3220 Nixon Road
Ann Arbor

R 2, Michigan

December 20, 1954

Albert Erskine
Random House
457 Madison Avenue
New York 22

Dear Albert Erskine:

I have a deep loathing for people who send manuscripts without return postage. I asked that the unfortunate or shall we say unhappy Journey etc. be destroyed; but that is I imagine a rather awkward request. I am enclose a check for the amount of the express.

I am afraid I have given you a false story about the chapters from The Dollmaker. I wasn't certain when I wrote you just how it was to be used; now, unfortunately -- I would have been happy to have had you use it -- its previous use will conflict with your rule, I fear. The piece was never published as a short story in Reader's Digest, but as a section of a book, not the complete condensation, in Reader's Digest of Books. The scene included all of the first chapter and a part of the second. The book title was used, though some title such as "The Timid One" might have been more appropriate.

Sorry I gave you the wrong information. I did not exactly know how it was to be used, and, not knowing of your rule, I did not bother to learn.

Merry Christmas, and all success with your anthology.

Random House, Inc.

THE MODERN LIBRARY

457 MADISON AVENUE • NEW YORK 22, N. Y.

JEAN ENNIS

September 1, 1955

Dear Red:

Thanks so much for letting me know about
the Washington Post affair on October 5.
I'm so glad you can make it, and they'll
be delighted. I know you've done it before,
so you know that it's one of the very best
of this kind of thing, and well worth-while.
I'll see that your transportation is arranged
for. As soon as you know whether you'd like
to fly or take the train, will you let me
know? It's usually required that you be
there around noon, so you can decide accord-
ingly. It's usually over by 3:00 or 3:30.

Out-of-town reviews are beginning to come
in, and I'm enclosing some. You'll also
find some duplicates of duplicates, from
New York papers, but I want to be sure you
have everything.

I'll be seeing you on September 16 for the
Virgilia Peterson recording, and for lunch
if you can make it.

Best wishes,

Jean Ennis

Director of Publicity

JE:sh

Mr. Robert Penn Warren
Redding Road, Fairfield, Conn.

Publishers of THE AMERICAN COLLEGE DICTIONARY

Random House, Inc.

THE MODERN LIBRARY

DAVID McDOWELL

September 23, 1955

Mr. Robert Penn Warren
Redding Road
Fairfield, Connecticut

Dear Red:

A few days ago I mailed out to you an advance copy of William Carlos Williams' new book of poetry JOURNEY TO LOVE, which we are publishing on October 21st.

I think the long poem "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" is probably the best thing Bill has written with the exception of PATERSON. Bill himself, however, considers it his best and most important poem.

In any case, I do hope that you like it and the book as a whole. And if you do, I would much appreciate having a short quote for publication.

I am certainly delighted that BAND OF ANGELS is doing so well and even more delighted about the movie deal, which Albert told me about.

DM/bh

AGENCY OF
THOS. COOK & SON (BANKERS) LTD.

587 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 17, N. Y.

FOREIGN MONEYS EXCHANGED
CABLE REMITTANCES TO ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD
COOK'S TRAVELERS CHEQUES .. USED THE WORLD OVER

CABLES: "COUPON NEW YORK"

TELEPHONE: MURRAY HILL 8-4000

REF B&EH

DATE Feb. 2nd, 1956

Random House Inc.
457 Madison Avenue
New York 22, N.Y.

Gentlemen:

Att. Marjorie Currey

We duly received copy of your letter of January 23rd to
William Morris Agency, 1740 Broadway, New York 19, N.Y. regarding payment
of £32.3.7 which you state is intended for them.

We communicated with our London Office in this connection
who inform us that on referring this matter back to Eyre & Spottiswoode,
they have been informed that Mr. Robert Penn Warren requested that this
payment be made to you being royalties on "NIGHT RIDER". We presume you
have already received a letter from Eyre & Spottiswoode in this connection.

