TELEPHONE, RIVERSIDE 2287.
STATION, RAVENSCOURT PARK 31 MINUTES.

March 1st

Taos

RIVER COURT,
HAMMERSMITH MALL,
W.6.

Dear Mabel

I too, was awfully sorry we didn't have a chance of
seeing more of one another. But I do hope you're going to
get Tony well. In the mean time everyone here has been awfully
nice to us, especially the Von Maltzhans, who really are a
most charming and intelligent couple, capable of the best kind
of work. Also Beatrice - and the parrots!

We had a terrific scramble over the foot hills on Wed-
nesday, which was great fun, but ended by laying me out com-
pletely. I've got it is ridiculous "soft" heart, which is
supposed to be going to kill me in ten or twelve years, only
I can't take it seriously. Anyhow, I was quiet yesterday and
today felt all right and had a good walk on the level.

It's nice of you saying what you do about me. Now, I
wonder whether I can, rather tentatively, say something to you.
It's this. The reason you like me is that I've got a real
job. I don't just write for fun, I take it pretty seriously,
and besides, I've got a husband and five children, and I take
them seriously too. And I'm a serious socialist party-worker,
I don't just talk about it. That's to say, I've got a lot
of solid values and a lot of confidence of a kind, rather deep
inside. But, you see, you'll never get anyone with a job of
their own to stay in Taos - it's out of the world, it's not
quite real. It's wonderful for a holiday, for a change of
living, but - it's not real to me as the share-croppers were
real. And it won't be real to anyone with work of their own
in the real world of social values.

Is that unkind? It's not meant to be, Mabel. I'm try-
ing to explain something. There are things more important
than personal relationships, more important than art. There's
what the Marxists call *praxis*, and it couldn't happen at Taos,
unless perhaps to an anthropologist. Seriously, I believe the
idea of a colony of serious working anthropologists would bring
you more of the kind of people you *really* need than anything
else.

I do hope you don't feel I'm lecturing you - or bullying
you like poor little Hicks! I'm trying to help in a situat-
ion which I haven't got quite clear. You see, I belong to a
race of people that my husband calls "bull-calves" - we're the
kind who stick our clumsy noses into things and moo (and often
we get hit on the nose, which is the sorest part for bull-

TELEPHONE: RIVERSIDE 2287.
STATION: RAVENSCOURT PARK 31 MINUTES.

April 30th

RIVER COURT,

HAMMERSMITH MALL,
W. 6.

Dear Mabel

Do forgive me for not writing before. My father died last month (I enclose a memoir - it's rather impressive as a body of work done) and since then I have had my hands pretty full. I hope by this time you will have heard from Eric Kennington and will have got his cheque - he left his cheque book behind once, and your address another time! I don't know if he will tell you, but he liked these enormously, especially the great dance, and we are arranging to swap round the pictures between us, so that sometimes I have one set and sometimes he. They're curiously different from the others, yet from the same inspiration. They're so splendidly certain, too.

My mother has been ill since my father died and of course there have been an awful lot of things to fix up. He was still doing good work when he got ill and it is a most awful pity. Yesterday there was a kind of memorial service in New College, as un-churchy as possible, with a very fine quotation from Plato and some from my father's own work. But it's all rather unreal. I was very fond of him - he never exercised parental authority! And my children all loved him and are a good deal upset about it.

I've done little work. Finished a book on politics and morality, and some miserable articles. But I'm stuck on my novel. One wants a new start for that. And it's hard to work with Europe crashing all round one. You remember a very different Italy. I hate thinking of all these people in all the countries being hurt, yet one can't help thinking of that. It must be lovely in Taos now.

TELEPHONE: RIVERSIDE 2287.
STATION, RAVENSCOURT PARK 3; MINUTES.

July 28th

RIVER COURT,
HAMMERSMITH MALL,
W. 6.

