More Letters of Note

by Shaun Usher

  Since I sat down to write, I have been called down to a servant from Mount Vernon, with a billet from Major Custis, and a haunch of venison, and a kind, congratulatory letter from Mrs. Lewis, upon my arrival in the city, with Mrs. Washington’s love, inviting me to Mount Vernon, where, health permitting, I will go before I leave this place.

  Affectionately, your mother

  Letter No. 085

  YOUR ORGANIZATION HAS FAILED

  ELEANOR ROOSEVELT TO DAR

  February 26th, 1939

  Formed in 1890, the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) is an organization whose members are all women descended from those who fought for American Independence, and in 1939, in accordance with a policy that prohibited African Americans from performing on their premises, they refused to allow celebrated musician Marian Anderson to sing at the DAR Constitution Hall. The decision caused uproar, but the DAR stood firm. As a result, and to everyone’s surprise, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt immediately resigned from the organisation by way of this letter and then invited Anderson to sing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. 75,000 people attended.

  Celebrated American opera singer Marian Anderson, c. 1950

  February 26, 1939.

  My dear Mrs. Henry M. Robert, Jr.:

  I am afraid that I have never been a very useful member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, so I know it will make very little difference to you whether I resign, or whether I continue to be a member of your organization.

  However, I am in complete disagreement with the attitude taken in refusing Constitution Hall to a great artist. You have set an example which seems to me unfortunate, and I feel obliged to send in to you my resignation. You had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way and it seems to me that your organization has failed.

  I realize that many people will not agree with me, but feeling as I do this seems to me the only proper procedure to follow.

  Very sincerely yours,

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Letter No. 086

  ON BUREAUCRATESE AND GOBBLEDYGOOK

  ALFRED KAHN TO HIS COLLEAGUES

  June 16th, 1977

  As a result of his influential stint as chairman of the now-defunct Civil Aeronautics Board in the 1970s, economist Alfred Kahn rightly became known as the “Father of Deregulation”. However, he also made a lasting impression on many due to the wider publication – initially in the Washington Star, and then the Post – of this internal memo, sent by Kahn to his colleagues at the CAB shortly after taking the helm and circulated as a call for clearer written communications within the organisation. Little did Kahn know, but this document would soon attract praise from far and wide. According to Kahn’s obituary in the New York Times, January 2011:

  It generated a marriage proposal from a Boston Globe columnist, who gushed: “Alfred Kahn, I love you. I know you’re in your late 50s and are married, but let’s run away together.” A Singapore newspaper suggested that Mr. Kahn be awarded a Nobel Prize. A Kansas City newspaper urged him to run for president. And, shortly after the memo’s appearance, he was appointed to the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, a position he held until his death.

  THE CHAIRMAN OF THE CIVIL AERONAUTICS BOARD

  June 16, 1977

  MEMORANDUM

  TO: Bureau and Office Heads; Division and Section Chiefs

  CC: Board Members

  FROM: Chairman Alfred E. Kahn (Signed)

  SUBJECT: The Style of Board Orders and Chairman’s Letters

  One of my peculiarities, which I must beg you to indulge if I am to retain my sanity (possibly at the expense of yours!) is an abhorrence of the artificial and hyper-legal language that is sometimes known as bureaucratese or gobbledygook.

  The disease is almost universal, and the fight against it endless. But it is a fight worth making, and I ask your help in this struggle.

  May I ask you, please, to try very hard to write Board orders and, even more so, drafts of letters for my signature, in straightforward, quasi-conversational, humane prose – as though you are talking to or communicating with real people. I once asked a young lawyer who wanted us to say “we deem it inappropriate” to try that kind of language out on his children – and if they did not drive him out of the room with their derisive laughter, to disown them.

  I suggest the test is a good one: try reading some of the language you use aloud, and ask yourself how your friends would be likely to react. (And then decide, on the basis of their reactions, whether you still want them as friends.)

  I cannot possibly in a single communication give you more than a small fraction of the kinds of usages I have in mind. Here are just a few:

  One of our recent show cause orders contained this language: “all interested persons be and they hereby are directed to show cause….” The underlined words are obviously redundant, as well as archaic.

  Every time you are tempted to use “herein,” “hereinabove,” “hereinunder,” or similarly, “therein” and its corresponding variants, try “here” or “there” or “above” or “below” and see if it doesn’t make just as much sense.

  The passive voice is wildly overused in government writing. Typically, its purpose is to conceal information: one is less likely to be jailed if one says “he was hit by a stone,” than “I hit him with a stone.” The active voice is far more forthright, direct, and human. (There are, of course, some circumstances in which the use of the passive is unavoidable; please try to confine it to those situations.)

  This one is, I recognize, a matter of taste: some people believe in maintaining standards of the language and others (like the late but unlamented editor of Webster’s Third International) do not. But unless you feel strongly, would you please try to remember that “data” was for more than two thousand years and is still regarded by most literate people as plural (the singular is “datum”), and that (this one goes back even longer) the singular is “criterion,” and “criteria” is plural. Also, that for at least from the 17th through most of the 20th century, “presently” meant “soon” or “immediately” and not “now.” The use of “presently” in the latter context is another pomposity: why not “now?” Or, if necessary, “currently?”