We attach hereto a duplicate copy of our receipt for £32.3.7
which we shall be glad if you will now sign and return to us in order that
we may forward you our cheque for the equivalent in U.S. Dollars.

Always holding our services at your disposal, we are

Yours very truly,
THOS. COOK & SON(BANKERS) LTD.

EH
ENC.

25,000 BANKING CORRESPONDENTS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

RANDOM HOUSE INC. 457 MADISON AVENUE · NEW YORK 22

THE MODERN LIBRARY

LANDMARK BOOKS

AMERICAN COLLEGE DICTIONARY

Cable Address: RANDOM NEWYORK

August 27, 1956

Mr. Robert Penn Warren
La Rocca
Porto Ercole (Grosseto)
Italy

Dear Red:

I am sorry to have been so long in writing, but I have, as usual, been snowed under. I've managed to get away for a few week ends, but I've had to stay in town a lot of them simply to keep up. It used to be much easier when I could make myself work at night, but somehow that seems no longer possible for me, and I have hound that to spend a few hours in the office on either Saturday or Sunday or both is the best way of getting things done.

I have nothing of a personal nature to report, things being just about as they were when you left. Hence, this will be a series of random notes on the questions that you have asked, all dictated into my new machine, which I have not yet mastered, but which will prove a great boon to me, I think, when I get the hang of it a little better. The main trouble now is that when I see in print what I have said into the machine I am newly appalled every time at the dullness of it.

I got a copy of BROTHER TO DRAGONS off ot Piscator on the day your letter came, but I'm ashamed to say that Billie Potts and the little girl poems went off much later. I'd spent a lot of time trying to find back issues of The Partisan Review to cut up and send to him. When I was unsuccessful in doing this, the matter slipped my mind until last week. They've all gone off now, though, and should be in his hands by the time this letter reaches you.

Your note about changing a line in the Segregation book arrived long after books had been shipped (you should have received a copy of it by now). Promotion copies went off to all the people in your original list and to all subsequent names received by me.

I have been sending you, from time to time, letters which *Life Magazine* has forwarded to us. With this letter I am sending you the first review of the book that we have seen, the one by Mark Ethridge, Jr. in *The Saturday Review*. I'm also enclosing a clipping of an attack on the *Life* piece by John Temple Graves, which is a nasty little item.

I received from Edward M. Stempel in Bridgeport, Connecticut, an accident and health insurance policy made out to Isabel. Should I send this along, or should it be held here?

I have passed along all of your questions about foreign rights on the Segregation book to Jane Wilson at the Morris Agency. You keep forgetting that we have no right whatever to grant permission for any kind of translation or foreign edition, since these things are, by contract, solely in the hands of the Morris Agency.

- 2 -

Insofar as I can make out the scrawl at the end of your last letter about the people from the Ford Foundation, I gather that you have now postponed your arrival home until some time in January. This is going to make the revisions in your basic contract a rather awkward matter, but I suppose there is no help for it. Helen and I had a conference about it recently, and I assume that she has written to you already asking certain basic questions which have to be answered before we can proceed.

I have received the two shipments of poems. I was much impressed by my reading of the first batch and am looking forward to having a chance to get at the second. You really have been working.

I suppose that Helen has let you know that we decided, after consultation with the lawyers and tax people, that it would be inadvisable to make the contract for the Segregation book with the trustees instead of with you. I won't go into an explanation of this now beyond saying that their reasons convince me. Therefore a separate contract has been drawn and I assume sent to you for signature.

I think that this covers all the loose ends. It is all that I can think of at the moment. It was good to hear that you are all well and thriving and that Rosanna is flourishing, which is not surprising. Write again soon, and I'll do likewise.

With love* to all,

AE:vf
Encs.

- 2 -

Insofar as I can make out the scrawl at the end of your last letter about the people
from the Ford Foundation, I gather that you have now postponed your arrival home
until some time in January. This is going to make the revisions in your basic con-
tract a rather awkward matter, but I suppose there is no help for it. Helen and I
had a conference about it recently, and I assume that she has written to you already
asking certain basic questions which have to be answered before we can proceed.

