The Clarence Darrow Letters

11 February, 1903.

Clarence S. Darrow, Esq.,

c/o Continental Hotel,

Philadelphia,

Pa.

My dear Mr Darrow: -

I have been wishing to write to you for a good while but a number of things have occupied me and I have been postponing it. I have followed the course of the arbitration commission and am now looking forward eagerly to the reports of your speech. I hope you will see that I get a full copy of it and as many as you can spare for that matter, because we are always very much interested here in your work. I have been greatly interested in the political developments up in Chicago and wish I knew more about them than I can get from the newspapers. Jones and I have talked over the matter quite frequently, and he is very anxious to have you run as a non-partisan or as an independent. He said the other day that if you did run independently he would go to Chicago and make speeches for you during the whole campaign. While I am as much out of harmony with the old parties as he is and believe that he is right in about all that he says against them, I still feel that I would make speeches for you no matter on what ticket you ran. We are

2. C.S.D.

beginning to have a good deal of political excitement here. The all important question is as to whether or not Jones will run for mayor again; he has not declared himself and the politicians are quite exercised as to what he is going to do. It is generally conceded that if he does run he will be elected. I think that his position is that he will not run unless there is a loud call for him, but he is anxious to have a non-partisan ticket in the field at any rate. Of course, a non- partisan ticket without Jones would not amount to anything. The Socialists under the leadership of our friend Dr Pyle are pretty strongly organized here and will have a ticket in the field. Some of them wanted me to join the party so that I could be a candidate for something or other, but I don't want to be a candidate for anything and I don't like the hard and fast method by which the Socialists bind the members of their party to believe in a certain political creed. I am with them of course and think they are all right and that Socialism is the next step in our economic evolution, but I enjoy my freedom out of all parties and out of creeds too much to tie myself up again in any of the old ways. It has been suggested to me that I might run for City Solicitor as a non-partisan, but I do not propose to do this

3. C.S.D.

either. I want to let politics entirely alone so far as going after offices is concerned and I don't think that there is such a demand for me in any position as to make it my duty to run. that is to say I am not as big a fellow as either you or Jones. My whole ambition is in the path of literature where, I think I can do the most good. I am trying to get my affairs into such shape that I can quit everything else for literature. It is going to take time me some time to do this but I am bound to do it. I have another hard murder case to defend in about a week and I dread that ordeal.

As to your writing a story for Ainslee's Magazine by all means do it. I don't think I ever read a better story in my life than that of "Jerry McAuliff, the Breaker Boy." I don't see why you didn't give it to some magazine, but of course it doesn't really make any difference where a thing is printed so long as it gets to the people who ought to read it. I have gone far beyond the point where the mere "horror" of having a story published in a respectable or high class magazine means anything to me at all. Just now I am working on another novel, and in the fall Bowen- Merrill are going to bring out in book form the novelette on womans' suffrage which I read you last summer. I have revised it since you saw it and have written several more chapters improving it I think

S.C.S.D.

a great deal. It is to be illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy and printed in handsome style so it ought to appeal to the people of wealth and culture. I have been reading again your book "Resist Not Evil". It is truly a masterpiece. I am going to use some of its ideas in my address to the jury in my murder case.

Let me hear from you when you get time to write and don't forget to send me copies of your speech for the miners.

Yours as ever, sincerely,

Brand Whitlock

Clarence S. Darrow, Esq.,

Continental Hotel

Philadelphia,

Pa.