"Clenched Fist," December, 1937

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EDITORS: 

MORDECAI JONES

GEORGE V. PIKE 

MARMEDUKE DE VERE


CLENCHED FIST

THE MAGAZINE OF CLEAN WHOLESOME MARXIST-LENINIST UNITED FRONT FICTION


December 11, 1937


Dear Comrade Smith-


The editors of CLENCHED FIST have read your contribution “Oh God Without Insull” with interest, but we are forced to state that its bourgeois realism with its point deep in middle-class channels is not the sort of work which we wish for our mag.


We are afraid, Comrade Smith, that you are a writer who cannot “deliver the goods” with the sort of thing our mag wants—clean, fresh, wholesome tales, expressing the aspirations and dreams of the American Working Class—and stressing a hopeful, cheery Marxist slant. The days of the twenties, Comrade Smith, with its literature of defeatism and bitter humor are gone, whether you know it or not, and in the place of that sickening Joycean-Proustian work we are producing literature that is hopeful, cheerful, and wholesome, expressing the aspirations of the American Workers of field, factory, and farm.


If you can produce such works, Comrade Smith, we shall be most happy to see them and consider them for publication in our mag. We advise you, if you have not already seen it, to read the recent article by Comrade Michael Gold, beloved dean of proletarian letters, in last weeks NEW MASSES, beloved organ or proletarian letters.


You may be interested, however, to know that we have accepted a manuscript by a very promising Lincoln writer, and if you do not know him, you might like to get in touch with him and get acquainted.


(see inside)
 

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This writer’s name is Rudolph Umland, and he is a very promising revolutionary writer. His story which we have accepted tells powerfully of the efforts of a young Assistant Director of a Federal Writers’ Project State Office to rid that office of vicious Trotskyite elements who attempt to sabotage the fine work done on the project. Its propaganda is just right, it is stark, and yet it has the clean wholesome note which we so admire. Look up Comrade Umland, Comrade Smith. 


Yours for the revolution,


RED FRONT!


[signed] Mordecai Jones


Editor


Dear Dale, 


What I say is: anything for a laugh. 


Seriously though, this piece is really excellent and I’m grateful to you for sending it here. I’ve read it three times, with increasing pleasure. You should have no trouble placing this somewhere. I’d at least try it on THE NEW REPUBLIC. They’re prompt at least….


Do you know of a new one, THE CATAMOUNT, Box 183, Montpelier, Vermont? Roaldus Richmond is one of the editors. Try them with something. 


It occurred to me that DETOUR ought to go to STORY; they might like it. If it doesn’t click there, I’d let Horace Gregory see it for his twice-yearly anthology, NEW LETTERS. Address him c/o [care of] W.W. Norton & Co., Inc. [and Company, Incorporated], 70 Fifth Ave., NYC [New York City]. Mention that it’s for NEW LETTERS….Incidentally, if you have a carbon of DETOUR, would you mind mailing it to me for a little while? I’d like to have Ann and Bob Hutchinson read it. 


Nothing much new here. School is out for three weeks’ vacation and it’s welcome. That means only 41 hours work a week, instead of some 60. Plan to get a lot of writing done. Have 4 new stories you haven’t seen; think you’d like them. One, about a theatre usher, I’m especially fond of. 


Sent anything more to HINTERLAND? 


Let me here [hear] from you more often; always damned glad to get a line from you. 


[signed] Best—Weldon