October 4, 1930

Dear Mr. Johnson:

I have read through the
attached letter and enclosure from
Mr. Ballou and it is worth your
reading and consideration, I think.

If they make you manager
don't forget my application is in
for secretary.

Your brother telephoned yesterday after
not being able to reach you at home. He
had just gotten into town and was going
away again last night.

JONATHAN CAPE & HARRISON SMITH
INCORPORATED
PUBLISHERS

LONDON
JONATHAN CAPE LTD.
30 BEDFORD SQUARE, W.C.1

TORONTO
JONATHAN CAPE & HARRISON SMITH, INC.
77 WELLINGTON STREET WEST

TELEPHONE
VANDEBILT 7655-6-7

CABLE ADDRESS
CAPAJON, NEW YORK

139 EAST FORTY-SIXTH STREET, NEW YORK

October 2, 1930

Mr. James Weldon Johnson
69 Fifth Avenue
New York, N. Y.

Dear Mr. Johnson:

Some time ago I was very much disappointed to
find that I was out of the office one day when you were kind
enough to run in, and I have tried since to get in touch with
you by phone, but have found that you were one of the for-
tunate ones who can spend the summer months in the country.

Now I have a special reason for wanting to see
you beyond my desire to renew an acquaintance which started
very pleasantly for me in Chicago, and wonder if you are back
in New York City and if so if we can't get together soon.

During the last year I have developed in my
own mind and interested some other persons in a plan to estab-
lish free libraries in colored schools and communities in the
South, and also to make some very good books available to the
members of these communities at nominal prices of five cents
a copy for fiction and ten cents a copy for non-fiction.

I originally had every assurance that the
Julius Rosenwald Fund would finance the plan, and had intended
getting in touch with you anyway as soon as you were back to
ask if you would serve on a board of six or eight men, which
the Rosenwald Fund asked to have established to sponsor the
plan. However, it now appears that the Rosenwald Fund will
be unable to furnish the amount of money necessary to make the
plan operative as effectively as it should operate, and I must
revise the whole thing to some extent and start over again in
an effort to find a way to make it practical. I am enclosing
copy of a letter I wrote to Mr. O. H. Cheney, who was working
with me on it before I received the information that the Rosen-
wald Fund would probably not be able to give us as much money

Mr. Cheney

(2)

September 3, 1930

The duties of this board will not be onerous. It will be called upon to approve a plan of operation and a budget with which to finance the plan, and to sponsor a formal request to the Julius Rosenwald Trust Fund for a definite yearly subsidy to finance the plan for five years. I have received assurance from members of this board that such a request will be favorably considered when made.

There should be elected by the board a chairman, a secretary, and a treasurer. These three should all be men who are willing to devote some time to the actual supervision of operations and expenditures and who will assume the responsibility of keeping the rest of the board informed as to essential matters connected with this operation.

It would be difficult to determine at this time exactly how many people will be needed to complete the working staff of the bureau. This will have to be determined by actual operations. A skeleton bureau will consist of four persons as follows:

Manager

Secretary

Bookkeeper and clerk

Shipping clerk

It is quite probable that these, if well selected, will constitute a permanent personnel.

The office personnel should be selected very carefully. Essential interest in the work at hand, integrity, practical social feeling and intelligent discrimination in the choice of books should be given more weight in considering the fitness of individuals for these positions than experience in publishing or social work.

The duties of the Manager will be:

(1) To select from specimen remainders submitted to him by various publishers, books suitable for distribution under this plan. This will be done with whatever aid and advice members of the board will give him.

(2) To buy the books so selected at a fixed price to be determined beforehand by agreement between the bureau and publishers. This price should be about that now obtainable from remainder brokers. This is about twelve or thirteen cents a copy for fiction and a little

Mr. Cheney

(3)

September 3, 1930

less than 10% of the published price for non-fiction.

(3) To distribute the books so purchased according to a plan to be approved by the controlling board.

