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Authors: Annie Barrows
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conducting her field work exclusively inMacedonia, rather than in the Charleston office, and as the town council is eager to have the publication as soon as possible, in order that it will coincide with their sesquicentennial celebrations, I did not feel it necessary to send her down to your office but rather directed her to Macedonia, where she will begin work on the history of the town within the month. She will, however, be an employee of the West Virginia Project and her Field Editorial Copy will be filed to your office. I trust that you will convey the information of this new staff member to Mr. Oliffe, as he, the State Field Assistant, will necessarily have the most involvement in this publication.
Yours very truly,
Benjamin Beck
Field Supervisor
May 30, 1938
Mr. Benjamin Beck
Field Supervisor, Federal Writers’ Project
Works Progress Administration
1734 New York Ave. NW
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Beck,
I am in receipt of your letter of May 28. Given that the research assistants who are available to gather agricultural and industrial information for the State Guide are entirely inadequate to the task of writing about it, I am most strongly of the opinion that any new personnel should be hired by me in order to complete that task. I cannot but regard the hiring of this field worker for the purpose of a publication other than the State Guide as a usurpation of my authority as Chief Research Editor for the West Virginia Writers’Project, and I protest most vigorously. I will inform Mr. Alsberg of this breach of administrative protocols at once.
Yours sincerely,
Ursula Chambers
[Telegram from Benjamin Beck to Mrs. Judson Chambers]
June 1, 1938
HOLD FIRE. ALL WILL BE EXPLAINED. BEN
June 1, 1938
Private and Confidential
Dear Ursula,
My hair is singed and my fingertips charred by your last. Hush your screams of rage for a moment, and I’ll explain what happened. Rely upon it, you’ll be grateful to your old friend Ben instead of demanding my head from Alsberg. My previous letter was composed with the official file in mind; this one is for your personal perusal. If you show it to anyone, I’ll deny that I wrote it and accuse you of forgery.
The new field worker is none other than my niece Layla, daughter of the Senior Senator from Delaware. Surely you remember his faithful support of Federal One last year? He believes—and given affairs in North Carolina, how can I deny it?—that he is entitled to some patronage in return, and he therefore demanded that I find a job on the project for his daughter. In view of his position on the Appropriations Committee, I thought it unwise to disappointhim, and hired the girl at once. She is, to put it bluntly, spoiled, frivolous, and ignorant, and she’s exactly as fit to work on the project as a chicken is to drive a Buick. She was a hair-raising child, and I was quite fond of her, but my brother likes his women purely ornamental, so she was packed off to a finishing school at the age of fourteen, and it was the ruin of her. They taught her to dance, play tennis, drink cocktails, and act as though she hadn’t a brain to call her own. However, Layla has brains enough to know which side her bread is buttered on, so she learned her lesson well, and she’s spent the past six years wrapping my brother around her little finger. Imagine his shock last month when she (to her credit) unexpectedly dug in her heels and refused to marry a bankroll. The reprisals were swift and severe—King Lear has nothing on Grayson Beck—and within days, Layla had been banished from the lap of luxury and told to support herself. The Senator from Delaware does not tolerate domestic dissent, you’ll be pleased to know.
In any case, she was deposited on my head, together with some burning coals, and we were both left to make the best of it. The prospect was not heartening for either of us. When she came down for her interview, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that she had heard
Yours very truly,
Benjamin Beck
Field Supervisor
May 30, 1938
Mr. Benjamin Beck
Field Supervisor, Federal Writers’ Project
Works Progress Administration
1734 New York Ave. NW
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Beck,
I am in receipt of your letter of May 28. Given that the research assistants who are available to gather agricultural and industrial information for the State Guide are entirely inadequate to the task of writing about it, I am most strongly of the opinion that any new personnel should be hired by me in order to complete that task. I cannot but regard the hiring of this field worker for the purpose of a publication other than the State Guide as a usurpation of my authority as Chief Research Editor for the West Virginia Writers’Project, and I protest most vigorously. I will inform Mr. Alsberg of this breach of administrative protocols at once.
Yours sincerely,
Ursula Chambers
[Telegram from Benjamin Beck to Mrs. Judson Chambers]
June 1, 1938
HOLD FIRE. ALL WILL BE EXPLAINED. BEN
June 1, 1938
Private and Confidential
Dear Ursula,
My hair is singed and my fingertips charred by your last. Hush your screams of rage for a moment, and I’ll explain what happened. Rely upon it, you’ll be grateful to your old friend Ben instead of demanding my head from Alsberg. My previous letter was composed with the official file in mind; this one is for your personal perusal. If you show it to anyone, I’ll deny that I wrote it and accuse you of forgery.
The new field worker is none other than my niece Layla, daughter of the Senior Senator from Delaware. Surely you remember his faithful support of Federal One last year? He believes—and given affairs in North Carolina, how can I deny it?—that he is entitled to some patronage in return, and he therefore demanded that I find a job on the project for his daughter. In view of his position on the Appropriations Committee, I thought it unwise to disappointhim, and hired the girl at once. She is, to put it bluntly, spoiled, frivolous, and ignorant, and she’s exactly as fit to work on the project as a chicken is to drive a Buick. She was a hair-raising child, and I was quite fond of her, but my brother likes his women purely ornamental, so she was packed off to a finishing school at the age of fourteen, and it was the ruin of her. They taught her to dance, play tennis, drink cocktails, and act as though she hadn’t a brain to call her own. However, Layla has brains enough to know which side her bread is buttered on, so she learned her lesson well, and she’s spent the past six years wrapping my brother around her little finger. Imagine his shock last month when she (to her credit) unexpectedly dug in her heels and refused to marry a bankroll. The reprisals were swift and severe—King Lear has nothing on Grayson Beck—and within days, Layla had been banished from the lap of luxury and told to support herself. The Senator from Delaware does not tolerate domestic dissent, you’ll be pleased to know.
In any case, she was deposited on my head, together with some burning coals, and we were both left to make the best of it. The prospect was not heartening for either of us. When she came down for her interview, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that she had heard
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