“A woman [Mrs. Eliza Powel of Philadelphia] asked Dr. Franklin well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy[?]—A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”James McHenry (1753–1816), Diary September 18, 1787
James Thurber's response to the children of Class 5-1 in Public School 11 in the Bronx is dated May 2, 1960, toward the end of the school year. Thurber starts out stating that he hasn't had time to read all their letters and he notes that he gets "three thousand letters a year now and couldn't get anything else written if I answered them all." His tone is a bit harsh for a message directed at a group of fifth graders all of whom wrote him letters, and particularly so to the girl who wrote and advocated for freedom. His response, written in the years after Joseph McCarthy, seems to be the sort of warning that boys and girls might not yet be ready to appreciate, but that adults from Benjamin Franklin's time to our own would do well to heed.
Still, there's a certain illogic here, a laxness of rigor. Thurber chides the girl who wrote, "Everybody wants to keep hold of freedom," then himself writes, "Too many people leave it [freedom] lying around instead of holding on to it..." So what exactly would he have wanted her to write instead?
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| James Thurber Bonhams New York listing accessed December 1, 2022 |
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| Presale estimate |
04169
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