  Could you possibly try to make the introduction of letters somewhat less pompous than “this is in reference to your letter dated May 42, 1993, regarding (or concerning, or in regard to, or with reference to)….” That just doesn’t sound as though it is coming from a human being. Why not, for example, “The practice of which you complain in your letter of May 42 is one that has troubled me for a long time.” Or “I have looked into the question you raise in your letter of October 14, and am happy to be able to report….” Or something like that?

  Why use “regarding” or “concerning” or “with regard to,” when the simple word “about” would do just as well? Unless you are trying to impress someone; but are you sure you want to impress anyone who would be impressed by such circumlocutions? There is a similar pompous tendency to use “prior to,” when what you really mean is “before.” “Prior to” should be used only when in fact the one thing that comes before is, in a sense, a condition of what follows, as in the expression “a prior condition.”

  I know “requesting,” is considered more genteel than “asking,” but “asking” is more forthright. Which do you want to be?

  One of my pet peeves is the rampant misuse of “hopefully.” That word is an adverb, and makes sense only as it modifies a verb, and means “with hope.” It is possible to walk hopefully into a room, if one is going into the room with the hope of finding something (or not finding something) there. It is not intelligent to say “hopefully the criminal will make his identity known,” because the meaning is not that he will do so with hope in his heart, and he is the subject of the verb “make.”

  My last imposition on you for today is the excessive use of “appropriate” or “inappropriate,” when what the writer really means is either “legal” or “illegal,” “pro
per” or “improper,” “desirable” or “undesirable,” “fitting” or “not fitting,” or simply “this is what I want (or do not want) to do.”

  A final example of pomposity, probably, is this memorandum itself.

  I have heard it said that style is not substance, but without style what is substance?

  Letter No. 087

  I THINK I NO HOW TO MAKE PEOPLE OR ANIMALS ALIVE

  ANTHONY HOLLANDER TO BLUE PETER

  June 29th, 1973

  In June of 1973, spurred on by the recent discovery of a dying bird in his garden, nine-year-old Anthony Hollander wrote to the presenters of the BBC’s much-loved children’s television show, Blue Peter, and asked for assistance in his quest to “make people or animals alive”. Soon after, an encouraging response arrived, written by the programme’s editor, Biddy Baxter.

  35 years later, in 2008, the very same Anthony Hollander, now Professor of Rheumatology and Tissue Engineering at the University of Bristol, played a key role in a record-breaking feat of surgery: the successful implantation of an artificially-grown windpipe into a 30-year-old Colombian woman named Claudia Castillo. He has since said of the letter and response:

  “If [Biddy Baxter’s] letter had shown any hint of ridicule or disbelief I might perhaps never have trained to become a medical scientist or been driven to achieve the impossible dream, and really make a difference to a human being’s life. I remember being thrilled at the time to have been taken seriously. Actually, even nowadays I am thrilled when people take my ideas seriously.”

  Dear Val, Jhon, Peter and Lesslie,

  This may seem very strange, but I think I no how to make people or animals alive. Why Im teling you is because I cant get the things I need.

  A list of what I need.

  Diagram of how evreything works. [inside youre body.]

  Model of a heart split in half. [both halvs.]

  The sort of sering they yous for cleaning ears. [Tsering must be very very clean.] 4. Tools for cutting people open.

  Tools for stiches.

  Fiberglass box, 8 foot tall, 3 foot width. [DIAGRAM]

  Picture of a man showing all the arteries.

  Sorry but in number 6 in the list the box needs lid. If you do get them on 1st March I can pay £10, £11, £12, £13 or £14.

  Send your answer to me,

  [address redacted]

  Love from

  Anthony Peter Hollander

  P.S. Could I please have all your Autographs.

  Letter No. 088

  YOU RANG MY MOTHER

  MICHAEL J. MOLLOY TO JEFFREY BERNARD

  July 11th, 1975

  Famed journalist Jeffrey Bernard was married four times in his 65 years, but his one true love was Soho, London and the many drinking holes that line its streets. More often than not one could find him propping up the bar at the Coach and Horses pub, cigarette in hand, delighting friends such as Dylan Thomas, Peter Cook and Ian Fleming with an endless stream of anecdotes, some of which also graced the weekly, booze-addled column he wrote for the New Statesman; he was also, thanks to his unwavering commitment to drunkenness and rowdiness, a regular character in the anecdotes of others. In 1975, after many approaches by different publishers, he finally agreed to write an autobiography – but there was a problem: he could remember very little of the past 15 years. With that in mind, he had a letter published in the Spectator, to which the editor of the Daily Mirror soon replied.