I suppose that Helen has let you know that we decided, after consultation with the
lawyers and tax people, that it would be inadvisable to make the contract for the
Segregation book with the trustees instead of with you. I won't go into an explana-
tion of this now beyond saying that their reasons convince me. Therefore a separate
contract has been drawn and I assume sent to you for signature.

With love to all,

AE:vf

Encs.

La Rocca, Porto Ercole, pr. di Grosseto, Italy,
August 22, 1956.

Dear Albert: The copy of the book has just come, and it is a very handsome job, really handsome, I think. Somebody should be congratulated. Thanks for sending it.

No more news here, happily. The children are better than ever and bursting with health. Isabelle gets along, and Ernesta's hand hath not lost its cunning at the cook-stove. Eleanor's book goes along. I am writing more poems, which will soon be on the way to you for filing, and am typing the Alamo to send. It ought to be on the way next week. I know that the prospect doesn't thrill you, and shouldn't. But at least, as a trustee of a non-existent trust you can receive it and pass it on. I got so interested in the thing I began to wish I were writing a regular book about it.

We have been trying to get together with the Peter Taylors, who are up at Rapallo, but babies at both ends have blown that up. Now he writes that they are sailing for home in a few days --with the firm intention of coming back in June for a long stay. Best place to work he says he has ever found.

I suppose you are on vacation, and if you are I hope that you are enjoying yourself and giving pleasure to others. To give happiness to others is one of the surest roads to happiness. We should all remember that in all of our activities. Let us not forget it.

By the way, it would give some small happiness to the Warrens to have a letter from you.

Goodbye, and our love,

OVER

PS. Will you please see that copies of the DESEG book get to:

Mrs. Phelps Clark, Roxbury, Conn.

Dr. Glauco Cambon, Via Bronzetti 17, Milan, Italy.

Igazio Silone, % TEMPO PRESENTE, Via Gregoriana 7, Rome

Milton Starr, West Yarmouth, Massachusetts.

La Rocca, Porto Ercole, pr. di Grosseto, Italy,
August 26, 1956.

Dear Albert: It is the fate of man -- or at least the fate of this man. Something got through in the Segregation book which I had cut out of two or three copies, but must not have cut out of the one at RH, God damn it. On page 49, lines 11 and 12 from bottom: " .. and admitted under oath the lynching statement." (See line 19 from top.) This is an anvil. The guymade the statement about having been on a lynching, but when they got him on a witness stand later would not admit it. The fact that he had originally said it was, however, affirmed by a reporter -- or reporters, I can't remember which -- present at the original meeting. The authority for all this is Bill Panix, the lawyer for the Hoxie School Board, who cross examined this Rub Down guy in a Federal Court. I sent him a copy of my MS on this section involving him and asked him to verify, in writing. He did, and Jay Gold has the copy on file. I personally handed it to him to keep. But maybe you all have better get it in your files.

I don't suppose the Rub Down guy will want to make trouble. He has had enough trouble in court rooms already. And I don't know that he could. But he is supposed to be damned near crazy in a clinical way, and is a real louse who will stop at nothing. Some of the things he and his lawyer pulled in the Federal hearing were incredible.

I have just finished typing the Alamo and as a result have a roaring lot of trouble with my old arm-spine trouble. Otherwise all is fine with all. I have a bath of new poems to send soon, when revision gets finished.

All the best. We hope your vacation is going well, and that all your stocks and bonds are swelling like dry rice in a pot of water.

Yours,

PB. Could you all send me 3 copies of the book?

OVER

La Rocca, Porto Ercole, pr. di Grosseto, Italy, August 28, 1956.

