Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
563886632
label
Letter from Raymond Olson to President Harry S. Truman
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
563886632
contentType
document
title
Letter from Raymond Olson to President Harry S. Truman
citationUrl
collections
President's Personal Files (Truman Administration)
President's Personal Files
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
563886632
levelOfDescription
item
productionDates
day
28
logicalDate
1946-05-28
month
5
year
1946
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
6c514d5fd619ba00
ocrText
RAYMOND WILLARD OLSON
Architect
210 West 54th Street, New York City
May 28, 1946
The President of the United States
The White House
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. President:
In a recent letter to you I expressed the hope that
the great work started by our late President would not be
destroyed. As a returned veteran of this war, I am in-
creasingly disturbed by your proposed labor program.
You, as an officer of the last war, may have little
conception of the precarious morale of the Enlisted Men
in our present Army. I was a Technical Sergeant in the
Corps of Engineers and saw active service in Italy and
the Philippines. My unit received battle stars for parti-
cipation in three campaigns in Italy. From my own ex-
perience, I know that we would never have accomplished
what we did through Casino, Cisterna, and on to Futa Pass
and Bologna if we thought the Army was regarded as Penal
Servitude for free citizens expressing their opposition
to existing conditions through the only means at their
command.
Throughout my service never did I hear any criticism
of labor's role in the war effort. Labor was as well repre-
sented in the enlisted ranks of the Army as it is in civilian
life. Much as we all hated army life, we recognized that
we were drafted fairly and did our job with pride. The
friends whom I left in Italy would feel poorly served if
they knew that the "American way of life" for which they
fought was so currupted that Executive powers, far in ex-
cess of those found necessary to win the war, are now pro-
posed as the answer to problems which true leadership and
mutual confidence could surely solve.
Free citizens whouðppose the programs of their em-
ployers should not be drafted into the armed forces during
peace time any more than we, in the armed forces overseas
could have been drafted to "do a hitch" in the coal mines
when Bologna seemed difficult to capture. Should your so-
called "solution" be enacted, civilian and army morale, both
at a low ebb, will collapse.
Sincerely yours,