Letter from Edith to Joseph R. Goodman and Elizabeth B. Goodman, March 13, 1942

j : : 1627 Fost Sts

San Francisco

March 13, 1942

Dear Betty, and Joe,

Pardon the garish effect. My black ribbon is so worn out that you'd put

, your eyes out trying to read it. This is really much better, even if somewhat

startling. |

Many thanks for the check. We were glad to cancel all debts because you

probably had that much invested here in supplies, but since you have s@nt) the

money, we won't refuse iti We had an enormous surplus left over from last month,

but this month we shall run rather close, since there are considerably fewer of use

| ~ We are putting a good deal of the surplus into the new CPS fund which

is being started here. Perhaps you have heard about it. A comnittee composed of Joe

Conard, Caleb, Josephine, myself and one or two others are setting up a regular

fund to help CPS fellows who need to get away for furlough but can't afford to.

It is figured that it will cost $35 to bring one fellow down for a week or ten days

furlough, everything included. There will be an effort made to buy concert tickets

and the like ahead of times At the first mceting of the committee, Henry Meyer (a

perfectly dear German boy who, though he slept at the Friends Center, spent most of

a very lon(R) furlough at Sakai House) disappointed and disillusioned the good Quaker

ladies by insisting very firmly and naively that CPS fellows would much rather.

stay at Sakai than at a, private home or even at the Friends Center. They liked the

freedom and the atmosphere (I'm sure that latter noun was qualified in his mind by

the adjective "feminine") here, he explained very earnestly. At any rate, Henry was

one of our star guests. "hen he left he presented us with a fresh pineapple:

At this point Sakai House is dow to five girls, no, six. *hat isn't: quite

correct, because Mr. and Mrs. Johnson are here. They are a Negro couple who came =~

here for a week or two and have stayed because we liked them so much and because we

felt it desirable to have a married couple to lend a semblance of respectability

to this place. We don{t see awfully much of them because he works in the shipyard

and furthermore he has just come back from Pearl Harbor and they want to be together

and furthermore they are -used to their own kind of southern cooking. But they are

swell. people and we dd get together occasionally. One evening when Helen Topping was `

here and gave a most interesting presentation of the "story behind Pearl Harbor",

among all the other things she is interested in, Mr. Johnson came and stuck right

through it all, although we had no idea how much it mean0x00A7 to him, because she was

putting it all in terms of pacifism that might not have mesnt anything to him, 0x00A7

Just after Muriel Bullard moved in, Sakai House, at a crucial meeting, |

almost split into two factions-- those that wented more of the abhram type of group, `

`and those that wanted the house to be open to anyone who was interested in working

in the neighborhood here. The debate is still on and I don't lmow how it will be

settled. Several people, incentluding lirs. Mitchell and the Footes, feel that the basis

for entrance hers should be Christian pacifism.. Although I aincline strongly toward

that point of view, I have come to feel that there are rich values to be gained from

a stron fellowship built upon the basis of common interest in the neishborhood, even

though beliefs, religious and political, may not be in common. I guess my recent

reading of "Twenty Yeays et Hull-House" has influenced me, And yet 1 am inconsistent

because I believe very strongly that this should be kept as a center for OPS fellows

E

cent

and I am ready to preserve that very important function of Sakai House against all

es opinions to the contrary?

The last weekend in March Caleb is planning a most wonderful F.0.R.

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