Dear Albert: Here is a draft of the Alamo book. To you, as trustee, for Rosanna and Gabriel, I hand this over with the firm conviction that you will do your duty and their pleasure. I don't expect you to read this, God knows, but I should like to have concrete criticism from the editor in whose province it falls. Perhaps the editor could mark on the MS and sent relevant sheets back to me. I am holding a master copy here to work from for the final version. By the way, there are quite a few factual queries not indicated on the enclosed carbon but indicated on the master copy. In Rome I should be able to answer some, but some I may have to write back to US for. This should be taken into consideration in scheduling. Information on this would be convenient — on expected date of publication. Also, I'd like to have, as soon as possible and in as much detail as possible, the views of the editor. Naturally, I want to seal this off. And In guess Bennett feels the same way.

No news Just the same. Gabriel took off today and didn't walk, practically ran. Like a jet. On loose sand too, where an adult has a hard time walking. He is very pleased with himself, but went to bed beat up. Having learned that he could do it, he couldn't rest on his laurels. He had to kept resting on his can, after he had fallen on it. After he came back home he had to keep falling on his can on the stone floor. He must have jarred some of his, now, eleven teeth loose.

So long, and all the best from us all.

Yours,

HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS

EYRE & SPOTTISWOODE (Publishers) LTD

15 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, LONDON, W.C.2

Telegrams EXALTEDLY LESQUARE LONDON
Telephone TEMPLE BAR 8514 (9 lines)

Your reference 1s/ma
Our reference DHD/JC.

3rd September, 1956.

Credit Department,
Random House, Inc.,
457 Madison Avenue,
New York, 22, N.Y.,
U. S. A.

Dear Sirs,

In reply to your letter of the 19th August last, we did notify you in our letter of the 10th August of the details concerning our payment to you of £230 transmitted through Thomas Cook & Son (Bankers) Limited. We cannot understand why our original letter has not yet reached you and think the simplest way to deal with your query is to send you a copy of the letter that we sent you at that time.

Secretary.

RANDOM HOUSE

THE MODERN LIBRARY

LANDMARK BOOKS

AMERICAN COLLEGE DICTIONARY

Cable Address: RANDOM NEWYORK

September 28, 1956

Dear Red:

It was good to get your last letter, which you must have misdated August 5, since in it you acknowledge receipt of the reviews I sent you in the last week of August. All of your news seems to be good news, and I'm happy to know that things are going so well.

I'm sending an extra copy of this to the American Academy because I'm not quite clear about when you are leaving Porto Ercole.

The reviews of the SEGREGATION book have been really fabulous. Big space, and nearly always favorable, with a great deal of praise from all sides for the objectivity and fairness of it. Sales have already passed the 6,000 mark, and orders are coming in at the rate of 75 to 100 per day. There is no way of predicting how long this will last, but at least it is pleasant while it is going on. I assume you have no objections.

I don't see why you are making such a problem of the poetry book and the essay book. Naturally, we will do both under the Random House imprint, and in whatever order seems best. I rather incline to the idea of doing the poems in the spring, since we can get that one ready faster after your return, and holding the essays for later in the year; but since there is nothing topical about either one of them, we could do it either way.

Your suggestion of the possible other imprint for one of the two books doesn't touch the problem as I see it at all. You must be remembering a conversation we once had in which I said that I thought it was unwise to push too many books out in a limited period of time. I did not have any reference to our facilities for printing and publishing, but rather to the possible reactions of reviewers and the press and book trade in general to being confronted with a flood of books by the same author, regardless of whose imprint might be on the volume. I may be seeing a problem that does not exist, but I do believe that it is strategically better to space these things in order to get bigger and better attention for them when they come out.

Isabel's insurance contract came from Edward M. Stempel, 1871 East Main Street, Bridgeport, Connecticut. I don't think that you need worry about it, if you are sticking to your schedule, because there is an amendment attached to the policy extending its 90-day limit to 260 days, thus covering the period from May 16, 1956 to Januray 31, 1957. I shall keep the policy here in a folder with various other things.

- 2 -

I am also holding for your return, since there seems to be no point in sending it
over there, a beautiful leather-bound copy of SEGREGATION which Bennett had made
up for you.