It is believed that, at the beginning an adequate outlet for purchased books may be found in the schools for coloured people established in the South by Mr. Julius Rosenwald. I believe there are at present about 4800 of these. It will be our purpose to investigate as soon as the bureau is established, the feasibility of encouraging these schools to establish free lending libraries for the use of their pupils and the adult members of their communities. If this appears feasible, we shall ask the American Library Association to outline for us the simplest possible plan for the establishment and operation of such libraries, and it shall then be the duty of the bureau to suggest the formation of such libraries and to instruct such persons as may be chosen by the schools themselves to operate the libraries. It may also seem feasible to make librarians informal storekeepers and allow them to sell books at nominal prices to individuals who wish to establish personal libraries.

Since it is one of the fundamental principles of the Rosenwald Charities to call upon the recipient for partial support of any project made possible by a contribution from the Rosenwald Fund, a nominal price will be placed on all books distributed under this plan. The price may be as low as five cents a copy for fiction and ten cents a copy for non-fiction.

The principles upon which books shall be selected should be the subject of serious consideration by the controlling board. I feel rather strongly that sound, entertaining fiction as well as non-fiction should be included, but that super-sophisticated, over-sexed, smart novels and, of course, all unsound books, whether fiction or non-fiction, should be excluded.

A tentative yearly budget for the operation of the plan follows:

Expenditures

<table><tr><td>Rent, Office space</td><td>$ 1,200.00</td></tr><tr><td>Salary, Manager</td><td>5,000.00</td></tr><tr><td>Salary, Secretary</td><td>1,820.00</td></tr><tr><td>Salary, Bookkeeper & Clerk</td><td>1,820.00</td></tr><tr><td>Salary, Shipping Clerk</td><td>1,820.00</td></tr><tr><td>Office Overheads (Phone, Supplies, postage, etc.)</td><td>3,000.00</td></tr><tr><td>Purchase of 75,000 bound volumes of fiction @ $.12 each</td><td>9,000.00</td></tr><tr><td>Purchase of 25,000 unbound volumes of fiction @ $.05 each (explained in attached note on publishers' remain-</td><td></td></tr></table>

Mr. Cheney

(4)

September 3, 1930

ders)
Binding 25,000 volumes of fiction @ $.10 each (explained in attached note on publishers' remainders)
Purchase of 150,000 bound volumes of non-fiction @ $.25 each
Purchase of 50,000 unbound sheets of non-fiction @ $.05 each
Binding 50,000 unbound sheets of non-fiction @ $.15 each
Packing cost and transportation on 300,000 volumes
1,250.00
2,500.00
37,500.00
2,500.00
7,500.00
15,000.00
$89,910.00

Receipts

Sale of 100,000 volumes fiction @ $.05 each
5,000.00
Sale of 200,000 volumes non-fiction @ $.10 each
20,000.00
$25,000.00

Net subsidy required for each year's operations
$64,910.00

It will be understood that the figures here given for the number of books available for distribution under this plan are based on a general observation and constitute little more than a good guess. For this reason it is suggested that no request for a definite and sufficient subsidy be made until the general plan has been approved by the Rosenwald Fund Board and enough money furnished by them to make the establishment of the bureau and a survey of the bureau possible. This survey should reveal approximately the number of volumes that will be available in a year and the actual appropriation can then be based upon the results of this survey. The program of accessions and sales outlined above should at this point be considered the aim of the plan, and it should be the purpose of the board to secure the support of the Rosenwald Trust Fund for it in case the survey shows that it is a practical aim.

It is obvious that the money appropriated for the operation of the plan will be most efficiently used if the bureau works to its capacity, that is, secures and distributes as many books as it is capable of handling. It is my belief that the personnel outlined above could secure and distribute 300,000 volumes a year provided the books are available, and the potential recipient receptive to the plan.

