1
47.01.27A (374w)
TO HENRY A. WALLACE January 27, 1947
[Washington, DC]
Dear Mr. Wallace: I am most appreciative of the generous expressions regarding me in your public letter to me of January 13.1 You may be sure that I shall ponder your words of guidance. You may also be sure that I shall accept such criticism as the New Republic may see fit to administer in the spirit in which you tell me.
You warn me that the test of our country’s foreign policy will be in actions and not in statements. My own experience agrees. Mere words of mine can have little effect on the outcome. In the first book of Kings we are told, “Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.”
I was pleased by your pleasant references to your helpfulness in my gardening efforts. While taking stock of my home affairs yesterday, I found an unexpended portion of your early sweet corn. All I will need on my return from Moscow are about three of those famous hens of your sons.
With kindest regards to you and Mrs. Wallace, Faithfully yours,
NA/RG 59 (Central Decimal File, 111.11 Marshall, George C./1-1347)
1. Wallace—former secretary of agriculture (1933–40), vice president (1941–45), and secretary of commerce (1945–46)--had been editor of the liberal journal New Republic since December 1946. “Winning the peace, as you know better than I,” Wallace wrote, “is as difficult as winning the war.” His lengthy letter praised Marshall but criticized US policy toward China and elsewhere as static and defensive (erecting “Maginot Lines of the spirit”), abandoning to the Soviet Union sponsorship of the changes “that the wrecked societies of Europe and Asia are demanding at once.” The New Republic, he noted, might at times “take issue with you on matters of foreign policy. When we do so we want you to know that our so doing will not in any way diminish our esteem for you as a man.” He concluded: “I have known you as a fellow gardener with whom I enjoyed comparing notes about the growing of tomatoes and sweet corn.” (Wallace to Marshall, January 13, 1947, NA/RG 59 [Central Decimal File, 111.11 Marshall, George C./1–1347].)