I wish that it were possible for you to get the foreign publishers, including the
magazines, to hold off publishing your poems until they have been properly copy-
righted in this country; but if this is impossible, please at least keep the Morris
Agency informed well in advance, so that they can take the proper steps for secur-
ing assignments.

I also received, a day or two after your letter, a copy of your letter of September
15 to Helen. We have had several conversations about the new contract, but nothing
really can be done about it until their experts come up with some real excuse for
replacing the old contract with a new one. Maybe no excuse is needed, but I do not
know enough to be sure how to proceed in these matters. In your letter to me you
mention a $12,000 ceiling and in hers you say that a $15,000 ceiling would be satis-
factory. Which actually do you prefer?

As to the matter of the children's trust and the possibility of moving something
out of the Random House contract into the trust, I think it has been established
that this would not be advisable, nor do I think it would be advisable to put a
book of poems into the hands of the trustees, because the bookkeeping would be
tremendous and the amounts small.

I hope that we can work both of these problems out, in spite of your absence, but
it is going to be extremely difficult to get something satisfactory to you on all
accounts when you are not available for discussion of the various aspects of the
problem.

I think that this covers all the news and answers all the questions for the moment.
Please write when you can, and please let me know, if possible, the exact date on
which you hope to arrive in Rome.

With love to all,

AE:vf

THE MODERN LIBRARY

LANDMARK BOOKS

AMERICAN COLLEGE DICTIONARY

Cable Address: RANDOM NEWYORK

September 28, 1956

Dear Red:

Rome, December 5, 1956.

Dear Albert; We were unhappy to see you go. It was fine having you here, all ways.
Since you left, no great news with us. The weather, of course, has turned off
glorious -- bright sunshine, balmy air, birds sing, with the far glitter of
snow on the mountains, all serene and beautiful. I knew you'd like to hear about
this. I do begin to believe that you have the evil eye, meteorologically speaking.

Business: Bay writes that he and French Book Club need new photographs of yours truly, and immediately. New is only a way of speaking, since the one he has been using was taken in 1932. Can you see that he gets two or three to choose from, on slick finish, and oblige?

The talk with you about the poems was profitable for me. I had felt cut off from
that kind of personal, informal criticism, and I have done a lot of odds and ends
on them since you left. Here are revisions for Moonlight Walk in Small Town. Will
you enter these, please?

✓ Stanza 1, line 3: spook-pale -- spooky
✓ st. 2, ln. 2 : Shadow, -- Shadow, beast-black, in the porches lurked
✓ st. 2, ln. 3 : house front -- house fronts
✓ st. 5, ln 2&3, 4, 5: -- Those parallels, monn-struck, defied
The laws of space in daytime applied,
And leaving geometry aghast,
Plunged now, past Time ETC

✓ st. 6 cancel and substitute: Yes, long ago, at night, up that track,
I'd watched the Pullman flash and fade,
Then heard, in new quiet, the beat my heart made.
But the ticket is always-round-trip; now back,
I stood to watch night-distance flee up that
empty track.

Stanza 6 was too rhetorical, and the diction was getting out of hand.

I hope for your happiness now in honest work, early hours, and simple food. Avoid animal fats and alcohol. Try Science and Health.

Our best, as ever,

PS. It now seems -- at least a verbal agreement -- that the Berlin Theater will
be available for BTD -- if they get premier rights.

Cable Address: RANDOM NEWYORK

January 11, 1957

Mr. Robert Penn Warren
Accademia Americana
Porta San Panerazio
Roma, Italy

Dear Red:

Please forgive me for not answering sooner your letter which came about ten days ago. To tell the truth, I had plain forgot it, and I had reasons.

You're right in your guess that I might have been snowed under since I got back, but even righter than you might have thought. It was not only what accumulated while I was away, but what fell on me immediately after my return. Shortly after I saw Jim Michener off for Paris he changed his course and went to Vienna and produced a very important account of the Hungarian uprising. It began to reach me chapter by chapter shortly after my return, retyped by an Austrian typist, and it became apparent that it was a book on which we had to operate more like a magazine publisher than a book publisher--that is, to get out in record time.