  Sir,

  The publishers, Michael Joseph, have asked me to write my autobiography and I’d be grateful if you could give me any information about my whereabouts and behaviour between 1960 and 1974.

  Jeffrey Bernard

  * * *

  Daily Mirror

  11th July 1975

  Mr Jeffrey Bernard

  39 Nottingham Place

  W.1.

  Dear Mr. Bernard,

  I read with interest your letter asking for information as to your behaviour and whereabouts between the years 1960–1974.

  On a certain evening in September 1969, you rang my mother to inform her that you were going to murder her only son.

  If you would like further information, I can put you in touch with many people who have enjoyed similar bizarre experiences in your company.

  Yours sincerely,

  (Signed)

  MICHAEL J MOLLOY

  Letter No. 089

  PEOPLE SIMPLY EMPTY OUT

  CHARLES BUKOWSKI TO JOHN MARTIN

  August 12th, 1986

  In 1969, publisher John Martin offered to pay Charles Bukowski $100 each and every month for the rest of his life, on one condition: that he quit his job at the post office and become a full-time writer. 49-year-old Bukowski did exactly that, and just weeks after leaving work finished writing his first book, Post Office, a semi-autobiographical story in which Bukowski’s fictional alter ego, Henry Chinaski, muddles through life as an employee of the US Postal Service. It was published by Martin’s Black Sparrow Press in 1971. 15 years later, Bukowski wrote a letter to Martin and spoke of his joy at having escaped full-time employment.

  * * *

  Hello John:

  Thanks for the good letter. I don’t think it hurts, sometimes, to remember where you came from. You know the places where I came from. Even the people who try to write about that or make films about it, they don’t get it right. They call it “9 to 5.” It’s never 9 to 5, there’s no free lunch break at those places, in fact, at many of them in order to keep your job you don’t take lunch. Then there’s OVERTIME and the books never seem to get the overtime right and if you complain about that, there’s another sucker to take your place.

  You know my old saying, “Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors.”

  And what hurts is the steadily diminishing humanity of those fighting to hold jobs they don’t want but fear the alternative worse. People simply empty out. They are bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. And the body. The hair. The fingernails. The shoes. Everything does.

  As a young man I could not believe that people could give their lives over to those conditions. As an old man, I still can’t believe it. What do they do it for? Sex? TV? An automobile on monthly payments? Or children? Children who are just going to do the same things that they did?

  Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: “Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don’t you realize that?”

  They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn’t want to enter their minds.

  Now in industry, there are vast layoffs (steel mills dead, technical changes in other factors of the work place). They are layed off by the hundreds of thousands and their faces are stunned:

  “I put in 35 years...”

  “It ain’t right...”

  “I don’t know what to do...”

  They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I could see all this. Why couldn’t they? I figured the park bench was just as good or being a barfly was just as good. Why not get there first before they put me there? Why wait?

  I just wrote in disgust against it all, it was a relief to get the shit out of my system. And now that I’m here, a so-called professional writer, after giving the first 50 years away, I’ve found out that there are other disgusts beyond the system.

  I remember once, working as a packer in this lighting fixture company, one of the packers suddenly said: “I’ll never be free!”

  One of the bosses was walking by (his name was Morrie) and he let out this delicious cackle of a laugh, enjoying the fact that this fellow was trapped for life.

  So, the luck I finally had in getting out of those places, no matter how long it took, has given me a kind of joy, the jolly joy of the miracle. I now write from an old mind and an old body, long beyo
nd the time when most men would ever think of continuing such a thing, but since I started so late I owe it to myself to continue, and when the words begin to falter and I must be helped up stairways and I can no longer tell a bluebird from a paperclip, I still feel that something in me is going to remember (no matter how far I’m gone) how I’ve come through the murder and the mess and the moil, to at least a generous way to die.

  To not to have entirely wasted one’s life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.

  yr boy,

  Hank

  Letter No. 090

  A STRING OF VERITABLE PSYCHOLOGICAL PEACHES

  CARL JUNG TO JAMES JOYCE

  September 27th, 1932

  In 1932, renowned Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote a largely critical piece for Europäische Revue on the subject of Ulysses, James Joyce’s ground-breaking, controversial, and famously challenging novel. From Jung’s essay:

  I read to page 135 with despair in my heart, falling asleep twice on the way. The incredible versatility of Joyce’s style has a monotonous and hypnotic effect. Nothing comes to meet the reader, everything turns away from him, leaving him gaping after it. The book is always up and away, dissatisfied with itself, ironic, sardonic, virulent, contemptuous, sad, despairing, and bitter [...] Yes, I admit I feel have been made a fool of. The book would not meet me half way, nothing in it made the least attempt to be agreeable, and that always gives the reader an irritating sense of inferiority.

  In September of that year, Jung sent a copy of his article to Joyce along with a fascinating letter of which Joyce was both proud and infuriated. Interestingly, two years later Jung treated Joyce’s daughter, Lucia, for schizophrenia; it was around this time that Joyce wrote in Jung’s copy of Ulysses: