'Letters' reminds us of past
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What a joy it used to be to receive a well-written letter. Before cell phones, telephones, telegrams, the Internet and other advances in technology, people used to communicate across distances by sitting down and putting their thoughts and feelings on paper. They used pens or pencils and sealed the finished product in an envelope, stuck it in the mail and waited for the recipient to get the letter, decide to repeat the process and send a return missive. It took a while for this process to play out, so and the arrival of a letter was a special event.
Writers have long known the power of letters, with their direct address and first person voice. It’s a difficult format to work into literature, but it has been done, done frequently and done well. The style is called the epistolary form. But even the best literary writer, indulging in fiction, could never match the power of the unaffected honesty of a letter from a friend or enemy, lover or neighbor, parent or child.
In 1999, The Dial Press issued an immense collection of letters written by historical personages in the years between 1900-1999. It was called Letters of the Century, America 1900-1999, and a paperback version has been reissued ($18). It is a marvelous collection. The letters were chosen for their historical significance, but provide a surprising range of moods. Readers will find some angry notes here, like this one from Harry Truman to music critic Paul Hume, who had written unflattering things about the president’s daughter’s singing in 1950:
Mr. Hume:
I’ve just read your lousy review of Margaret’s concert. I’ve come to the conclusion that you are an “eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay.”
It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you’re off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work.
Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!
Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you’ll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.
H.S.T.
Hume had written that Margaret couldn’t sing very well. Pegler was a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist. Another angry politician in Louisiana wrote a scathing note to a telephone company in 1924:
Mr. Chas. A Stair, La. Mgr.
Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Co.,
New Orleans, La.
Dear Sir:
It doesn’t make a bit of difference with me how many telephones you promised. What I am interested in is one thing only:
I want every damned man who wants a telephone to have a telephone, and I want you to get your affairs in such shape that you can give every human being a phone who wants one. No other kind of program is worth anything to me or this state. I am covered up, knee deep, with people in this town and the surrounding territory trying to get telephones and can’t get them. We are in just as bad shape as ever, so far as I am concerned. I have been pretty patient with this thing, but my patience has reached the absolute extreme limit. I am damned disgusted with the way it has been running and don’t intend to continue to condone it.
Now this means exactly the words and terms stated here.
Sincerely yours,
Huey P. Long
When Coca-Cola had the gall to change the formula of its popular soft drink in 1985, one customer was not going to take it:
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