A ROOM OF OUR OWN
Follette, Isabel B. La
A Room Of Our Own By Isabel B. La Follette MRS. Roosevelt in a recent column quoted a friend as likening the American public to an individual who has been through a severe illness—the war—and is...
...I have little vanity about the book itself and do not expect it to become a best seller, but on the royalties I want our eldest boy to study for a year in the United States, from next Summer on...
...Mark is a horribly busy person...
...the textile situation is disastrous, and it is almost impossible to repair houses...
...Many of us I am sure are suffering from a sense of national guilt that America should have taken the responsibility of unleashing its power on humanity...
...John, our eldest boy, exclaimed, 'It is such an intelligent package,' meaning that it fills exactly our needs: cocoa drinks, coffee, tea—such rarities here—and that good powder milk (our Belgian, powder milk is still rather bad) and the peanut butter which I love, though most Belgians don't...
...He is very active in the prisoner of war organization...
...There are so many urgent reconstruction jobs in the bombed regions which come first...
...Men, women, and children who have undergone what the peoples of Europe have suffered these past years are so concerned over their immediate problems that the atomic bomb seems a long way off...
...It may be possible...
...Phil is home, and our boy, while "rotting from the neck up" (as he puts it) in the Philippines, is now merely running the hazards of ordinary life...
...As I have remarked before, I think that the atomie bomb coming at the end of the long strain had the effect of "putting the final touch" on our frayed nerves...
...He looks younger almost than when he left and works as hard as before the war, but at moments he is very tired...
...While we are worrying about whether some other country can produce atomic bombs in three, five, or 15 years, how many of us face the fact that World War II is by no means over...
...I got advance royalties so feel quite optimistic about my plan...
...camp...
...It is an apt comparison, it seems to me...
...Yet we feel how every day we get a bit closer to 'normalcy' and with next spring we even expect a certain wave of prosperity to set in...
...We find life easy at present, although it would still seem hard to you...
...Both in Asia and in Europe the struggle goes on, atomic bomb notwithstanding...
...Why the sense of weight and depression...
...The title will be Written in Darkness...
...But what disturbs me is an almost common disposition to "pass the buck" to some thus far nebulous "world control...
...The book was accepted and will be published by Knopf's in New York, probably in the near future...
...My point is that aside from the almost unimaginable revolution of the bomb itself, its "discovery" has had a tremendous secondary effect on our morale...
...Heating and food conditions are far from perfect as yet...
...ARECENT letter from a friend in Belgium is a shot in the arm...
...EVERYONE you see knows some one who worked on the bomb, and apparently all are agreed that the idea or fact itself can never be kept a secret...
...we sometimes get Ceylon tea but I prefer the Chinese, and what a picturesque box it is in...
...we got them orily once on rations months ago...
...From there on every conversation turns to just how long we can stay ahead of other countries—Russia in the main— maybe three, five, 15 years...
...The raisins too are something very exceptional here...
...We cannot escape but we can work for perspective, a realization of how fortunate we are to have the opportunities still in our hands...
...American coffee is wonderful to us, and the Chinese tea is what I love and haven't had since 1940...
...He misses the outdoor life of the p.o.w...
...That warm remembrance, that's what I almost thank you most for...
...Besides the almost childlike fun of getting such a marvelous package, there is the warm feeling that we are being remembered by our friends, that you are still thinking of us though of course our hardest days are over...
...that where America had the jump on the other countries was in her marvelous powers of industrial production...
...She writes, "The children, Mark, and I are so happy about your package which arrived this morning that I want to thank you for it at once and hope this air mail letter will reach you within at the latest 12 days to tell you how much joy your well-chosen gifts brought us...
...WE are so appalled at the realization, as our boy wrote from Manila, of "the irony of Man's inventive genius perhaps wiping all life off the face of the earth," that we are allowing ourselves to fall into the age-old error of refusing to grapple with the causes of wars...
...IGUESS that instead of reclining on our couches punch-drunk at the contemplation of the atomic bomb, we'd better pick up our beds and get to work...
...He is municipal counsellor and has lots of 'honor' jobs...
...I.B.L...
...As I told Phil when he urged that I get away for a break, it just isn't possible at this time and I have got to work my situation out as best I can while still on the job...
...Did I tell you that I wrote a book about our life during the occupation, and Mark's and my adventures...
...He took up his law practice at once after coming back (he was a prisoner of war in Germany for four years...
...Roosevelt in a recent column quoted a friend as likening the American public to an individual who has been through a severe illness—the war—and is suffering the weakness and apathy which naturally follow...
...Yet now that it has stopped we have to keep reminding ourselves of this fact to keep perspective over the tragic problems which still grip the world...
...Following the analogy of the war-sick public, it would be fine if we could all take the doctor's prescription of a trip to Florida, California, or a "sea voyage," but most of us have responsibilities which we cannot shift...
...Most of us with men involved kept praying during the long years, "If only the fighting would stop...
...Any student of crime, of which war is the greatest, knows that fear of death is not the solution...
...Right and left we see habitual fighters for the good life now obsessed with speculations as to the future of said bomb and grappling with various ways to "control" it...
Vol. 9 • November 1945 • No. 45