The personnel outline I have made above contemplatessecuring a mature and experienced man as Manager of the bureau. He would be able to take complete charge of the work and would relieve the controlling board (with the possible exception of the Secretary

Mr. Cheney

(5)

September 3, 1930

and Treasurer who ought, at all times, to keep a close watch over the disbursements) of most of its duties. This plan, however, depends somewhat upon securing a man of the proper calibre. If such a man were not at once available, a member of the board might be given the responsibility of active supervision with a small retainer and be allowed to choose a younger man with proper qualifications in character, intelligence and interest to carry on the actual work under the board members' supervision. If this plan were followed, the $5,000.00 salary item would be somewhat reduced as follows:

Retainer, Board member $1,200.00
Salary, Assistant 2,080.00
---
$3,280.00

The assistant's salary would doubtless have to be increased as he became more nearly capable of managing the bureau without dependence upon the board member's direction.

I think that the next thing to be done is to invite the men whose names we have agreed upon as suitable members of the board to serve. John Dewey, Dr. David Levy, and James Weldon Johnson are my friends, and I would be very glad to ask them. I would, of course, be glad also to write letters to Mr. Alvin Johnson, Mr. Spingarn and Mr. Gannett (whom I do not know--save Mr. Gannett whom I have met once) inviting them to serve if it would be helpful.

I am leaving town Friday evening for a two weeks vacation but if I can be of any help tomorrow or Friday, I would be very glad to come to your office at your convenience.

I am attaching a note on publishers' remainders and their relation to this plan in case you wish to pass it on to anyone with whom you are discussing the plan.

Sincerely yours,

A NOTE ON PUBLISHERS' REMAINDERS
AND THEIR RELATION TO A PLAN FOR THE CHARITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF BOOKS

Due to many complicated factors in the publishing
industry, there has grown a serious problem in relation to the
efficient disposition of publishers' overstocks, commonly called
"publishers' remainders."

During the last decade competition has been very keen
in the publishing industry. Many new firms have taken their places
in the industry, some of which have been operated by men without
wide publishing experience. The number of titles published has been
very large and sales of individual titles erratic. Not infrequently
first books by unknown authors have become best sellers and books
by established authors have fallen far below their expected sales.
Thus it is impossible for any publisher to estimate accurately be-
fore printing how many copies of a book he will sell.

It takes from one to three weeks to reprint and bind an
edition of a book. A publisher must, therefore, estimate his needs
on a book that is selling well as much in advance as this in order
to keep the book in stock. Even with the exercise of good judge-
ment this estimate is frequently wrong because a book which is sel-
ling well at the time a new edition is ordered may be selling poorly
by the time the new edition is finished, and may become practically
inactive before the new edition is exhausted. Those unexhausted
second and third printings constitute a very considerable number of
books left on publishers' hands every year. There are, of course,
a great many titles on which first editions are never exhausted, which
likewise swell the total of remainder stocks.

The situation has been somewhat complicated by entry,
during the last few years, of book clubs, such as the Book-of-the-
Month Club and the Literary Guild of America. Under the old agreement
with the Book-of-the-Month Club (changed during the last two or
three months) the Book-of-the-Month Club bought approximately
5,000 books each month from some publisher with the privilege of
returning 10% of this purchase or purchasing 10% more at the same
terms for delivery within a week from the date of the new order.
This forced the publisher to print 20% more books than he would
ordinarily. If the Book-of-the-Month Club availed themselves of
their full return privilege, many of the books returned automat-
ically become remainders. This Club is now doing its own manu-
facturing as the Literary Guild has always done, but is faced
with the same problem of distribution and overstocks.

Both the Literary Guild and the Book-of-the-Month Club
should be fertile sources for publishers' remainders.

It is common practice among publishers to bind only a
part of each edition as it is printed holding the rest in unbound
sheets until needed. Thus "remainders" consist of books in two
states--finished (bound) volumes and unfinished (unbound sheets).

