11/04 pt 2

James Lardner

In this collection there were MANY letters/correspondences between Lardner and his mother and a man by the name of Ring Lardner. Maybe a brother or father? To Ring Lardner, he sends a postcard which he writes that he was hit by shrapnel and is at the hospital healing (there is a picture of a hospital on the card) and he refers to his group as "the Party" rather than the Reds or the Republicans or whatnot. It's cool to see what they all referred to their cause as.

In another letter to his mother, we also find out more about James himself. He writes to his mother saying that this is a hard thing to tell her but that he has decided to go off and fight in the war regardless of the fact that his best friend told him not to. Since James was a journalist, he had an opportunity to meet Ernest Hemingway as it sounds and Hemingway is said to have told him that if James wanted to go fight the fascists he should because it is a worthy cause. He then discusses how exclusive the army is which is very suprirsing because you would think they would have accepted everyone and anyone and would have been so ecstatic and inclusive to have people. He states that it took him a long time to get ot the position he has now which is very surprising. What's more interesting is then that he lists why he should join the ALB.

I'll write a few down.

1. Because I feel Facism is wrong and it must be exterminated and that liberal democracy or more probably communism is right.

2. Because my joining of the ALB might change the neutrality act the US has taken.

3. Because there is a girl in Paris who will learn that my prescence is not necessary to her existence.

4. Because I shall come in contact with many communists, who are very good company and from whom I expect to learn a lot of things.

5. Because I am tired of working for the Herald tribune in particular and newspapers in general.


I feel all of these reasons can sum up why a lot of the people joined the ALB and the cause in Spain. They believed they'd be doing something good for the world by exterminating fascists, for love or to run away from love, to learn from the Communists or because they were Communists, and perhaps because they were just tired of their daily lives in America.

There's also a news article from James' hometown which gives more of a history of James. James was educated at Andover and Harvard (which shows that even the highly prestigiousyl learned people went to fight).

It ends then with Jim's friend writing to James' mother about how James was lost (he was missing in action) and it's just a sad note because people started out with these amazing causes and then they were simply lost or died.