It meant that I had to stay at it day and night, and during the Holiday week ends, and in fact up until yesterday. It is now under control and that manuscript will go to the printer either Monday or Tuesday.

I haven't been answering any letters, but just letting them accumulate. I would, however, have answered yours if I had noticed or remembered the fact that you wanted a more or less immediate response.

This is Saturday and Manny Harper is not here to consult about the question that you ask. I will talk to him first thing on Monday and, by the time this letter is typed up I hope to be able to add an answer at the end of this letter.

The problem, as I see it, is this: it may be that the republication in a magazine of some of the actual lines from the poem BROTHER TO DRAGONS will destroy your copyright in it. For this reason, I think it would be much better if they published something that had not yet appeared in book form, but it may be that under the new copyright regulations a way can be found for them to publish play version of BROTHER TO DRAGONS without endangering the book's copyright. In any event, I will take the matter up with Manny Harper and let you know.

Please thank Eleanor for the post card sent from Austria in which she complains about my being so uncommunicative. Please point out to that fair lady that this

- 2 -

is the first communication of any kind I have received from her since you went away and ask her what she's talking about. As far as that goes, I haven't had any letters from Rosanna either, and I resent it.

Eleanor says that February 18 seems to be your arrival date. Please confirm this and the name of the boat on which you are coming in.

Love to all,

AE:vf

P. S. I've talked with Manny and with Helen, who tells me her office has already advised you against risking copyright by putting a play in BOTTEGHE OSCURE. Manny doesn't think it is dangerous if all proper steps are taken over there. I think the best thing is to wait until you get back and hear all the arguments.

THE
YALE
REVIEW
*A National Quarterly*

28 HILLHOUSE AVENUE
NEW HAVEN • CONNECTICUT

15 January 1957

J. E. PALMER
Editor

PAUL PICKREL
Managing Editor

Dear Albert,

That was a very pleasant surprise. I'm sorry that in the issue you're starting with Random House doesn't have much of a show; but usually we arrange things a little better. In the Spring issue by way of a notable departure we're proposing to lead off with RPW's 500 lines of poetry--the first time in this magazine's 45 years that the lead piece hasn't been a political essay.

That Nassau affair, I'm both sorry and glad to say, didn't come off after all. One of the kids took sick, and my occasion for going scratched. And the mutual friends who were cooking up the deal very nearly didn't bother to tell me in time for me to scramble out with my money reasonably intact. So I had a conventional family Christmas in Louisiana, plus about a dozen visits going and coming (including one night in Memphis with the George Campbells). Anyhow, as you must know, I'm deeply grateful for your emergency assistance.

By now I suppose Miss Stafford has reestablished herself in your city, so you'll probably be seeing a good bit of her. She

1887

1946

THE SIDNEY HILLMAN FOUNDATION

"We want a better America, an America that will give its citizens, first of all, a higher and higher standard of living so that no child will cry for food in the midst of plenty. We want to have an America where the inventions of science will be at the disposal of every American family, not merely for the few who can afford them. An America that will have no sense of insecurity and which will make it possible for all groups, regardless of race, creed or color to live in friendship, to be real neighbors; an America that will carry its great mission of helping other countries to help themselves."

SIDNEY HILLMAN, 1946

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED

TO BE A GUEST OF

THE SIDNEY HILLMAN FOUNDATION

AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE

SEVENTH ANNUAL SERIES OF

PRIZE AWARDS

FOR 1956

TUESDAY, APRIL 30
12:30 P. M.

CENTURY ROOM, HOTEL COMMODORE

NEW YORK, N. Y.

R.S.V.P.

Jacob S. Potofsky, President
Sidney Hillman Foundation
15 Union Square, New York 3, N. Y.

