifestation in 1899. - The only possible germ of a (by me unsupposed and unsapossible) hostility on part of the Council might only be my intimate friendship with Frau Cauer (undoubtedly as I wrote before the most aminant wind in the present german feminist movement and whom indeed they shun a little on account of her aminence and energetie radicalism. --

What am I to say about your kind proposal to come to America?-- It again hits my own seered thoughts which have long been turning that way as well for the profit of bearing on the social line, as for visiting dear relations living in Chicago. But as yet my health is too much shaken for undertaking

a tour of much variety and mental strain; also my courage too low for such a resolve! may be that our meeting in summer may strenghten it, and so I kindly accept your dear invitation in the hope that mine to you will find a nearer realization!

Let me press once more on your the nessessity of having explicit paper reports about the whole american manifestation sent over. - And last not least let me suggest, if it were not practical to lay the fund for the coming international Anti-War-League, by arranging a collection at the end of your American assemblies for this purpose! which I am sure would bring a considerable sum and which to my humble opinion ought to be devoted not only to America but also for the first finding out of the hoped-for European sections whose greatest difficulty of coming to life will be the fund question. --

I imagine this coming League to become a very powerful and influenciall factor in international public opinion towards peace, and I want it strong, well funded and impressive from the beginning. -- I do not doubt that after its creation we shall obtain great financial help from private side. -- I count upon our personal deliberations in summer for fixing organisatory and bussiness details. I close this long letter with an apology for its length and a most fervent and thankful salute to your own dear self.

Yours devotedly Margaret L Selenka

P.S. If copies of my pamphlet about the first Manifestation - containing the project of the perioducal and of the coming league can be of any use - I would arrange with my editor for letting them at the price of 50 [?] (I believe = 15 dollar cent) and you might give orders through the editor Lenicke u. Buechuer, New York, 812 Broadway, perhaps it would be good to put a note about the pamphlet in your circulars or feminist papers.

from Chicago, probably on the 22nd, and if there are details of hours and so forth, will you please address me at my cousin's, Mrs Coonley-Ward -- no 620 Division Street, Chicago, where I go this week?

With [pleasantial?] [passible?] anticipation,

Cordially Mabel Loomis Todd.

WHITING LILIAN MAR 1917

Boston March 11, 1917

My Dearest May -

I feel very sure that we are to come "into conjunction," so to speak, soon -- About your work -- publish-in -- I really have no more idea then as if I could neither read or write - but what would you think of [?] H. [Looran?]? It is more than possible that Professor Bierrigaard would be able to suggest (no one can do more than that!) -- the whole literary question now is mainly a [lotery?]-- the thing you are sure [?] be

accepted -- is not; & sometimes vice versa. All the same no discouragements discourage; no discouragements are discouraging; I put before myself hostile conditions -- undesirable facts -- I see them -- they are real -- but they make no more impression on my real self that is pushing forward than as is they never existed. For instance -- yesterday afternoon -- while the day was fair the working was something awful & the air in --

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evitably damp. Also, I am just beginning -- hardly even beginning until yesterday -- to recover a little -- I could hardly speak aloud -- but I wanted & needed to go down town. I had not been out of the house for days -- a friend said it was madness for me to go out -- in the state of the walking (melted snow & mud & snow unmelted) damp air -- & a still [difiction?] throat & chest -- But I went -- now I recognized the obstacles -- but they did not obstruct me! I walked down - I walked back - tho' admonished that [?] I did

so "dangerous" a thing I must have a closed [?]. I was not sure but that I should take a trolley car -- one way or both -- but I found the walk & the wind did me good -- not evil & I was the better for it. I am just so in my attitude toward the immaterial things -- literary conditions are bad, or, at lest, largely dominated by the demand of an order of writing that I do not & cannot produce -- compition is great etc. etc. -- all that is true, But it has no more discouraging effect on my own mental attitude & impulse &

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resolution, than as if the conditions were reversed. not a particle more. nor is it that I feel so confident of success, -- I don't know in the least whether I shall succeed or not. I only know I shall never give up! I only know that if I set out to work toward a given point of the compass, -- I shall work with my face turned that way -- I may walk over brambles & briars & hills and swamps & bogs & storms -- very good -- that is the way & walk. You know [?] Holmes said: "It matters not where you stand, but in