Dear Comrade:

It's great news that we are to have you here, and all of us are glad. We have a little room for you and can make you comfortable. I must tell you just how things are h here. My office hours are from 9:15 to 4:30. I take the 8:05 train here in the morning and the 5 o'clock train in the evening, arriving home at about 5:30. There is no chance to do anything but work during the days. After supper we will be free, and I wish we could have one Sunday - my only free day.

(back)
You see my column runs seven days of the week.

I can't be encouraging in the matter of your connecting with the P-D. It is the mark at which ambitious newspapermen are always aiming. I have met a number of people who are eager for a job on the P-D. As to editorials, you would make a good editorial writer without a question. You'd be excellent after you got licked into journalistic shape, and that might be a punishing experience. There are four editorial writers on the P-D, and the page is rated as one of the best in America. It is jealously guarded,

(inside)
and very hard to reach. These jobs are sewed up in complicated ways. Merit, in this world, is not the determining thing at all. Something comes before merit. Ability is really not very scarce, considering the relatively small number of jobs demanding it.

As for reviewing, there is none of that, now that I am running a daily column.

The Times-Star, across the street from the P-D, is a paper that is fighting for its life against the Titan Post-Dispatch and The Globe Democrat, which latter, tho' a bad second, is very strong. You might manage to connect with the Times-Star, but I am unacquainted there.

I'm wondering if you are not still interested in our Macmillan scheme - you their man on the road, with your book published by them. That seems a good scheme to me, if it can be put through.

Comrade, if you were to get a job of editorial writing. You'd be hog-tied as to opinion, and you'd have to be deliberately intelligent to hold your job. I'm speaking of you. You have ideals and the limited autograph edition of Collected Poems is a handsome large paper two volume set. Bully! Trade edition is one volume - 642 pages.

St. Louis Mo. 10 Dec 19 730PM 1926 AIR-MAIL SAVES TIME

United States Postage 2 Cents 2

Dr. J.T. House New River State School Montgomery, West Virginia