Dear Mabel

Do forgive me for not having written before - you would
if you saw how nice the pictures look in my room! The second
one was grand - it reminded me so clearly of what I experienced
myself, and it's so deliciously bright - like an Italian picture.
They live in my own room, which is a splendid muddle; the walls
are whitewashed, only it's rather dirty now, and I put on some
red stripes - there are two idiotic yellow pillars and a painted
cupboard; an bed with a big oak thing at the head, oldish, I
think - I got it when we started keeping house, from the back
of an old furniture shop in Oxford - with an embroidered quilt
made by a woman's institute; a small oak chest of drawers;
an oak chest and an oak cradle that there isn't room for anywhere
else which I used to have the babies in and which is now a good
boat; a dressing table from the old Omega workshops, usually
covered with papers; a big kitchen table with papers and books
on it, an very pretty tiny octagonal table of mulberry wood
from Gordon Russell; there are some photographs, a big, diffic-
ult wood-engraving by Gertrude Hermes who's a great friend of
mine, some drawings by my great-great-grandfather, and a lot
of drawings by my five-year old daughter stuck up on the yellow
pillars with drawing-pins. And the Indian pictures seem very
well at home in it.

I've spent some days in that room, as our car was knocked over
and smashed and I was a good bit cut and bruised. I feel a bit
sore still. But we start children's holidays next week, and I
shan't have time to feel sore! No-one else was hurt.

Since I wrote last I've been electioneering on my own - a
sudden by-election. I enclose my election address. I was very
thoroughly beaten of course, but it was worth it for the exper-
ience, and worth it to the Party for the fight. I did a good
deal of speaking in the various Universities. And of course
I've been a lot on my husband's constituency; it's going to be
a touch and go election. All summer we've only had one week-end
that wasn't duty in some form - one or other of us speaking or
at a conference or something.

Also I've finished a book of short stories and poems, and I'm
wangling to try and get them illustrated by someone I know and
like. Our second son has gone and got a Winchester scholarship
so he's doomed to a more or less conventional education - still,

TRIODO REVIR
JAM HTIMBEMMAH
aw

he's delighted at the prospect and I'm glad it's not Eton,
anyway. The eldest, at his modern school, is very happy
and satisfactory.

How are you all? I hope well. The cactus I brought back
is thriving - and growing a lot, which I hope is a good omen.
I can't really imagine your country in summer in spite of all
the descriptions. What's happening about the Indian Bureau
and the education policy?

I get the most gloomy letters from Austria still. The man
who told me about Wallisch has been re-arrested and condemned
to 12 years hard labour. Several others to 7 and 5 years.
All for being in possession of illegal socialist leaflets.
And the news from Germany gets worse and worse. And we in
England are spending all our money on these filthy war
aeroplanes. Well, there it is.

And again, thankyou!

August 1st

Dear Mabel

Since writing to you last week, Eric Kennington has
been here - you probably know him by name, at any rate as
the main illustrator of T.E. Lawrence's *Seven Pillars*. He
is one of the formost English artists of today, and also
of course our most competent stone sculptor - he is doing
the memorial to Lawrence now; they were great friends.
I showed him the Indian pictures and he got wildly enthusi-
astic about them, and wants to know if he can get one.
I nearly gave him mine, and then I couldn't bear to, so I
said I'd write and ask you if there'd be any possibility
of getting more. He's a very odd man, Kennington, not quite
civilised himself. He did the illustrations of my Powers of
Light, which you may know.

We start tomorrow and are in a turmoil of packing!

TELEPHONE, RIVERSIDE 3207.
STATION, RAVENSCOURT PARK 31 MINUTES.

Feb 10th

Dear Mabel

I didn't want to write (and return your cutting) until I'd read your book and I read slowly nowadays, anything except what I'm actually on for work. So I've read you mostly at bed-time, a few pages an evening, which is rather fun, because one takes it in gradually. You do make a picture though! It's as complete a social document as one could want and you make the places and the dresses (I was fascinated by them!) so real one can see them. I'm not so sure about the other people. You yourself are real all the time, but some of the people sound completely fictional. But perhaps they were like that if the place was like that - and the place is convincing. You're amazingly honest with yourself, but I don't suppose you feel now that the woman you write about is the same as you now. Or do you?

