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handwritten note in top margin of typed letter - got a call from fellow in Fort Worth, I knew in Okla - 1943 - he said he heard I was dead! I called him back to check if he was alive! My poor phone bill! Hope I can pay it.
18 April 1963 Jack I, oboy oboy: Owe you several letters, owes friends in 'Frisco letters also. Dee Brown (remember?) sent me a page from Chicago paper I guess, review of your paperback by Van Allen Bradley of underlined: the Daily News. Glad it finally was published, with intro. by Daniel Aaron. I never did see his underlined: Writers on the Left, wasn't it? Our Alexandria Library "censors" such books and we dont get to see them and I dont get up to Washington libraries - tell Aaron to bring out underlined: Writers on the Left in paper back so I can afford it?
What does Bradley mean when he writes that you and "The Disinherited" were "true victims of the Communists"? This seems like double-talk and meaningless - it seems to me that we were all at that time "victims of the Depression." The Government tried to say that I was a Communist and fellow-traveler and they havent let up on me yet, in spite of my wife dying of cancer and me with two young children to raise. I cant change to a better job and I cant get a decent deal where I am - some pansy has the "original" illustrating job I had and is the fair-haired-boy of the shop - eh is a duplicate of Liberace and even plays the organ! I suppose I rubbed them the wrong way when I said if I had to live through another depression underlined: I would do the same, and write the same, as I did in the 30's. the Government doesnt like the TRUTH, as my lawyer put it: "The Government doesn't like to admit it makes mistakes."
I have been off, without pay, most of week - we went to Charlottesville for Easter and the mountains were beautiful, but I am all wore out - and I still have a mild heart condition the Government gave me when they spent so many years persecuting me. You think Hitler was bad - you just don't know how bad some Americans can be - their heart is just a stinking IBM computer. I get cards from Ackerson now and then. ^He was at Harpers Ferry last year - What ever became of Merlin Curtis of underlined: The Lance. Dee and Sally thought Ellington was a Nazi spy. He was sure odd and anti-social. And I suppose H H Lewis is still the old poetic Missouri mule? I read a travel piece by Algren some time ago but it didnt' send me - rather dull I thought. If I wrote a short story where could I send it? Are there any LITTLE magazines now - like maybe underlined: The University Review? Write a brief note if you have time - my kids are 8 and 9 and keep me on the ragged edge. I need another wife but they are not easy to come by, not with two children ^ already here! they are nice kids and I try to be nice to them, but it is a rough life, especially on week-ends. I dont seem to have any time for underliend: ART so-called. Best to you and the missus, Jack II 114 E Maple St Alexandria Va.
in left margin Dee Brown says he sent off two mss. and is now all written out. he can't think of another thing to write about.