July 4, 1928.

Mrs. Olive Rabe

11 South LaSalle St.,

Cihcago, Ill.

Dearest Olive,

Now that you have brought my citizenship matter to a victorious end, will you permit me to express my deepest gratitude for the tremendous work you have done for me. I am sure you must feel how greatly I appreciate your unselfish services and I only wish I could give also a tangible proof of my gratitude. It must give you satisfaction to know that your work has not only helped me but I will also benefit all the others who might have citizenship difficulties on similar ground as I had. All those interested in these kind of matters, assure me that they admire your brilliant handling of the case, and I am glad that the immense sacrifice in time and work you made will have its recompense by the fact that people will know to whom to turn when such work is needed.

Enclosed I am sending you Mr. Libby’s request and wish to add that I would be much obliged for several copies of the decision, as there are quite a number of people who had the Court record and your brief, and would like now to have the final material, too. I also hope you will be able to get me one or two copies of the Government’s brief. In a previous letter, you expressed the hope that you will get me some copies when the trial is over. May I further beg you to kindly inform me about when I must be prepared to go to Chicago. I haven’t got the money for the trip and must see to get a loan for that purpose, and would therefore like to know in time.

Mr. Harold Fields of the American Citizenship League suggested your getting Mr. Schlotfeldt to set an early date. He thought that they could not draw it out longer than a month after the decision. Of course, I should be glad if the date were as early as possible to be through the whole business.

Thank you very much for your kind advice about how to avoid dangers of Schlotfeldt’s malice, but I certainly would not say any such foolish thing expect to you or the most intimate friends.

I had lots of telegrams, letters and telephone calls of congratulations and was amused to find among those “rejoicing” now, people who I am quite sure must have made sour faces when they learned the news. It was a tremendous surprise to read about my citizenship in the Saturday morning papers when I looked only for the report of the Marvin trial. Life can permit itself such inartistic crowding of events which no author could permit himself in the piece of art. A year ago, we had quite a number of such crowded events, only they were all tragic. Another pleasant feature of last week was that Lola Lloyd happened to be here during the trial. The Courtroom was crowded all the time, but the feminists and pacifists were conspicuous by their absence.

The trial was a tremendous experience for me. The Judge, though a famous militarist, was the perfect ideal of fair guardian of the law. His charging of the jury was a veritable masterpiece. Mr. Hays was brilliant during the entire time and Marvin and his lawyer could not have been worst possible adversaries. Marvin escaped, and we are going to get a warrant of arrest against him tomorrow. Of course, there is no chance whatsoever to collect the $17,000 awarded me, but I never anticipated money and the moral victory is certainly perfect.

I had no time to tell you what a horrible experience Franzi had with Miss Brady, and now I will tell you only that the whole thing is off. If you are in Chicago, as it seems to me from your letter, I shall have a thrilling story to tell you about the Brady affair. It also sounds like a novel; unfortunately, a novel with a bad ending for us.

Anxiously waiting to hear when I can go for the oath of allegiance to Chicago, and with best regards from Franzi and myself, and repeated expressions of deepest gratitude and love,

RS

New York Public Library Manuscripts and Archives Division. Rosika Schwimmer Papers, Box 180.