Letters home to his parents; paper on religion; and two photographs : Beckwith with friends and Branner Hall

Postmarked 5/19

Rec'd 5/21

Stanford University

May,13,1923

Dear Father:

I will not have time t o finish this letter today so I will write it on the installment plan.

I read in this morning's paper that there are 500,000 unfilled jobs in the country at this time.What do you think of my filling one of these vacancies this summer?

I am mailing you several copies of the "Dippy" and one of the Spectator today.I have started out to practice industriously on the new machine mother has given me and am certaintly delighted with it,i.e. the machine not the practice.I don't believe I have thanked mother for it so you had better do it for me.

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I put this letter away planning to finish it on Monday but today is Friday and I am just getting to it.

I received your letter this morning and read your cutting statement about my handwriting regret.It is very possible that your prediction with regard to the holographic art may be entirely correct,especially with regard to the professions.There is really no reason for writing an illegible letter when a legible one can be written in half the time.

Holbrook Blin is a Stanford man and I believe he was a professor here for a while.

I am sending you an editorial which I cut out of this morning's Chronicle. Recently I have had occasion to investigate Upton

Sinclair and have come to the conclusion that some of his most startling statements are fundamentally correct.The upper classes of the country are scientifically and industriously endeavoring to make him out as an unbalanced freak and I have marked part of this editorial which is,on the face ofit ,a pure fabrication.His book, The Brass Check,gives numerous other such instances.The Los Angeles police certainly must be under the thum of the industriallist there to arrest him for reading a part of the constitution before an audience of strikers.What right they have to arrest strikers simply because they are out of work in a city where thousands do nothing is also beyond me.Yet according to the newspaper several hundred were arrested for no otherreason.

I received my L.A.gas dividend today.Otis and a friend are going up to frisco tomorrow night and I may go with them.

I have about 25 dollars on hand over the 50 dollar limit so I do not think I will need any more money this quarter.Do you want me to get a round trip ticket when I come home or shall I come down by automobile?

My first feature article appeared in the Dippy this week and I am enclosing a copy of it.

My weight is 138.Sterling will have to room in Encina next year and will have no difficulty in getting a room at any time. I will put in an application for him if you want me to.

Your obedient son,

Burnham

Stanford University

May22,1923

Dear Mother,

Mrs Marble came up and spoke to me in the Union restaurant today.I saw Mr.Marble also.I told them I had somehopes of seeing you up here before the end of the quarter.When are you going east and if you do will you be able to come by here on your way back?

Webster told me today that his father might come up in his Hudson about theend of the quarter and take us all back down with him. They have an enclosed car so it would certainly be fine if I could go down with them.

I am practicing assidously on the typewriter and hope to be an expert by the end of the summer.What prospects are there of my getting some kind of a job this summer?

It hardly seems possible that my first college year is nearly up.I went down to the Southern Pacific station the other day and found that I could get a round trip ticket,good until Oct.10 for $21.25.

Tennis is coming along fine and I am playing a lot now.I have never realized until redently what a good player Otis is.He has poor form and doesn't play much ,but he beats me most of the time.

What do you think of my trying to get a job as cub reporter on some L.A.newspaper this summer.I think I would learn a lot of I could get and hold such a position.

It is about ten oclock and I have a lot of work to do so I will not have time to finish this letter.Which remiinds me that letters from home have been rather few and far between the last month.

How is granfather and everyone?

Your loving son,

Burnham

Best Joke of Chappy-Pelly Issue Found

The best joke of the recent ChaparralPelican issue was on the publishers of said comic magazine and has been kept a dark secret until recently. It was discovered the other day when a thoughtful student attempted to mail a copy of this issue to his family in the East. As usual he placed a two-cent stamp on the magazine and placed it in the proper receptacle. He was somewhat surprised to have it returned for more postage the next day but, after adding another two-cent stamp, sent the comic on its way again.

His surprise was somewhat greater when the recalcitrant magazine returned once more for the the same reason. Again he added a two-cent stamp and carefully placed it in the box labeled packages. Again he was pleasantly surprised by the return of the refractory missive.