(2)

The usual way of disposing of such remainders has been
to sell the bound volumes to remainder brokers at prices compar-
able to those mentioned in the attached letter. The broker in
turn sells them to bargain bookstores, drug stores and cigar stores
where they are sold to the public at a fraction of their published
price. The current retail price in New York City for remainder
fiction published at $2.00 or $2.50 is three books for a dollar.

This traffic in remainders is a constant source of dis-
satisfaction to booksellers. Because of this, some publishers now
refuse to sell their remainders to brokers and frequently sell
their old overstock as waste paper rather than have it enter this
chaotic market. Unbound sheets which become remainders are common-
ly sold as waste paper.

I have gone into the question of binding these unbound
sheets with our binder (The J. F. Tapley Company) and have worked
out with him a plan by which these sheets can be bound very cheap-
ly and quite satisfactorily for the purposes of the present plan
of distribution. He would be allowed to use up his "remainders"
of binding cloths and similar materials which now usually are
wasted, to bind the books in quantities and to use the work as
"filler" work for slack days. Under these conditions the price of
$.10 a copy for non-fiction could be obtained.

The obvious advantage of the attached plan from the pub-
lisher's point of view lies in the fact that we are able to offer
him an outlet for a considerable part of his remainder stock and
at the same time assure him that this stock will never appear in a
market where its appearance will embarrass him through lowering his
prestige with booksellers.

ROBERT O. BALLOU

Mr. Cheney

(2)

September 3, 1930

Manager

Secretary

Bookkeeper and clerk

Shipping clerk

Mr. Cheney

(3)

September 5, 1930

Expenditures

<table><tr><td>Rent, Office space</td><td>$ 1,200.00</td></tr><tr><td>Salary, Manager</td><td>5,000.00</td></tr><tr><td>Salary, Secretary</td><td>1,820.00</td></tr><tr><td>Salary, Bookkeeper & Clerk</td><td>1,820.00</td></tr><tr><td>Salary, Shipping Clerk</td><td>1,820.00</td></tr><tr><td>Office Overheads (Phone, Supplies, postage, etc.)</td><td>3,000.00</td></tr><tr><td>Purchase of 75,000 bound volumes of fiction @ $.12 each</td><td>9,000.00</td></tr></table>

Mr. Cheney

(4)

September 3, 1930

ders)
Binding 25,000 volumes of fiction @ $.10 each (explained in attached note on publishers' remainders)
Purchase of 150,000 bound volumes of non-fiction @ $.25 each
Purchase of 50,000 unbound sheets of non-fiction @ $.05 each
Binding 50,000 unbound sheets of non-fiction @ $.15 each
Packing cost and transportation on 300,000 volumes
1,250.00
2,500.00
57,500.00
2,500.00
7,500.00
15,000.00
$89,910.00

Receipts
Sale of 100,000 volumes fiction @ $.05 each
Sale of 200,000 volumes non-fiction @ $.10 each
20,000.00
$25,000.00

The personnel outline I have made above contemplates securing a mature and experienced man as Manager of the bureau. He would be able to take complete charge of the work and would relieve the controlling board (with the possible exception of the Secretary

Mr. Cheney

(5)

September 3, 1930

Sincerely yours,

During the last decade competition has been very keen in the publishing industry. Many new firms have taken their places in the industry, some of which have been operated by men without wide publishing experience. The number of titles published has been very large and sales of individual titles erratic. Not infrequently first books by unknown authors have become best sellers and books by established authors have fallen far below their expected sales. Thus it is impossible for any publisher to estimate accurately before printing how many copies of a book he will sell.

It takes from one to three weeks to reprint and bind an edition of a book. A publisher must, therefore, estimate his needs on a book that is selling well as much in advance as this in order to keep the book in stock. Even with the exercise of good judgment this estimate is frequently wrong because a book which is selling well at the time a new edition is ordered may be selling poorly by the time the new edition is finished, and may become practically inactive before the new edition is exhausted. Those unexhausted second and third printings constitute a very considerable number of books left on publishers' hands every year. There are, of course, a great many titles on which first editions are never exhausted, which likewise swell the total of remainder stocks.

