Letter from August Derleth, Sauk City, Wisconsin, to Edward Wagenknecht, 1952 April 3 : typescript signed.

Writing that Wagenknecht's idea of including "The Village of Old Age" and "Kismet" in the de la Mare collection is sound, but there are economic constraints that prevent the collection from containing more than three tales; breaking down the specific costs of printing and paying de la Mare for the stories compared to how much they can charge for the collection; responding to Wagenknecht's observations about Senator Robert Taft; saying he could never vote for Taft based on the candidate's blatant support of McCarthyism; describing how "there is no one in the entire democratic administration who is as low as McCarthy"; specifying that he would like a Republican administration come November, but not badly enough to vote for Taft, even if he is predicted to do well in the polls; noting that the rest of the independents in the heartland will likely follow suit on this point and vote Democrat before voting for Taft; elaborating that the Republicans can win with Eisenhower and maybe with Earl Warren; complaining about the marginal percentage points that led to Thomas E. Dewey losing the last election against Truman, and saying he does not want to see that happen again; closing with observations about "Taft's ridiculous book on foreign policy" that "out of respect for some of my friends who like the man, I wouldn't review the book in my paper, rather than give it the panning it deserved."