A ROOM OF OUR OWN

...For them (as they think of me) the war is an interlude, and as soon as it is over they think of me (as perhaps they see everyone else) picking up where we left off...

...But as you pointed out in your column on 'wishful thinking,' that is not likely to be true...

...They think I am on a sort of a 'leave of absence' from civil life, and (in their thoughts) one of these days I'll be right back,, at the old stand...

...Lieut...

...With the correspondents, he had 'sweated it out' on the Christmas Day voyage through the Vitiaz Straits to New Britain...

...I don't think soldiers dwell on that thought—they have their job to do and they do it as best they can, but it is a factor at the back of their heads, and it does make this particular enterprise vitally important to them...

...The Greatest Political Virtue' "We are going through an upheaval that many of us diagnosed 15 years ago, but as we actually pass through its phases, we find that the experiencing in person is different from experiencing in projected thought...

...I only have time tonight for just this line...

...is the war in the Pacific...

...Bob III would enjoy the 'flora and fauna' hereabouts...

...La Follette, "who volunteered to take part in the invasion, carried a regular pack weighing about 50 pounds...

...He goes where he is sent...

...that over and above belief in this or that economic or political view has been the faith in the governmental system that would permit change, by orderly process, and which would guard and protect against tyranny...

...So, within the short space *of a few months, I learned that there is a happy balance where one gets the minimum of criticism, but I have also observed this: that the things for which I was most often severely attacked—as for example the Glenn Frank matter—were things in which our motives were entirely and solely altruistic...

...to listen intelligently to the criticism as it comes, because some of it will be warranted and justified by one's genuine errors and mistakes...

...I have another little job to do which will take me to another spot in a few days and there will be a short while when my mail facilities will be, even comparatively, not of the best...

...He replied, 'Well, I used to get quite a bit of sniping when I was governor.' " A United Press dispatch disclosed that Col...

...Anent The Letter To McCormick "I have thought a bit lately of some of our friends' reaction to my letter to Col...

...on top of that you have all the problems and difficulties of family and other affairs, all of which have been enormously complicated by the war...

...That is why I depend on you not to worry overly during this interlude when my mail will be interrupted...

...At home you have the war in Europe, and the war in the Pacific...

...The fact that I could, for the time being, be in an entirely different one has not been very prominent in their thinking...

...By which I mean that I think they have done a good job at doing exactly what I have been talking about...

...He jumped into the sea and had to wade through shoulder-deep water, then hiked a couple of miles up the beach to the bivouac area...

...An Associated Press dispatch from Cape Gloucester carried this comment: "You wouldn't recognize him, but that unshaven, weary, steel-helmeted officer hugging the mud of New Britain when Japanese planes came over was the three-times governor of Wisconsin...

...I have endeavored (how successfully only time can tell) to keep my balance...

...He lugged a heavy pack through ankle"Our letters have been a big help to each other— yours have been life-savers to me...

...And while the war is an interlude for most of us, there is always the possibility that it may be a period— punkt...

...They are real— vitally real—so real that their presence or absence at the right time may make the difference to them individually (and not to somebody else) between an 'interlude,' as I have said, or the 'period'—the end...

...Phil La Follette, member of a famous political family, led a press party on the Marines' successful invasion of Cape Gloucester...

...The only things he acquired were a gray mustache, a heat rash, and a new conception of the jungle...

...If I have acquired it in some minor degree, it is only because of the hammerings of experience...

...The Beard book is not especially easy going, but the book has a real and vital point to make: namely, that the thread of constitutional, republican government has held together such different characters and opposite convictions as Washington, Hamilton, Paine, Jefferson, Jackson, Madison, and Lincoln...

...I have always remembered that, because I then tried to be a little more reserved...

...I am using the underside of my mess kit for a table which does not add to the legibility of my handwriting...

...to accept that as a fact...

...I, who have no liking for details, have a hell of a lot of them to look after...

...The Jap is on our doorstep, and while many of us are not living in constant danger, most of us run risks oftener than the armchair folks at home think...

...Trust that this is not preaching, because from all that I have heard since I left you, I think the kids could probably pontificate a bit to the old man...

...I've been trying to figure out where the difficulty lay in our understanding each other...

