ELMER DAVIS - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 01/17/1948 - HFSID 321254

ELMER DAVIS
He declines an invitation to an anniversary party, explaining the difficulty of traveling in the winter months.
Typed letter signed: "Elmer Davis", 1 page, 7¼x10½. Washington D.C., 1948 January 17. On official letterhead for the American Broadcast Company. To "Dear George" in full: "This dinner on the Willkie anniversary is one of the very few I should really like to attend. However, I can't make any commitment to t be there; though there is an outside chance that I might turn up at the last moment if you would let me in. No one can say what Congress may be doing, or refusing to do, on that particular date; and in any case, for me to get to New York in the middle of the week, in the season when the weather makes air travel uncertain, requires two consecutive nights on one of the least comfortable of Pullman trips. I'm not sure that by that time I shall be up to it. As always," The Willkie anniversary party most probably refers to Wendall Willkie (1892-1944), dark horse lawyer, whose birthday was just over a month away from the date this letter was written. In 1941, Elmer Holmes Davis (1890-1958) left his $53,000 a year job as a radio commentator and news analyst at CBS Radio to head the newly formed Office of War Information (OWI). Before the agency, which had some 3,000 employees, was disbanded in September 1945, Davis fought to suppress government suppression of facts. He displayed the same commitment to truth when he returned to broadcasting, this time with ABC. The winner of the 1951 George Foster Peabody Award, Davis steadied the nerves of America during the McCarthy years. A reporter with "The New York Times" from 1914-1924 and the author of History of The New York Times 1851-1921, the reporter, essayist, novelist and philosopher is best known for his books, But We Were Born Free (1954) and its sequel, Two Minutes to Midnight (1955), on the trials of McCarthyism. Normal mailing folds. Toned. Pencil note (unknown hand) at top margin. Signature lightly smudged, but legible. Otherwise, fine condition.