[Some paragraph breaks added for ease of reading.]
Bessie B. Nesbit
Mount Holyoke College
South Hadley, Mass.Thurs. May 23, 1940
Dear Mama,
Greetings! How are you? Thanks ever so much for the letter, stamps, money etc. I received my N.Y.A. check today for ten dollars. This will cover my little expenses & bills but I will still need about $25-30 for my Book Store Bill. This has to be paid before I leave for vacation. Just think - talking of vacation - & so soon.
I had my last class today. Exams officially start Sat. My first exam is next Tues & is Mythology. Then I have Religion & French on Wednesday.
The War is certainly having a big effect on the Campus. Everyone is reading the paper every day & tuning in on every news broadcast. How are the people in Naugatuck reacting?
Mr. Bailey thinks we should have a National coalition party with Roosevelt (probably) as president, with a Repb- like Wilke as vice-president & a mixed cabinet. He thinks we should prepare whole heartedly for any situation & he says the best way to do this is when a country is in a state of war. So why not declare war, put the country in a state of war & be done with it? He says that he has been thinking a lot lately about whether he is most useful in his present capacity. He says that if we don't see him on Campus next Sept, we will probably find him teaching Cadets or working in a munitions factory. Yea! Yea! Yea! This speech almost made me with I were a boy & could go & fight. Do you wonder that we admire Mr. Bailey? If there are more people like Papa & Mr. Bailey in the United States, the democracies are safe.
This morning a peculiar man spoke in chapel. He is a member of an organization in New York called the Western Front. It seems to stand for isolation & preparedness. The man was a very poor speaker & also trod on a number of people's toes. Mr. Bailey spoke about him this afternoon in class. He said he hadn't wanted to have him come & he didn't want us to think that he was responsible. He said that when they heard of this organization some of the members of the faculty in charge of chapel speakers thought it would be nice to have a speaker from that party. He said that he wrote to the Civil Liberties Committee and found that the organization was legal. Then he wrote to the organization & asked for a speaker. They seemed exceptionally willing to have a speaker come & he said he began to grow suspicious. Then last night when the man arrived, he became even more suspicious.
He asked the man who were [sic] financing the organization and the man wouldn't answer him directly. The man said that they had some large anonymous donners [sic] but said he couldn't disclose their identity. He (Mr. Bailey) said that his suspicions were further aroused when the man said that anyone could belong to the organization from unemployed to rich but that the average gift to teh organization was $50. Mr. Bailey said that last night he was almost ready to throw the man out & report him to the authorities but decided not to be too hasty.
He said he had a hard job sleeping but that he felt encouraged when he heard how awful the man was. Mr. Bailey said that of course there were arguments for our staying out of the war but the man hadn't found one of them. Mr. Bailey said he was quite amused when after the talk, some students made a monkey out of the man by asking him questions he couldn't answer. From the general drift of Mr. Bailey's remarks, I think he thought that the Western Front might be a semi-fifth-column organization.
He warned us not to answer any questions about the air field if we happen to have any inside dope & to watch out for people who seem overcurious about anything. If we have definite suspicions, we should report them to the proper authorities. This might be good advice to pass on to the people in Naugatuck.
By the way, why don't you ask some of your New York friends if they know anything about this organization. It probably isn't anything dangerous but it would be fun to see what one could find out.
Tues. afternoon Sylvia & I took Miss Laird to tea & we had a swell time. Miss Laird doesn't seem to think that the situation in Europe is so serious as it's played up to be. She is quite discusted [sic] at the defeatist attitude of some of the faculty & was quite delighted to learn that Mr. Bailey was not with that group as she had been incorrectly informed. There are a lot of these people on campus but not so much among the students as among the teachers. The head of the economics department is one.
Do the people in Naugatuck think there will be War?
Please be thinking of me as exam time draws near and keep your fingers crossed.
I had my Big Sister to dinner last night. She is graduating this year & already has a job. Not bad! This evening I waited in the Private Dining Room for the Spanish teacher who was having a dinner party for the Spanish majors. I must close now & do some Religion.
Love & kisses,
Bessie