The situation has been somewhat complicated by entry, during the last few years, of book clubs, such as the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Literary Guild of America. Under the old agreement with the Book-of-the-Month Club (changed during the last two or three months) the Book-of-the-Month Club bought approximately 5,000 books each month from some publisher with the privilege of returning 10% of this purchase or purchasing 10% more at the same terms for delivery within a week from the date of the new order. This forced the publisher to print 20% more books than he would ordinarily. If the Book-of-the-Month Club availed themselves of their full return privilege, many of the books returned automatically become remainders. This Club is now selling its own manufacturing as the Literary Guild has always done, but is faced with the same problem of distribution and overstocks.

It is common practice among publishers to bind only a part of each edition as it is printed holding the rest in unbound sheets until needed. Thus "remainders" consist of books in two states—finished (bound) volumes and unfinished (unbound sheets).

(2)

ROBERT O. BALLOU

PUBLISHERS

LONDON
JONATHAN CAPE LTD.
30 BEDFORD SQUARE W.C.I

TELEPHONE
VANDERBILT 7635-6-7

October 9, 1930

Mr. James Weldon Johnson
Five Acres
Seekonk Road
Great Barrington, Mass.

Dear Mr. Johnson:

Thanks awfully for your letter. I am very much
cheered by your interest. Your support of the plan gives me a
great deal of added assurance that it can be successfully car-
ried out. It is so hard to get intelligent and active interest
in a plan like this which is so obviously without the possibili-
ty of monetary gain for anyone. The ordinary type of social
worker person is all wrong for it. The social worker is usual-
ly a misfit himself and has no actual training in the kind of
practical business efficiency necessary to make a plan like
this work, and the successful business man is usually quite
uninterested in anything save the furtherance of his own busi-
ness interests. Realizing this I have approached publishers
with the plea that disposing of their overstocks as they now
do (that is, by allowing them to be dumped into drugstores to
sell at ridiculously low prices to the people they expect to
sell new books to at higher prices) is very harmful to their
prestige whereas this plan will assure them that the books will
be buried in the South where no New York book buyer will ever
see them, and that appeal has worked. All of the publishers to
whom I have talked about it have been very enthusiastic. Never-
theless, I first proposed this plan as long ago as last April
and have been working on it ever since without any definite re-
sult coming out of it yet. But I am beginning to feel now that
by next April the thing will really be under way in some form.

My real interest in it, as you have doubtless
guessed, is not that of a publisher at all. I simply hate the
waste involved when the thing which is wasted could be of such
immense benefit to some persons.

I know perfectly well that nine out of ten of
the persons who receive the books will not appreciate them or
make the best use of them but the tenth will and he is worth
the trouble of furnishing all the rest with books.

TELEPHONE
VANDERBILT 7633-6-7

-2-

Mr. James Weldon Johnson

October 9, 1930

Since writing you I have been very much encouraged
by another letter from Mr. Embree, President of the Julius Rosen-
wald Fund, a copy of which I am enclosing.

