74 Macdougal Street
New York, N.Y.

February 7, 1935

Dear Langston Hughes,

I was very happy to receive your letter of January 27, as I was not only anxious to have some information about Jacques Roumain, but also because I had been told that my wire might have caused you trouble in California. So your letter was a great relief.

The first knowledge of Jacques Roumain's imprisonment came to me through your appeal printed in the *Nation* on January 1. That is why I wired to you for more information. In the meanwhile we have been able to secure many additional facts summarized in the letters I am enclosing.

What you write about Jacques Roumain is of great value to us as it helps to gain the interest of a certain group of people. And we are determined not to give up the fight before we have freed Jacques Roumain.

I met him in New York in 1932 and was impressed by his extremely aristocratic manner and his brilliant and generous personality. I shall never forget the evening spent in his presence. He carried us away with his fire and charmed us with his culture. Even when I could not agree with his ideas, I was utterly convinced of the purity and nobility of his character. This pure flame we cannot let be destroyed for the sake of a corrupt government and the false "gold of the National City Bank."

Again I thank you very heartily for your good letter.

FRANCINE B. BRADLEY, Secretary

74 Macdougal Street
New York City

357

Mr. Langston Hughes
c/o Alfred A. Knopf
730 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y.

Please Forward

5

Committee for the Release of Jacques Roumain

NEW YORK, N. Y.

CARLETON BEALS, National Chairman

74 Macdougal Street
Gramercy 7-5515

SPONSORS

Louis Adamic
Sherwood Anderson
Nathan Asch
Roger Baldwin
Stephen Vincent Benet
Thomas Benton
George Biddle
Van Wyck Brooks
Ernest Boyd
John Chamberlain
George S. Counts
Malcolm Cowley
Edward Dahlberg
Jerome Davis
Adolf Dehn
Theodore Dreiser
Clifton Fadiman
Waldo Frank
Joseph Freeman
Martha Gruening
Henry Hart
Josephine Herbst
Robert Herrick
John Haynes Holmes
Langston Hughes
Leland Jenks
Frederick J. Kiesler
Alfred Kreymborg
Corliss Lamont
John Howard Lawson
Archibald MacLeish
Lewis Mumford
Carl Murphy
Paul Rosenfeld
Carl Ruggles
Isidor Schneider
George Seldes
John Sloan
J. E. Spingarn
Lincoln Steffens
Benjamin Stolberg
Jean Toomer
Edgar Varèse
Edmund Wilson
Art Young
William Zorach

May 25. 1936.

Dear Langston Hughes,

I have very bad news to give you: Joseph Jolibois fils, who was in prison with Jacques Roumain died suddenly on May 13. The official report is that Jolibois had a stroke when a demonstration in favor of Stenio Vincent past the prison, but no one seems to believe it and it is generally assumed that he was poisoned. I am desperate about it and worried about Jacques Roumain and the two others still in prison: Georges Petit and Saturnin Francois. I feel somehow responsible for Jolibois' death. If we had made more public ity, we might have avoided his death. But now Roumain and the two others have to be saved from a similar fate. Could you perhaps write a similar letter as you did in December of 1934? Saying a few words of regrets for Jolibois and asking the public to demand the freedom of Jacques Roumain, Georges Petit and Saturnin Francois?

Jolibois was one of the finest men Haiti had, the benefactor of Stenio Vincent when he was poor and in distress, the leader of the patriotic movement in Haiti which finally led to the liberation of Haiti from the American domination. Today Stenio Vincent who tried to prevent the removal of the American Navy for personal egoistic reasons pretends to be himself the liberator of Haiti. This is why he had to get rid of Jolibois. The first thing he did when he became president was to put Jolibois into an Insane Asylum, then when Jolibois had been freed through Washington's intervention, Vincent tried to poison him, then in 1934 he put him in prison on flimsy charges and now finally he had him actually posioned, as the rumors say.

I was sorry not to see you again before you left. The day after you telephoned I got the grippe and had to stay in bed for six weeks. On June 5th my husband and I are leaving for Russia. Our address there will be c/o Hermann Habicht, 423 National Hotel, Moscow. If you have any messages I shall be glad to take them. I am very much worried though about Jacques Roumain and hate to leave for so long. We shall return on September 15. Have you anything to suggest or could you also write a letter to Stenio Vincent, deploring Joli-

357

NEW YORK, N. Y.

74 Macdougal Street
Grembery 7-5515

Feb. 3. 1936

SPONSORS

Louis Adamic
Sherwood Anderson
Nathan Asch
Roger Baldwin
Stephen Vincent Bonet
Thomas Benton
George Biddle
Van Wyck Brooks
Ernest Boyd
John Chamberlain
George S. Counts
Malcolm Cowley
Edward Dahlberg
Jerome Davis
Adolf Dehn
Theodore Dreiser
Clifton Fadiman
Waldo Frank
Joseph Freeman
Martha Gruening
Henry Hart
Josephine Herbst
Robert Herrick
John Haynes Holmes
Langston Hughes
Leland Janks
Frederick J. Kiesler
Alfred Kreyborg
Corliss Lamont
John Howard Lawson
Archibald MacLeish
Lewis Mumford
Carl Murphy
Paul Rosenfeld
Carl Ruggles
Isidor Schneider
George Seldes
John Sloan
J. E. Spingarn
Lincoln Steffens
Benjamin Stolberg
Jean Toomer
Edgar Varèse
Edmund Wilson
Art Young
William Zorach

Dear Langston Hughes,

Please forgive me for not having written to you sooner to thank you for the fine message you sent me through Conrad Komorowski and Ethel Brook. I had a bad attack of grippe which, with its after effects, kept me in bed for quite some time.

I was very glad to hear from you and am so thankful and happy that you will devote one of your evenings to the cause of Jacques Roumain.

At the suggestion of Mr. Schoemberg of the New York Public Library I saw Mr. Parker of the 135th Street Y.M.C.A. will who will let us have their theatre free of charge for your reading. I have made a tentative option for Friday evening, February 28, and would be very thankful if you could let me know before the end of the week whether this date will be convenient for you. I should like to know also if you approve of our choice of the hall or if you would like to propose another. Mr. Parker is holding the theatre for us until Friday noon, February 7.

We would have liked to take a larger hall in a more central location, like the Town Hall for instance; but for this we would have to arrange a bigger affair, and the time is, I am afraid, too short for that. But we are writing anyhow to Marion Anderson and Paul Robeson. If they accept we might still change the hall or - if you agree - arrange a second evening within a larger frame.

As little as I hear from Haiti it seems as if Stenio Vincent were mostly afraid of having public attention drawn to his dictatorship, as his position at this moment seems rather precarious. It is therefore just now very urgent for us to bring Jacques Roumain before the public again. Your personal participation in the revival of the work of the Committee for the Release of Jacques Roumain will stimulate again the interest of the people who have protested before against the unjust imprisonment of the Haitian liberals and radicals.

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