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Show KATHLEEN NORRIS No Life Is Wholly Without Hope By KATHLEEN NORRIS "fpHIS IS NOT a letter of com- plaint," writes Rena Janzen, 19 years old. "It is to ask you a question. Is there anything ahead in my life that will make today's difficulties and humiliations worth while? "We live on the fourth floor of a New York City apartment house far downtown," the letter goes on. "It is one of the thousands of high, crowded brick ten ments that form more than half of this city. The ones down our way are older, old-er, dirtier, more crowded. We have four rooms: parlor, kitchen, two bedrooms, bath. There are eight of us: my young brothers of 17, 13 and 7, a sister of 11, Grandma, Grand-ma, Mother and Dad. Joe and Matt sleep in the parlor; Henry with Mother and Dad; Grandma, my sister and I have a room so small that there is no space for a chair. Grandma's mattress is under the three-quarter bed, and under the bed are also my brushes and makeup, make-up, a box with spare blouses, Anya's school-books, and Grandma's Grand-ma's black valise. on your own. Fix your thoughts upon that little country home with the flowers and open spaces about it, and it will begin to take shape and move toward you as steadily as tomorrow's dawn. Out of just such sordid, crowded, noisy, squalid, odorous environments environ-ments as the one you describe have come thousands yes, millions, mil-lions, of our men and women who now occupy suburban homes, who have flowers, a car, fresh suitable clothing, pleasant plentiful meals in a word, happy, busy, useful lives. Some have risen to 'actual wealth and power, but you will be satisfied with less than that, and you can win it. In 10 or 15 years many of these neighbors you pity will be busy in important work: Secretaries, buyers, superintendents, politicians, dress designers, movie and radio performers, living the kind of life you now consider unattainable. What your father and mother and grandmother have, after their terrors in their own country, their suffering and privation, seems to them riches. Good food, light, amusements, education for their children, clinics and shops and movies accessible these to them represent luxury. These things are not enough for you, and you are right. You are exercising your inherent and glorious glo-rious American right to go farther; to give your children a better start than you have had. Work and plan toward that day, as all these hurried, hur-ried, crowded, hard-working, underprivileged under-privileged boys and girls about you are doing. Live in the Kitchen "Of course we all live in the kitchen. It is smelly and noisy In summer, and hot as only city kitchens get hot; in winter It is smelly and noisy and hardly warmer warm-er than the rest of the house. Only the halls are warmed. "I will leave to your imagination what chance a girl has of beauty, leisure, rest, hospitality in a life like mine," writes Rena. "Papa is an angel, he works steadily, he has the tired look of an old saint. Mother works hard. They would move us to some better place, but . , . the look of s tired saint . . . we pay $80 now, and can afford no more. Joe wants to be a doctor; the nearest he gets is being an orderly or-derly in a hospital. "Now my problem isn't what frightens me," the letter ends, "but the terrible, the overwhelming overwhelm-ing fact that so many thousands of lives all about me are as utterly hopeless as mine. Girls crowding into subways, punching time-clocks, time-clocks, snatching sandwiches and cokes at lunch, wearing cheap clothes to Coney on summer Sundays Sun-days or waiting in line at cheap movies on winter nights. Why are we here, what are we doing all this for, how do we get out of it? I i dream of a little country place, I flowers, space, cleanliness but what good are dreams? Parents Knew Poverty "Mother and father are Aus-trians. Aus-trians. They knew poverty and terror ter-ror in the old world. They escaped to this. Mother revels in her electric light, radio, telephone, gas stove, washing-machine. Dad never complains. But I look about me : and sometimes I despair." i Rena, in answering you I am i going to begin by warning you i against a dangerous error into i which you have fallen. The prob-I prob-I lems of the hundreds and thousands thou-sands of fellow-workers that you i see about you, caught as you think in this same industrial and social - treadmill, are not yours. 1 Yours is one problem; that of I Rena Janzen. Sweep all the others out of your mind, concentrate up- |