As Novices, We Think We're Entirely Responsible

Houses Are The Abiding Joys; They Are The Most Emotion-stirring Of All Things. An Automobile Is Regarded With Fond Affection, A Typewriter Becomes The Inseparable Companion, Clothes Can Stir Sentimentality, And The Bit Of Bric-a-brac Is A Toy One Would Weep To See Torn Away - But Houses Are Real, Deep, Emotional Things. How Much Excitement In The Cutting Of A Window, What Enormous Importance In The Angle Of A Roof!

There Is A City Myth That Country Life Was Isolated And Lonely; The Truth Is That Farmers And Their Families Then Had A Richer Social Life Than They Have Now. They Enjoyed A Society Organic, Satisfying And Whole, Not Mixed And Thinned With The Life Of Town, City And Nation As It Now Is.

One Thing I Hate About The New Deal Is That It Is Killing What, To Me, Is The American Pioneering Spirit. I Simply Do Not Know What To Tell My Own Boys, Leaving School And Confronting This New World Whose Ideal Is Security And Whose Practice Is Dependence Upon Government Instead Of Upon One's Self. All The Old Character-values Seem Simply Insane From A Practical Point Of View; The Self-reliant, The Independent, The Courageous Man Is Penalized From Every Direction.

I Am Too Sick To Work And Haven't Money Enough To Last 2 Months And Pay Income Tax. I Want To Keep Going But Do Not See Quite How, And There Is No Alternative - Rather Than Justify My Mother's 25-year Dread Of My "coming Back On Her, Sick," I Must Kill Myself. If She Has To Pay Funeral Costs, At Least She Will Cut Them To The Bone And I Will Not Be Here To Endure Her Martyrdom And Prolong It By Living.

The Prairies Were Dust. Day After Day, Summer After Summer, The Scorching Winds Blew The Dust And The Sun Was Brassy In A Yellow Sky. Crop After Crop Failed. Again And Again The Barren Land Must Be Mortgaged For Taxes And Food And Next Year's Seed. The Agony Of Hope Ended When There Was Not Harvest And No More Credit, No Money To Pay Interest And Taxes; The Banker Took The Land. Then The Bank Failed.