The whole life is incredible to me. Of course one very seldom has the life of luxury described competently from within. I don't mean incredible, I mean astonishing - and certainly horrifying. All thw standards are so curious, and often, from my stand-point, not moral at all. I do look forward to the next volume!

What you say about the Indians and education is very depressing. And I suppose if Roosevelt goes it will be even worse - won't it?

I haven't seen Mary Oliver again; I must try to. But I've had my hands damned full. First the Election, then the whooping cough! I was dead tired by the end of the quarantine. Then this ridiculous funeral, and of course now constant talk of impending war. I've been up in Birming-ham lately for a kind of holiday. I wasn't "official", so I only went and saw the people I'm genuinely fond of. I've got a book about a quarter written and I read it to a group of them and let them pull it to pieces and alter it and tell me what they wanted to happen. It'll be genuine all right! A damn sight more so than most Bloomsbury-preletarian books. They're not frightened of me any more so they really talk and answer questions and discuss fundamentals. I went over a big factory, one of the biggest in England, and all the time men were recognising me and grinning and cat-calling and rippling about it; it was fun! It's really as much another civilis-ation as fifth century Athens, or Indians, or anything.

And it's almost as difficult to get at, but I believe I have.
They're tremendously sensitive, these midlanders, once one
gets under their skins, and never malicious, and with ONE
great powers of expression. And oh it's lovely to have them
fond of one and to feel one belongs. Most of the people I
know best are in skilled trades, though some are only earning
about £2 a week now. I brought them some Greek coins I have
and they were fascinated by the technique; a lot of them
are quite good historians.

I'm settling down now to writing, and shan't get away again
till the boys get back for the Easter holidays. I wonder whether
a great friend of mine, Rudi Messel, ever turned up with a
letter of introduction? If so, what did you think of him?

P.S. Don't get bothered with things like this review. They're
a peevish crowd and they don't like anything to be good unless
it's written by one of the Gang. Our's are the same. But
they aren't the workers.

May 9th

Dear Mabel

I wonder if you are back in Taos - I have just finished reading your Winter. It's a delicious book; you seem able to get into relationship with things so easily. Or do you only make us think you do? A bit of both, I support-ose. But it was an incredibly restful thing to read, here in this bitter time for Europe when so many of us feel that all we cared for has gone for nothing and the powers of darkness are loose. One got a feeling of flowers and animals and above all long days. Not this scurry and failure of our's. I found also that my husband was getting the same thing out of it, and I use him as a touchstone much as you use Tony - he is pretty tough and he only likes what's got something of his own genuineness.

I look forward to your next volume with the praxis of your's with the anarchists. But there must have been more hope then. Now we see ourselves having to do things we believe to be morally wrong (like using violence) just because events are forcing us to do them. All this Jubilee business is pretty horrid, I believe the Tories mean to make a big nationalist and militarist drive after this. I am going to Birmingham next week, back to the people there. In the mean time May Day here in London was fun.

But I've mostly been doing children's holidays, in Devon. My young rode ponies, but I just can't ride! I haven't got the right kind of body, I suppose. We had some good walks, though, and the big one is in the delicious stage of being almost grown-up, having an adult power in perception and discussion, but with the lovely innocence and seriousness of childhood. All that's fun. But coming back, there have been letters, and refugees and all that. A bit grim.

Here is a poem I wrote which I thought you'd like, and here are a couple of Zita's photos.

Sept 28th

River Court
Hammersmith Mall
London

Dear Mabel Dodge Luhan

It was most awfully nice to get your letter, and I've only delayed
answering so long because I've been up in Scotland - I go home next
week - running a violently political houseparty in which almost everyone
was engaged in red activities of one kind or another, very often across
each other, and in which there were from ten to twelve children of all
ages, including my own five.

