BIB_ID
323316
Accession number
MA 2581.54
Creator
Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968.
Display Date
[1967 Apr. 15].
Credit line
Gift of John Steinbeck, 1967.
Description
1 item (5 p.) ; 40.8 and 26.6 cm
Notes
Part of a collection of letters from John Steinbeck to Alicia Patterson Guggenheim, written during his travels in Vietnam in 1967. Alicia Patterson Guggenheim was the editor and publisher of Newsday from 1940 until her death in 1963 and Steinbeck addressed his letter "not....to someone who is dead, but rather to a living mind and a huge curiosity" (see MA 2519.39). Steinbeck wrote the letters in this series as a weekly column for Newsday. Letters in the collection have been cataloged individually; see collection-level record for more information.
Place and date of writing from the publication details of this letter in "John Steinbeck and Newsday" by Robert B. Harmon; see publication details below.
Written on yellow legal pad paper and white lined paper.
Place and date of writing from the publication details of this letter in "John Steinbeck and Newsday" by Robert B. Harmon; see publication details below.
Written on yellow legal pad paper and white lined paper.
Provenance
Gift of John Steinbeck in 1967.
Summary
Reflecting on the road ahead for the Vietnamese in creating a democratic nation; saying that the "first great truth is this: America and the allies can help South Vietnam to ward off defeat and subsequent subjection, but no amount of help military or economic can make it free. That must be done by the South Vietnamese themselves and all by themselves;" adding that it "is so much easier to tell people what they must do rather than to teach them to do it themselves. For this reason democracy cannot be created by decree. It is the end product of a long period of learning, usually by trial and error. Democracy cannot be given. It must be wanted and after that it must be learned as a child learns to read."
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