...After the first semester, an acquaintance said to me, 'Say, Phil, what office are you running for?' By which he meant that because I was nice to people and speaking to everyone he (and others) assumed that I must be campaigning...

...Philip F. La Follette was part of the fighting American force which waded ashore and established an Allied bridgehead on strategic Cape Gloucester, New Britain, in the Southwest Pacific, last week...

...Have just finished a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs and real American coffee...

...That all may be true, but while one is himself going through this period, it is far more real than an 'interlude.' Two wars are enough for me, but I am sure that when I have complete perspective, I shall always feel that this was something that I must do, and which I would never want to have dodged or evaded...

...As I wrote you yesterday, I got that nice batch of mail and was especially glad to have it as I shall be out of touch with my mail for a little while...

...There are lots of details to arrange about mess, quarters, etc...

...McCormick thanking him for his editorial support for more war materials for the Pacific...

...Saw a big bug last night that looked like a cigar with legs and two antennae...

...but never to let criticism, or the fear of it, prevent one from going ahead and living one's life, doing one's work, and 'using one's endowments to the full...

...Editor's Note: The "spot" turned out to be Cape Gloucester, New Britain, where he landed with Marines establishing a bridgehead on Japanese-held territory, according to an AP dispatch.] So you'll have to expect a short space where there will be a hiatus in my letters to you...

...Supplies, reinforcements,' are not to fighting men just words read in the newspaper...

...As I have intimated, I have been enjoying my presents a bit in advance, but in this business, especially when one travels about, one never knows where he will be on a given date...

...It has not been a bed of roses . . . yet in the Army one does not pick and choose...

...I am back where the glue on the envelopes sticks and where I live out of doors, and I'm delighted to be back...

...This isn't much of a letter but it carries my love to each of you...

...The gray-haired officer jumped from the landing craft into the water waist deep when the invasion convoy reached the New Britain coast...

...which you as a good housekeeper will understand...

...Shaw's advocacy of Socialism, and his analysis of the unwillingness of an outworn system to submit except by force, started my brain on the chain of thought I have suggested...

...The only answer I can get is this (and believe me, this is said without any vestige of criticism) : "Everyone at home has me associated with a definite situation and type of environment and mode of work and expression...

...We had a rain last night that was a rain of the kind Louis Bromfield wrote about in The Rains Came but failed, in terms of this one last night, to describe adequately...

...Phil Faces Jap Fire At New Britain LIEUT...

...Criticism And One's Life "Just as I think you all feel (no doubt with justification) that I am out of touch with sentiment and conditions at home, so, too, I think that perhaps some at your end have not got an accurate picture of the world in which we here live...

...It makes it evident why a person like Lincoln, Jefferson, or my father, for example, lived wholly consistent lives—because they had a guiding start to hold them on their course...

...On the other hand, for us, aside from our family ties, and dreams of home, the one reality in our life Jeep mud, pitched his own hammock, and, after the Japanese bombing was over, dug his own foxhole as fast as anyone...

...When I entered the University (to reminisce like an old grandpappy) I was aware of the fact that at that time my father was considered the most distinguished alumnus of the place...

...All of this is for what small benefit it may be to the kids—to emphasize that one must expect criticism...

...Correspondents asked him how he liked being sniped at...

...So I made every possible effort to be nice to people and to speak to everyone...

...I was thinking this morning as I walked over here, how little man can direct the gigantic forces of nature...

...Within five hours after landing, he had been through a bombing, dive bombing, and strafing attack while Japanese snipers took pot-shots from the dense jungle...

...Have been reading the Shaw book a little before going to sleep...

...So as I say, I think that my being a good deal like the other soldiers in my thinking does not fit into the established picture of some people's idea of me...

...It is a stupid way to make adjustments to great changes, but as Sam Rogers so aptly remarked, 'One can't get barnacles off a rock by blowing on •them.' "I suppose it is the immensity of these forces that made William Pitt say that the greatest of all political virtues was patience...

...He was on the second LST (landing ship, tanks) to hit the beach...

...Hence, I have been reading this book and the Hesketh Pearson biography of George Bernard Shaw, and hope you will, too...

...That trait is certainly not one that I began my life with...

...Then a month or so later, another acquaintance suggested that I must be a snob...