I think myself that Hitler won't last long although the pathological
fellow will be the death of many yet. The spirit here is aggressive and
the popular demand for action and a second front is strong. The great
problem is why did Hitler attack Russia? If he hadn't we would have
had a most terrible time. Whatever our view of Russia there have been
no Quislings [traitors] there.
I can't get news of our Norway friends. Elsa Backer got permission
to visit Oslo for three weeks (from Stockholm). She saw J. [Judith
Bogen] who still has her Kindergarten, but the kids all are thin and
much underfed. All adults in Oslo look thin, she says. I see in the Times
that the Gestapo has arrested Per Krogh the artist. I knew him well,
nice chap with no politics. I think they are arresting all the well-known
men as hostages. They have guts in Norway.
Let us be hopeful. Let us phantasy a little ... daydream that Stalin
is right and that Hitler will be smashed in '42. Japan can't stand alone
long. Then in summer '43 a bloke calIed Neill crosses to New York to
have a long talk (and a long drink) with old Reich, a talk about the
new world and the work to be done in it. I am now 58 and hate the
idea, for I want to go on working for many many years. So just scrap
your cancer research and find a few bione that will make me live to be
a thousand.
Write soon. Send as many mags. as you can afford, and we'll start
the vegeto balI rolling in this island.
- • •
Forest Hills, New York
May 19, 1942
My dear Neill,
I just received your good letter of April 28th. I do not think
that we can avoid or that we should avoid the scientific physiological
terms. You cannot do without them for they mean definite facts. I also
believe that in a true democratic way we should not try to free the
layman-a teacher is not quite a layman-from the responsibility to
acquire a general knowledge of physiology and biology. For many years
I have been trying to see how a better world could set up microscopes
and charts about the body functions in public parks, instead of the
foolish and useless lotteries they have now. The vegetative function of
vagotonia and sympatheticotonia appears very simple if you present it