Dear Bess:

It was good to hear your voice last night, but not half as good as really seeing and talking to you--even if my combination of words makes you sick sometimes. I'm a clown and a fool but I've never cared much how words were combined if their meaning happened to be honest and sincere, and that is all words are for. Maybe you don't know it, but I'd rather lose a hand or have an eye pulled out than make you a moment's suffering or

hurt--either mentally or physically. I've seen so much difficulty caused by sheer unthoughtfulness that I've tried all my life to be thoughtful and to make every person I come in contact with happier for having seen me. Maybe that's silly too. I don't know. I've never paid any attention to what people here said about me and very little to what they say to me, because most people only mean about half they say.

Well, the sun has been shining all afternoon, although it snowed all forenoon in St. Louis. The B.&O. canceled their 11:58 train last night and the Pennsylvania 12:30 A.M. train gets to Washington at exactly the same hour as the one that leaves at nine the next morning, so I decided to take the noon train, Spirit of St. Louis, and arrive at 9:25, two hours after the other two. The governor was most cordial, but he is going to do as he pleases--and so would I if I were in his shoes. I really bel ieve he'll make one of Missouri's real ones. Anyway he's not a booze fighter nor is he running after the ladies. So if we don't get jobs for the faithful, maybe the state will profit anyway. He likes pomp and circumstance and maybe that's all there is to any of it. The train is rough.

Kiss Margie, love to you,

Harry