 Dear Adolf, a letter to Hitler, the national broadcasting company in cooperation with the Council for Democracy presents Dear Adolf, a series of six narrative letters written each week by Stephen Vincent Benet, one of the nation's greatest writers. These broadcasts are based upon actual letters written by two Hitler by Americans. Today's program, the fourth of the series, presents Helen Hayes' distinguished actress of stage, screen and radio relating the views of an American housewife and mother as she addresses a letter to Hitler. It hasn't come to us yet, the bomb by night, the machine gun bullet by day, the shattered house, the dead child held in the arms for so brief a space. The other child not found at all, never found at all. In spite of the rescue squads and all the cars and the people who tried to find him, no, not yet. I am writing you a letter, Adolf Hitler, and I'm not saying Dear Adolf, being a woman, I can't say that, not even in scorn or jest, for you are the enemy of all I know, of all I feel with my body, know with my mind, the enemy of all women everywhere. And so I can't say Dear Adolf, maybe men can say that, but I have my own things to say. My children grown with my children still in my care. I live in a town, a city, a suburb, a pleasant, pre-shaded street, a bare street, hard with traffic, ugly with noise, and the bomb has not reached me yet. I go up and down on my day's small business that never begins or stops because a family never begins or stops. It keeps on being a family every day, the leftover steak and the socks and the school reports, the child with the temperature and the watch at night, the new kind of salad where Tom will say, what's this? But I'll give him waffles too, so he won't mind. Yes, that's it. That's me, the millions of us all over America who tell the census clerk, occupation, housewife, and we buy the food for the nation and guard its children. We keep the house and see that Mr. gets fed. And because of those things, we hate you, Adolf Hitler. You are our enemy for life and death. I do not say it is just or right to hate. I say we hate you for having caused this hate and hate and love are lasting things for a woman. The selfish and pampered women of America, according to your book, say this to you twice in my lifetime. My husband had to go to war in 1917. Now, thanks to you, you must go again. And this time, my son too must go twice in my life. You and people like you have put all I hold dear in danger. I know the price you are making me pay. Our way of life is worth it. But if you know anything about mothers, you will know that I and all other American mothers will seek to it that none of us ever pay it again. That is what your women say. Well, that's all very fine. All quiet tonight. But there are thousands like her. And day or night, they're on duty. There are others on other duty, women with children. She wants to be a narrow playing spotter. They were mothers up in the tower with their own room for the shelters. Yes, that's what he said at first. But I have good eyes. And after I've been in the tower for a couple of nights, I discovered he was rather proud of me. Just a housewife, 47 in California, but she has good eyes. And here I am now going to demonstrate the triangular bandage for serious head injuries. Please look at the ball. When you pass your training and start working in the hospital, your duties will be necessary rather than glamorous. You'll be expected to relieve the regular nurses of a certain amount of the tail and routine work, which will in the first day nurses aid. And we've all seen the cartoons and the jokes about traction splints. Because here's somehow we can make fun of ourselves and yet keep on with the job and get it done. And then, of course, for all of us, there's this. Ellie, aren't I mother? Because she's pretty little. Yes, dear. And you'll be with us if you're here. Now, remember about the sand in the pails. But if it's in school or anything, I'm not going to be afraid. And I'm not going to cause any un... No, dear. Put Ellie on the stand. That's why we can't rest or have peace till you're blacked out, till you and all who are like you are blacked out from the world we wish to have born. You have stretched your hands at our children and there is blood on your hands. The last war was bad and yet it was far away for us, the most here for the lucky. This is near and near and near. It walks into our houses every day in black house in the sharp clear voices over the radio and the going away of men. This is our war. Our war, not only our men. And we mean to fight it as you shall see, Adolf Hitler. From Plymouth Rock our women went with the men and not as toys or chattels. They worked and shared. They knew who took the brunt of the pioneering, the women who bore their children on clipper ships, the women who kept the half-faced camps in the cold, and they were free women and their strain is in us and shall go on. Free women, what of me? What are my millions and my ancient wrongs? What are my people bowed in darkness still? Dark sister, your wrong is old and true and grievous and heavy on the heart. And yet, sojourner truth could rise and speak. A woman and a slave speak and be heard even in the darkest days. They're still dark for many of my people. I love my land as well as any of you. I know that those we war against today despise my people and will drive them back to the old slavery of whips and chains to lash upon the back of the ancient wrongs. And yet even today we find no place even in war for much that we could do and would do for our country. That is true, and yet there is a change. It comes how slowly, but it comes at last. It comes by inches, yet the ground is one and only on free soil, for only there can there be growth and change. Can there be men and women who stand up for others' rights, not only for their own, who will spend days, years, lives in striking at some ancient wrong, some old entrenched injustice till it falls? Sojourner truth and Susan Anthony, Jane Adams, Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, women who fought for women and for men, for all the people, for the common people, and each a handful of American dust. Those are our women. Trouble with your corrupt democratic state. Your women mix into all sorts of things that are none of their business. We have put our women in their proper place. Bed, cooking, work, children, bed. They don't have to bother their heads about anything else. They are very happy. Are you so sure? We have the record. They will not let me put my son's death notice in the papers. They say there are too many death notices in the papers. It makes a bad impression. Wait for the funeral! My son got iron cross. They have sent it back to mean a box. They have not sent back my son. Kill for the funeral! There has been another great victory, they tell me. Another great victory, but there is no bread in my house. There are no children in my house. Yes, that's it. That's what you've done. That's what you've done to the women of Germany. That's what you've done to their children. That's what you would do to ours, to the flesh of our flesh, the bodies of our bodies. Young, looking up with big eyes. That is your war. That is your kind of war. The war against the children. The war against the children of your foes with bombs and treachery and slow starvation. The war against the children of your land to make them shouting slaves of a machine. And that is why we hate you, Adolf Hitler. And ask for sacrifice and pray for courage and we'll give up whatever must be given. The pleasant days, the easy luxuries. Just so your hands will not destroy our children. Just so your hate will not destroy their hearts. Oh yes, we hear the small dividing voices, the petty voices nagging in our ears, playing your game. Well, my dear, of course it all sounds very nice, United Nations. But if you think Britain and Russia won't let us down, then they'll make it a charm. A pint of milk a day for every child in the world. Say, that's the silliest idea I've ever heard of. Suppose they'll want to give it to the Eskimos too. Yes, those are voices, playing your old games. Class against class, ally against ally, race against race, smugness against the dream. A pint of milk a day for every child? That's a big order. But it isn't silly. It isn't silly to women. We happen to know children and know milk. We're practical about real things like those. We're practical in wanting not just peace, but peace that will mean something. We're practical in wanting a new world where every kind of child has room to grow. And this time statesman, premier's diplomat, men of goodwill and men of less goodwill. Our voices shall be heard at the peace table. The voices of the free women of the world, loud in your ears, persistent as the sea. No peace unless it is a piece of justice. No peace that does not set the children free. You have just heard Dear Adolph starring Helen Hayes, the fourth of a series of six narrative letters written each week by Stephen Vincent Benet, presented by the National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with the Council for Democracy. This program will not be heard next Sunday due to the performance at that time of the new Shostakovich symphony by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the bathtub Arturo Toscanini. However, be sure to listen at the same time on Sunday, July 26th, to an American soldier's letter to Hitler with Jeffrey Lynn as narrator. Copies of today's Dear Adolph letter relating the views of an American housewife and mother may be secured without cost by writing directly to the Council for Democracy 11 West 42nd Street, New York City. This is the National Broadcasting Company.