October 23, 1944
Dear Janet,
I recieved your name and address from the British-American Relations Organization after responding to an advertisement in the Chicago Daily News. They told me that you are 19 years old and have for hobbies Reading, Dramatics, Games, Youth Club Work.
I am interested in all these things also. Of course they are very general terms and it may be that you and I do not read the same kind of games–or sports. I happen to be interested in history and contemporary world events and American politics so I enjoy biographies, historical novels, books by foreign correspondents but I hardly ever read fiction. It seems to me that history and current events are just as fascinating as fiction.
Perhaps you have read One World by Wendell Willkie? He was the most honest and straight-forward and intelligent leader America has produced in these recent years–my personal choice for president–and his death was a great loss. Anyhow his book was one of my favorites. Other writers I enjoy are Ernie Pyle, Quentin Reynolds, Tom Ybara, William Seabrook–all travellers and correspondents. I wonder if books of war correspondents are as popular in England as they are here?
As for sports, I play baseball, gold, tennis mainly. I swim a lot and play a little basketball. How many of these are widely played in England?
Perhaps before I go further I should explain who I am. I am 23 years old; I was disqualified for military service because of poor eyes. I work for a small engineering firm in Chicago which sells wet sand blast equipment and sand reclamation units to foundries. I have been with them about a year and a half since I got out of college. I was hired to do special assignments and my work has been varied and interesting–writing publicity articles, gathering evidence for legal cases, research in libraries on technical subjects, running physical tests on sand in the laboratory, and helping out in the machine shop. I may end up as a salesman or publicity writer but now it is hard to classify myself by occupation. I had planned to enter law school after finishing my pre-law course at college but I decided that the long hours of studying would be too much strain for my bad eyes.
Concerning the youth work, I am an assistant Scoutmaster for a Boy Scout troop and I teach Sunday School in the Unitarian Church. The Unitarians are a small denomination here. I wonder if they are very large or well known in England? I'll write more about Boy Scouts and Sunday School later if you want to hear.
Right now America is going through the throes of a bitter political campaign which must look very funny for a nation which is supposed to be united in a great war effort–if you can see it from a proper perspective. Here in America we are too close to it to see the ridiculous part of it. We are used to these minor civil wars every four years and we accept them as natural.
Three times in the past I fought bitterly against Franklin D. Roosevelt. But this time I feel that he must be reelected in order to keep the friendship of all our allies and to makes a lasting peace in the world. I called myself a Republican up until the summer of this year although I have been getting more and more disgusted with the Republican party for the last 5 years. Their record has been one of isolation and obstruction. In their blind partisanship, they fought every effort of Roosevelt and the New Deal to prepare this country for war and even during the war they snipe at our friendly allies, grumbling at rationing, Wage Price, and Rent controls, and international cooperation. In addition to that, they have fought most of the progressive social legislation of the New Deal. Now they have the hypocrisy to claim that the New Deal failed to prepare America for war, and that the Republicans will protect labor and they are trying to claim their foreign policy is the same as the democrats but the record shows this to be false. Gov. Dewey, while more liberal than most of his followers, is playing the demagogue by twisting the meaning of quotations which he lifts out of Roosevelts speeches and by evading important issues and seeking to exploit discontent with wartime hardships.
My parents with whom I live are strong for Dewey which makes for a lot of tension and argument but we manage to avoid ill feelings. Evanston (just north of Chicago) and the other suburbs are mainly populated by the rich and well-to-do people who want to keep things the way they are and hate Roosevelt because he has brought to pass many social reforms, helped the poor people and labor, and because in order to do this, the New Deal had to raise the taxes on well-to-do people. Consequently I am in a small minority in my own city and among my friends.
I would like to hear about England's political life. We get a little news about it here but not as much as I'd like. I have always admired Churchill although I am afraid he is something of an imperialist and not a real believer in democracy for all peoples. I like Eden and Ernest Bevin and Beaverbrook. I read articles by Harold Laski in our newspapers. Do you think the Labor Party will win an election and make England Socialist?
Hope you will write soon.
Yours truly,
Don Rehm
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