This time the puzzled student sought out the postmistress for an explanation of the phenomena. This official informed him that the Chaparral-Peli can was not a magazine in the eyes of the post office as no such publication was registered as second class matter. Each copy of this issue, therefore must be sent as first class matter or as a parcel post package. Reluctantly the doubtful student paid twelve cents postage on his parcel post package.

It is rumored that Hammer and Coffin paid the postoffice about eighty dollars to distribute its packages instead of the customary four or five dollars.

San Francisco Chronicle Published Daily by The Chronicle Publishing Company Address All Communications to M. H. de Young.

HELPING SINCLAIR TO MARTYRDOM Ill-Advised Chief of Police Falls Into the Trap Set by Agitator

UPTON SINCLAIR, author and agitator of radical socialism, has been thrust into notoriety by the overzealous indiscretion of the Los Angeles chief of police. Sinclair who recently polled an insignificant number of votes as a candidate for Congress, has been striving to revivify the remains of a labor strike around the docks of Los Angeles harbor at San Pedro. He was arrested on a charge of conspiracy, but the only reported evidence is that he was reciting the Constitution of the United States in a place called "Liberty Hall."

It is further reported that the chief of police had threatened Sinclair with detention without bail and carried out his threat to the extent of detaining the agitator and his companions for twenty-four hours without due process of law.

Sinclairs desire in life is to be taken more seriously than his erracticisms permit. Some year ago he narrowly escaped arrest in San Francisco because he refused to pay for a vegetarian breakfast which had disagreed with him. Personal notoriety is the best advertisement for his effusions and the pose of a martyr invaluable propaganda for his "cause."

Los Angeles chief of police seems to have played into Sinclairs hands. The agitating publicist and his companions have asked for a jury trial which is not to be held for another month. Meanwhile Sinclair has been given the opportunity to advertise himself across the country as posing as a law-abiding martyr while stigmatizing Los Angeles as "lawless."

It is upon such stuff that parlor socialists thrive. But the police should not supply the stuff. Compare the tactics of the Los Angeles chief of police with the London policeman who, half a century ago refused to interfere with the ravings of a soap-box orator in Hyde Park. An indigant American visitor, listening to the perfectly awful epithets that the agitator was hurling at Queen Victoria protested to a policeman serenely standing by.

The "bobby" answered: "That's awl roight sir! It 'elps 'im and it don't 'urt 'er!"

* * *

ONE ACT PLAY

Scene: Campus barber shop.

Actors: Burly barber and suffering student.

Curtain Rises

A barber is seen flourishing his hands over the suffering student.

Barber (after vain attack on patient's scalp he exclaims with judicial air): Your hair is full of dandruff and your ears are full of soot. Let me give you a treatment with Zuzu's Lilac Talcum Powder.

Student (after hectic search for requisite funds): A-a-ah. No thanks. I use Stacomb thrice a day.

Barber (warming up to his subject): Your scalp is turning yellow and your hair is falling out. Gump's Hair Resuscitator is the only cure for such cases. I use it on my fur coat once a month.

Student (slightly disconcerted): Well, a-a-ah, you see it's this way. (Receives brilliant idea.) Aa-ah-. I'm a Christian Scientist. All I have to do is think my hair is well and, presto, it is. You ought to try that on your coat.

Barber (is momentarily stunned by this surprise attack. Recovers finally): That's got nothing to do with it. (With more professional air): If you neglect your scalp, ipso facto, you neglect your hair. (Reminiscently): Many's the bald-haired man I've seen saved by using Zuzu's Lilac Talcum Powder and Gumps Hair Resuscitator.

------ long silence --------

Barber (in commanding tone of voice): Well, do you want it?

Student (feebly): No thank yuo, I think not, thank you.

Barber (shaking patient's head more vigorously): Humph.

------ another pregnant silence ------

Barber (gruffly): What do you want on your hair?

Student (gathering his shattered will power): W-w-water, I guess.

Barber (making furious attack on patient's scalp, and shaking his head violently): Gr-r-r-r.

Scholar arises limply, pays his check, and exits in a deafening silence.