426

THE SIDNEY HILLMAN FOUNDATION
PRIZE AWARDS

The Prize Awards of the Sidney Hillman Foundation were initiated in 1950 as part of a varied and extensive program designed to promote the ideals of public service to the community cherished by Sidney Hillman and all labor, and to bring these ideals closer to realization. In its first nine years, the Foundation has made allocations for scholarships, for medical research, for academic research, and for numerous lecture series, as well as for the prize awards and for the annual award for meritorious public service.

Submissions for the $500 prize awards have dealt with such topics as trade union development, race relations, civil liberties, scientific welfare and world understanding. Entries may include newspaper and magazine articles, books (fiction and non-fiction), and drama, motion picture, radio and television scripts that have been professionally produced.

Entries in all fields may be submitted by the author or by anyone associated with its publication or production.

The judges for the 1956 prize awards, who are responsible for the final decisions, are Evans Clark, member of the Editorial Board of *The New York Times*; Eric Sevareid, Washington correspondent of the Columbia Broadcasting System; and William L. Shirer, author and commentator.

SIDNEY HILLMAN PRIZE AWARDS
PREVIOUS WINNERS

DAILY PRESS

MURRAY KEMPTON, *New York Post* (1950).

A. H. RASKIN, *The New York Times* (1950).

CARL T. ROWAN, *Minneapolis Tribune* (1951).

M. HORACE CARTER, *Tabor City* (N.C.) *Tribune*;

WILLARD G. COLE, *Whiteville* (N.C.) *News and Reporter*;

JAY JENKINS, *Raleigh* (N.C.) *News and Observer* (1952).

RALPH S. O'LEARY, *Houston Post* (1953).

VIC REINEMER, *Charlotte* (N.C.) *News* (1954).

DANIEL R. FITZPATRICK, *St. Louis Post Dispatch* (special award, 1954).

BEN H. BACDIKIAN, *Providence Journal-Bulletin* (1955).

MURREY MARDER, *Washington Post* (1955).

BOOKS

JOHN HERSEY, *The Wall* (1950).

ALAN BARTH, *The Loyalty of Free Men* (1951).

HERBERT BLOCK, *The Herblock Book* (1952).

THEODORE H. WHITE, *Fire in the Ashes* (1953).

HENRY STEELE COMMAGER, *Freedom, Loyalty and Dissent* (1954).

JOHN LORD O'BRIAN, *National Security and Individual Freedom* (1955).

MAGAZINES

JAMES H. MEANS, M.D., *Atlantic Monthly* (1950).

ARTHUR D. MORSE, "Who's Trying to Ruin Our Schools?" *McCall's* (1951).

JOSEPH WECHSBERG, "The Seventeenth of June," *The New Yorker* (1953).

CHARLOTTE KNIGHT, "What Price Security," *Collier's* (1954).

THE PROGRESSIVE, special issue on Senator McCarthy (special award, 1954).

ROBERT ENGLER, "Oil and Politics," *New Republic* (1955).

RADIO-TELEVISION

EDWARD R. MURROW, CBS-TV, "See It Now" (1953).

GERALD W. JOHNSON, WAAM, Baltimore, (1953).

ERIC SEVAREID, CBS-TV, "The American Week" (1954).

WNYC, New York City (special award, 1954).

The Mississippi Valley Historical Review
GRADUATE SCHOOL
TULANE UNIVERSITY

NEW ORLEANS 16, LOUISIANA

WILLIAM C. BINKLEY
MANAGING EDITOR

PHILIP F. DETWEILER
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

June 24, 1957

Miss Louise Bonino
Random House, Inc.
457 Madison Avenue
New York 22, N. Y.

Dear Miss Bonino:

I have been delayed longer than I expected in getting
to Mr. Warren's manuscript on THE ALAMO. I hope that the
delay has not upset your schedule.

I found the manuscript intensely interesting. It seems
to me that the author has done a good job of presenting a
complex story in simple language and so far as I can
determine he has caught the spirit of the men about whom
he is writing. His account of the fight at the Alamo is
exceptionally well done.