Incidentally there are a lot of questions I want
to ask you about spirituals and Negro folk songs in general when
you get back. You may remember that I was interested in them
when you were in Chicago. Since then my interest has increased
tremendously, and I now have a collection of practically every-
thing of any importance that is in print and am beginning to try
for things that have never been in print. Indeed, I have been
playing around in my mind for a long time with what is a fascinat-
ing idea even though it does not seem completely practical at times.
I would like to compile something which would be more nearly a de-
finitive collection of American Negro folk songs using the best
available arrangements of those which have been arranged and prin-
ted and securing arrangements of many which have never been prin-
ted in a harmonized form. If I can ever see the way to make this
happen I should like to get you to help a lot on it. It would
need the help of your brother and Lawrence Brown and Hall Johnson
(though I confess that what I have seen of his arrangements don't
stir me terribly) and Jack Niles and any others who are capable
of making really good arrangements, and the cooperation of Guy
Johnson and Odum and Roark Bradford and others who have unprinted
collections of songs. I have been tremendously impressed with
the fact that many of these songs have been deteriorating through
the changed circumstances of the singers. In the book of Slave
Songs for instance (1867) there are some songs from the St.
Helena Islands which were also recorded in their later versions
by Ballanta-Taylor and are in his "St. Helena Island Spirituals"
(1924). The difference between the early versions of these songs
which were made and sung under the terrible stimulus of slavery
and the later versions is amazing. A good case in point is a
song you probably know, "The Devil Is a Busy Old Man, He Rolls
Stones In My Way," with a very weird and beautiful refrain, "O,
Comee go with me awalkin' in the Heavens I roam." That
is the way it appears in the Slave Song book of 1867. In Ballan-
ta-Taylor's book of 1924 there are two songs, one made of a varia-
tion of the verse and the other of a variation of the refrain --
both modified and made rather commonplace in words and music by

LONDON
JONATHAN CAPE LTD.
30 BEDFORD SQUARE W.C.1
TORONTO
JONATHAN CAPE & HARRISON SMITH, INC.
77 WELLINGTON STREET WEST

TELEPHONE
VANDEBILT 7653-6-7

CABLE ADDRESS
CAPADON, NEW YORK

-5-

Mr. James Weldon Johnson

October 9, 1930

the gradual deterioration through which they have gone since
their birth.

There are a lot of things like this I would like
to point out and a lot of songs I would like to see recorded.
But we can talk about all this when you return.

My best wishes to you.

October 6, 1930

Dear Mr. Ballou:

Thank you for your good letter of October 2nd.
In the first place, I agree with you that the plan you have in
mind is so interesting that it should be developed regardless
of the possibility of aid from this office. In the second,
there cannot be the slightest objection in your presenting a
proposal to us at any time.

All I wanted to do was to make sure that you were
not counting upon us in advance. As things stand at present, I
think there is little likelihood of a grant from the Fund. Never-
theless, I should like to be kept in touch with your plans as they
develop. If the Fund does not take part, it is very possible that
Mr. Rosenwald might care to do so personally. The matter would be
more attractive either to the Fund or to Mr. Rosenwald if others
were sharing the expense and the responsibility.

I shall count upon seeing you when I am next in New
York. I should like to become acquainted with you and to learn more
at first hand of your attractive project.

Mr. Robert O. Ballou
Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith
139 East Forty-sixth Street
New York City

ROBERT O. BALLOU, PUBLISHER

2 WEST 13th STREET, NEW YORK

Cable: ROBALLOU

ALgonquin 4-9439

January 3, 1934

Mr. James Weldon Johnson
Murray Hill Hotel
Park Avenue & 40 Street
New York, N. Y.

Dear Mr. Johnson:

It was unusually good of you to send me the letter
about ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL. I appreciate it especially because I know
how busy you have been while in New York, and it was an unusually
kind and friendly thing to do to take time out to send me a word
that I can use in promoting the book.

I was especially pleased to see you receive the recognition which came to you the other evening and wish that I had been there to add my demonstration of pleasure to those which you must have seen.

I wish you were still in New York and that we could see
more of you. I do not want to press the matter which we mentioned
briefly at that very pleasant luncheon, but I do want to repeat what
I am sure you must know, that I would be very happy in publishing a
book by you if you ever felt that you would like to have me. As I
told you then, this has been a desire that I have had ever since I
have been publishing, but I have never mentioned it to you because you
have such excellent publishers now, and I despise the scramble for
authors which goes on in the publishing industry, and have never yet
exerted any pressure to influence an author to change his publishers.
However, if it were the result of your own desire, I would be very
happy indeed to have a book by you on my list.

