from Letters From the Editor: The New Yorker's Harold Ross, edited by Thomas Kunkel:

To E.B. White
Sept. 16th, 1940

Dear White:
I read the piece in Harper's [on the meaning of freedom] and I think it is a beautiful and elegant thing, probably the most moving item I've read in years and worthy of Lincoln and some of the other fellows that really went to town. I recognize myself as several of the skeptical bastards you enumerate, but am perfectly willing to be kicked around in such a cause. You'll do some good with an argument like that, but all your eloquence can't convince me that there won't be wars in the world for the next two thousand years, and maybe twenty thousand, and honeys, too. The human race isn't ready for peace yet. Christ, my cousin Sallie thinks it's wonderful that her son has joined the air corps and my cousin Art Quaintance in Denver is hollering that the manhood of the country is soft, and hop to it at once. So are you, I guess, but you're using more than wind and you're not blind about it. Anyhow, knock me down anytime you want.
Ross