Yes, I wish I knew your Indians; they may have got hold of some-
thing or another. One feels so hellishly cut off, coming back from
Russia. We weren't even in my own part of Scotland, but near the
border where the people are servile and cap-touching and different.
And they don't dance - in my part of Scotland they dance the Highlands
dances, the reels, and the Lowland dances too, Flowers of Edinburgh,
Petronella, Strip the Willow, quadrilles. I could dance those every
night of my life but I don't much like ball-room dancing. The only
thing that was fun were the animals - lots of puppies, and a pony that
my small girl who is six, with a great mane of black hair, is learning
to ride. I can't make up my mind whether it's any use for a child in
an industrial country to do that, but she loves horses.

Will you send me your other books, then? I'll take the greatest care
of them and I won't mess them, but I may take some time. Is that all
right? Sometimes I'm so busy that I can't read for weeks, or only work
books. But I would like to read them most awfully; I should love to
know how you began and whether you were always fierce and wilful and
able to do what you wanted, and whether it's possible to be such an
individualist as you are and yet be happy. I believe you go chucking
your emotions about just as I do, and just as I'm trying hard not to:
for if one is going to work one has to harness the energy to those
other wheels. One has to be social. But god knows I'm still far too
much of an individualist.

The thing I've been working on quite a bit is the Scottsboro case.
I'm on the English committee. The American committee say they can't
touch educated opinion on their side. Have they got you? I am sending
you on chance the thing about it. I'm not sure who the American commit-
tee are, but I know Dreiser and Eana St Vincent Millay are on it.
They want publicity and the papers seem shut to them; we are getting
letters put into most of the English papers. It is a bloody business,
don't you think? We do pretty bad things over here, but not usually
quite so dramatic. I met a group of coloured people in Odessa, over to
make a film; I was on my own then, so I made friends with some of them,
especially a man called Miller and Langston Hughes, the writer. They
seemed to me to be quite charming, and incredibly cultivated and subtle
minded. Yet goodness knows I hold no brief for what we do in India.
If only there weren't so many things pulling at one!

# THE FACTS ABOUT SCOTTSBORO

## I

On the morning of March 25, 1931, a freight train pulled out of the yards in Chattanooga, Tenn. As it gathered speed, little groups of unemployed Negroes hopped aboard, headed for Memphis, some to look for work, some to visit relatives, one to get his eyes treated at a hospital.

About 12:45, as they were running through northern Alabama, one of the boys, Roy Wright, saw a scuffle taking place on a flat-car up ahead. Some white boys had boarded the train, and in true Jim-Crow spirit were trying to throw the Negroes off the car. The whites were worsted in the row, and climbed off the train at Stevenson. Ten minutes later the Negroes in the fight, apparently fearing trouble, hopped off too.

At Paint Rock, Ala., twelve miles down the road, the train was flagged by a squad of deputies, accompanied by a mob. The white boys had telegraphed ahead.

"Niggers must be kept in their place" - the deputies combed the train, found three small groups of Negro boys on widely-separated parts of the 45 car train,

2

and arrested them, On another part of the train
they found what they took to be three white boys in
overalls. They took them along too.

The deputy announced that the Negroes were charged
with "vagrancy" - hoboing. He put them into autos and
took them off to the county seat, Scottsboro. The
mob went along, muttering. But there was no real threat
of trouble. In the county jail, the prisoners were
searched, and two of the whites were found to be girls.

Neither of the girls, so the doctor testified
later, showed the slightest sign of excitement, distress
or injury.

## II

When asked whether they had been attacked or
molested by the boys, the girls denied it. Their
names were Victoria Price and Ruby Bates well-known
as prostitutes in Huntsville. These girls, the sup-
posed victims of an outrage which they denied, were
kept in jail all night and rigorously cross-examined.
Finally their former employer, who had dismissed them
for drunkenness had an interview with them, after
which one of them agreed that she had been raped.