On the whole I have found only a few statements which
might be considered questionable from the point of view of
historical accuracy. These are being listed on the
attached pages for whatever use Mr. Warren may wish to
make of them. With one possible exception they have to
do with minor matters of detail. The exception is No. 4
having to do with the question of whether Jackson sent Houston
to Texas. Perhaps my explanation is sufficient to indicate
that the statement should be qualified.

It has been a pleasure to read the manuscript and I
hope that my comments may be helpful. Please do not hesitate
to ask questions about any of them.

WCB1mk

Questions and Suggestions on "The Alamo" MS.

[The numbers refer to corresponding circled numbers in left-hand margins of the manuscript.]

1 (p. 1). The territory of the Louisiana Purchase extended only to the Rocky Mountains--not to the Pacific Ocean.

2 (p. 14). Correct spelling is Gutierrez.

3 (p. 25). Delete "and were heard of no more in Texas." Haden Edwards came back to Nacogdoches and his son was active in the early stage of the Texas Revolution in 1835.

4 (p. 32). Historians would question the categorical statement that Jackson sent Houston to Texas in 1832. No dependable documentary evidence has been found to support it. The author seems to be following Marquis James, *The Raven*, where the conclusion is based on inference rather than direct evidence. Even the inference is highly questionable, because James has lifted the letter on which it is based out of context. It is one of a series in which Houston, John Van Fossen, and James Prentiss were discussing a plan for obtaining land in Texas for purposes of speculation; and only an uninhibited imagination could interpret this as proving the existence of a scheme to separate Texas from Mexico, much less that Jackson was involved. Furthermore, James's statement that Jackson let Houston have the money for the trip to Texas is based on Buell's *Life of Jackson*. Since Buell did not give the source of his information, and since

2

it has been proved that he manufactured evidence when he
could not find what he wanted, the whole basis for the
statement that Jackson sent Houston to Texas becomes rather
tenuous.

5 (p. 42).

Delete "up the Chihuahua Trail." It is far to the
west and south of Texas, and couldn't have figured in Bowie's
trip from Texas into Arkansas.

6 (p. 43).

While it is technically correct to call this a "purported
autobiography" of Crockett, wouldn't it be desirable to
point out more definitely that it could not have been
authentic? Obviously, no Crockett autobiography could con-
tain information on what was said or done at the Alamo.

7 (p. 54).

The speech was made, not at a ball, but at a public
dinner in Austin's honor.

8 (p. 55).

Why no mention of the skirmish at Gonzales on October 2,
which marked the beginning of the fighting in the Texas
Revolution?

9 (p. 64).

For the sake of historical accuracy let's stick to that
part of the legend that had been attached to Crockett at
the time rather than seeming to accept the highly exaggerated
and impossible one recently manufactured for TV audiences.
And make it clear that it is legend, not fact!

10 (p. 78).

Dr. Grant was not "down in Mexico," but was still in
Texas trying to move toward Matamoros. Incidentally, the
correct spelling of this name is Matamoros, not Matamoras.

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11 (p. 108).

Santa Anna was at New Washington, at the head of Galveston Bay, not Washington on the Brazos, where the convention had been held.

12 (p. 109).

The number 783 for size of Houston's army at San Jacinto was apparently taken from the body of Houston's report. In an appendix to that report he listed by name 845 officers and men. The official San Jacinto muster rolls in General Land Office of Texas show a total of 863. Dixon and Kemp, *Heroes of San Jacinto* (Houston, 1932), places the total at 918. See my article "Activities of the Texas Revolutionary Army after San Jacinto," *Journal of Southern History*, Vol. VI (August, 1940), p. 339, where the total force is given as 905. Some of these were not in the battle, and perhaps the best that can be done is to say "about 850 men."

13 (p. 111).

Houston's report says "two killed and twenty-three wounded, six of them mortally." The most dependable figure for the number killed seems to be 9, including the wounded who died within a few days after the battle.