New York City,

20, Beekman Place,

22 April, 1924

Dearest Julia,

So delighted to get your letter this morning, and
so amused to think of you on the soapbox about opium! The one
comfort about that subject is that so few people know any thing
about it at all, that you are perfectly safe! Just spread your-
self, like Lord Robert, and there will be none to contradict! You
certainly are a perfect trump!

Mrs. Chadbourne came home on the 11th, and went
up to the country next day, and is still there. She comes to
town now and then, but adores the country. I told her you had
said would she invite you up to the country, and she said no --
that all you had to do was to invite yourself, whenever you are
ready, and that you will get the warmest welcome that ever was,
and there will never be a moment when she wont be delighted to
have you come. And never a time when there wont be a bed ready
for you. So that's that, Julia. So you just say when you are
ready, when it is convenient to you, and we can have the grandest
talk that ever was, and a visit just as long as you care to make
it.

As a matter of fact, however, she is going to Chicago with
her brother, R.T.Crane, and her sister-in-law. They all go to-
gether about the 10th of May, for a week or so, and then, at the
end of May, she and I will be going down to Washington. That will
just about suit you, wont it? She wants to take a flat in Washington
and wants to go down and inspect them. Wont it be fine with head-
quarters down there? I have just written to the agent this morning,
saying she must have at least four bed rooms, and one will be yours

2

and one mine. Oh Julia -- think how you will stir up the animals!

Dr. Carlton Simon, Police Department, N.Y.C. has written me
the most splendid letter about my book, and wants me to come down
to his office -- he says he has lots of material that will be use-
ful to me. Isn't that kind of him?

I cant write much of a letter this morning, as I am in
the midst of that article for the Nation. That also I owe to you,
from that meeting with Lewis Gannett at the Foreign Policy lunch.
This Nation article is hard, as I have lots to say and want to get
it all in, to cover a ten cent piece. This concentration, on such
a vast subject, is not easy.

Heaps of love. I will answer your letter properly in a
day or so. Take care of yourself, and get on with the novel, af-
ter which we can rock the British Empire and give it a further jolt.

Your devoted

E. N. LA MOTTE

20, BEEKMAN PLACE
NEW YORK CITY

APR 22
12-M
1924

Mrs. Simeon Ford,
Hotel Gordon,
New Smyrna,

Florida.