Hollywood Spectator (Apr-May 1939)

Tfcuth atuf the 'Jutufe cfi the Wwl4 (Some months ago the Spectator published a personal letter from a young miss who in her childhood dubbed me “Uncle Welford." who did not get over it as she grew to young womanhood . and who would get in bad with me if she did. I could do with even a few more netces as charming and talented as Dorothea Hagedorn. daughter of Herman Hagedorn. distinguished American poet and author, and my good friend. Dot writes me another letter, so brilliant, discerning and timely, I can not deny Spectator readers the pleasure of reading it. — W.B.) EAR Uncle Welford: We are still talking about the great time we had at your palazzo the other evening. I hope you have recovered from the Hagedorn avalanche. Now that we have our own place in Pasadena you must come to see us very soon. To carry on from where time so rudely interrupted us the other evening; it certainly does seem as though more and more people were getting concerned about the youth of this country. The papers are full of what the older generation thinks about us and wants for us (not to mention what we want for ourselves!) But then “youth" is a pretty vague term, come to think of it. Reminds me of a young cousin of mine who couldn't speak English very well and was trying to describe a fowl he had shot: "It’s something like chicken, more like goose — goes quack, quack." Most Important Thing <]| Anyway, bird, beast or fowl, the important thing is certainly not what are we going to get, but what are we going to be. T here is no doubt that it is up to us what we are going to be remembered for. If our grandchildren have to read about the theories of a vague oblong mass of demanding humanity in fifty years they will shut up shop. They will want to read of people who set their eyes on the impossible and did not die until they reached it. At least if they are anything like us. they will want that kind of ancestor. Don't you think ? If we are a lost generation, it will be our fault because with all our education we will not have learned how to think. When Direction Is Needed <1 Last summer I was over at MGM and they showed us a series of ten minute shorts of famous men. It was extraordinary how you grasped the life of a man and knew him at the end of ten minutes. It must have been because the script writer had caught the theme of the man’s life and all the details poured into the one service the man had given. It looks quite simple — life, doesn’t it? And certain decisions quite obvious when you look at them from the end of life. But it is at this beginning that you need direction. And yet, I thought, who are going to be the ones to create the raw material to make the ten-minute shorts of the future? — and the lives of such men as Pasteur and Zola? We can not go along living off the deeds of dead men, no matter how great they were. We must be great ourselves. Pretty Grim Business <1 The world certainly has stood on its ear since I last wrote you. Many of my friends are fighting. It must be a pretty grim business being youth over there in Europe now. You can not chose your future anymore. They have been in some savage battles. ... It seems hard to imagine them — what they have become like. I have known them such a long time — we climbed mountains together in the summer and skied together in the winter, but after all they have seen, it seems as though they must have aged a hundred years. In war you lose your youth whether you die or not, I guess. But the majority of my friends over there are still free to fight in the other battle — the battle for Peace. I have heard they constitute a pretty stable element in their countries; panic-proof and propaganda-proof. But more than that, they are working like beavers. They have found out through experience how labor and management can together build a new spirit in industry. They have found a new reason for homes to be united, and are uniting their own and others. They are binding their people together to fight the enemies within — the greed and selfishness that make for war. The whole idea is a couple of thousand of years old, but it is new to us and we have got a new world in which to work it. Their Theme for Living <1 These "youths" have found their theme for living and are going at it with the sureness as though they saw it all from the end. Whether they will be great or not remains to be seen. But already they have the gratitude of leaders in their nations. I wonder if you ever met Ole Dorph Jensen when he was over here this summer? He is a young sportsman from Denmark. He left here to go back to take part in the Scandinavian games when sportsmen from all the northern countries were going to take part. When he got there he discovered that the v. had caused the officials to call the whole thing off. Ole determined they would have the games — not for the sport alone, but because it would be a means of helping unite the Nordic north to be reconcilers of the nations. For weeks, he fought practically single-handed. He travelled up and down Scandinavia, talked with heads of committees and inspired them to carry on. The games were played. At the start men from rival clubs spoke to the throngs. They said that if the north were truly to be "reconcilers of the nations” they would have to start at home and be reconciled themselves. Representatives from each country spoke, calling for the same qualities in national life as were demanded in sports. The press was moved and the event stirred the north. One Boy's Good Work <J Another boy, a Swiss, who was here this summer, the husband of one of my best friends, was mobilized the day he was married. News has been coming over how he is transforming the spirit in his section of the frontier. The problem of monotony which led in the last war to demoralization, has become an opportunity for them to gain a new spirit of honesty and unselfishness in their lives — through this boy — and they are using their weeks and months of waiting as a chance to think for their country. When they are free they will have a program for their nation. It does seem as though some people step quite easily into heroism. In war it is not the money we can make, but what we do for the other fellow that wins the Croix de Guerre. Maybe if we began living that way here before war forced it on us, we would change the world. Have Time to Think <fl I was talking to a man the other night who has just come from England. It was hard for him to get used to the thinking out here on the Coast. “You are like an island," he said. “You still have time to think sanely. You still have time to do the kind of thinking that can save yourselves and us, too." Well, that certainly puts the baby in our laps. Everybody else is fighting for his skin. We have got to fight for their spirit and ours, I guess. Each generation has had to fight some kind of battle: the revolution, the wilderness, the laws of nature. Well, ours is the greatest battle of all — this battle for a lasting peace. That is all for this time. See you soon. — Dot. PAGE TEN HOLLYWOOD SPECTATOR