With best wishes always, I am

April 9, 1934

My dear Mr. Ballou:

It is a difficult thing for an author to say anything worthwhile upon "How I Write". What he usually does has no essential connection with the actual process of writing. For example, I can say that my first draft I always write with a fountain pen. I use the ordinary commercial manilla pad. I put a clip at the top in order to keep it bound while I am writing. The margin to the left of the vertical ruling I reserve for ideas, suggestions or whatever else I think I may work into the body of the text. When I am working well, I put in from five to eight hours a day. I write quite a clear copy, because I generally think a sentence or even a page through before I begin to set it down. I do not think that any of this gives any insight into the inner processes of writing. Perhaps the only hint that I can give of that is my method of filling my mind with whatever I am going to write about before I begin to write. I fill my mind by thinking on the subject, reading about it, talking about it, and reflecting upon it. I go on with this until the mind becomes saturated and begins to overflow. That overflow is what I try to write down. If I cannot reach that saturation of the mind on any particular subject, I do not write about that subject, if I can avoid doing so.

When I was in Boston I had a conference with a young lady name Piss Marie Joe Browne, 555 Beacon Street. She is quite a talented reader and interpreter. She works in Boston, but is still a student. She has the ambition to someday soon launch upon a career similar to that of Ruth Draper or Cornelia Otis Skinner. I believe this young woman has a future. I tell you what I should like to have you do. I should like to have you send her a copy of Roll Jordan Roll. I believe there are some things in the book that she could do with mutual benefit to herself and the publisher.

With best wishes, I am

Mr. Robert O. Ballou, Publisher
28 West 13th Street
New York, New York

J.W.J:from

ROBERT O. BALLOU, PUBLISHER

2 WEST 13th STREET, NEW YORK

Cable: ROBALLOU

ALgonquin 4-9439

May 3, 1935

Mr. James Weldon Johnson
Fiske University
Nashville, Tenn.

Dear Mr. Johnson:

For some time I have had a vague idea in the back of my mind which I have frequently tried to put out of it because so many things about it seem impractical of achievement, yet I keep coming back to it. What brings me back to it just now is the manuscript of Mary Church Terrell's autobiography, which she has sent to me to consider for publication. It's a very long book and I haven't yet finished reading it, but at the moment there is very little question in my mind that the book ought to be published regardless of economic considerations. At the same time I think definitely that it can be published with economic security and even profit, and think also that I am the proper person to publish it, yet I question very much my ability to put it on the fall list unless I can get some sort of financial support.

I have two ideas about this: One is that perhaps I could find someone as much interested in seeing it published as I am, who would help to finance this one book. The other is the larger idea with the mention of which I opened this letter. You know of my interest in anything that pertains to the Negro race and know, too, that it is composed not only of a feeling of deep shame for his own race which every intelligent white man must feel when he thinks of the American Negro, but of something quite unconnected with this, an interest in the peculiar contributions in art and basic wisdom which the American Negro can and does make. As a result of having published ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL and BEALE STREET, and my interest in OLLIE MISS by George Henderson, and other Negro friends, I have received quite a number of manuscripts written by Negroes. One of them recently was accompanied by a letter which opened with a statement that he was sending the book to me because he wanted a Negro publisher to see it before it went to white publishers, and I was pleased that he had made that mistake. I have wondered frequently as a result of all of this whether it would not be possible to organize a company as a subsidiary of my own publishing business for the sole purpose of publishing books by and about American Negroes. I would be delighted to launch such an organization, and I am sure that I could handle such books well. I write to you about it wondering first of all whether you think the idea itself is practical, and second whether if you do you think that it might be possible to find perhaps among Negroes themselves sufficient capital to found such an organization. It seems to me to be an exciting idea and one which it would give me great happiness to work out if it could be worked out, and if it could be done quickly enough so that it could begin to function with actual publications in the fall it