I wish there was some safe way, any way, that you could answer this. There isn't. As it is I don't know if you'll get this. But I'm taking the chance you will. What I'm going to do tomorrow is take a private plane I've rented and drop this letter through that green cloud called the Sampson phenomenon. After Mark Sampson, the brilliant young guy who made the machine that made the green cloud that opened the way to Oz, though it was an accident. Oz! I can't believe it!
Anyway, I'll be up there when the green cloud appears if it appears. It doesn't always and even then they can't be sure how big it'll be and how long it'll last.
Anyway they're trying some kind of experiment with it, but they won't be trying to fly anybody through. So I should have the sky to myself. I'll zoom up there and strike like old Balloon-Buster Frank Luke himself, drop this through the cloud in a box with a Very flare attached, and run like I saw Richthofen coming after me. I rented the plane under a fake name, paid cash, and I'll be wearing a fake beard and civilian clothes and using a German accent.
If they find out who I am, I'll take off for Brazil. I always did prefer dark-eyed beauties, remember?
When they heard about what happened to their invasion force, they just about crapped in their whipcords. And they sent off a cipher message to Washington. Whoever's handling this deal there sent a cipher message to the President. He was in Alaska on a tour. The message rocked him, he got sick and had to go to bed. He's in San Francisco now, but he's said to be still sick. He hasn't been much help to the people here. They've been told to make the decision about what to do, but you can bet that if it's wrong they'll be blamed. That's the Army way, God bless it!
The reason I know all this is that I've been sworn to secrecy and though they don't tell me much I overhear more than I should. I make it a point to do it. And as I said I got into the secret files and learned what the hell was really going on.
From what I can gather the big boys are seriously contemplating another invasion. But they're going to have to cover up the deaths of the soldiers and the loss of those aircraft, and they don't want to have to do that all over again. Too many people asking questions.
Sampson, he's not a bad guy at all, is all for telling the public the truth, but they won't stand for that. They're afraid of the public uproar, and the bigshot politicians in this are afraid of the political repercussions. As it is, I've been hearing rumors that some of the members of Harding's cabinet have been caught with their hand in the public till and there's going to be a hell of a scandal and maybe jail sentences.
Hank stopped reading and said, "My father wrote me that he'd heard that the Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, and the Secretary of the Navy, Edwin Denby, leased some navy oil reserves to Edward Doheny of Pan American Petroleum and to Harry Sinclair of Mammoth Oil. He said he'd heard that that big crook Doheny had bribed them to give him the deal and ‘Clear Sin' Sinclair had taken Fall into some of his financial dealings.
"Dad says that Harding is personally honest though not very bright. Some of the people he gave high positions in the government because he owed them for political support have betrayed him. And the people of the United States."
"Most people are corrupt in one form or another," Glinda said, "and they don't even know it. Get back to the letter."
"O.K."
Well, Hank, my roommate is about due to return so I'll have to finish this quick. I'm so het up that I've even considered telegramming or phoning the President. He's at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco right now, but he's sick in bed and couldn't handle it even if I could tell him I'd like to blow this sky high. I couldn't get through to him anyway. So I'll just have to keep mum for now. I don't want any "accidents" happening to me. I hope you can understand my position.
I wish you the best of luck, however. Jesus! Oz? Would anybody believe me if I told them about this? I'd probably end up in an insane asylum, that'd be worse than getting shot. So I hope you understand.
Good luck, ave atque vale, vaya con Dios, Un homme averti en vaut deux, and all that. Is Glinda as beautiful as Baum said? If she is give her a big smackeroo for me but watch the hands, Hank the Rank.
Your pal, William Wordsworth "Stinky" Wright
"Afe atkeifale, faya kon Diioz, and the rest?" Glinda said. "What do they mean?"
"Hail and farewell, go with God, a man warned is equal to two unwarned men."
"You must miss him."
"Yes. I miss my parents, too."
"If you gain something you lose something and vice versa. Hank, I have to take care of the Earth situation as soon as possible and that means tonight. Erakna will be attacking me here. I know that, and she knows that I know that. I need every bit of energy that I can summon for the attack, but I'll have to expend much before I can get prepared for Erakna. I'll have some time; I know when she'll come."
Glinda paused.
Hank said, "Yes?"
"I'll give some details later. First, do you have a picture, a photograph, of President Harding?"
Hank thought that there might be one in the copies of the Current Opinion periodicals he had brought with him. Glinda sent a servant to get them from Hank's apartment after he had printed the title of the magazines on a piece of paper. When the servant returned with them. Hank leafed through the pages for the photograph. Glinda busied herself with paperwork while he did so.
His eye caught and stored various advertisements, titles of articles, and parts of text. They were like little hooks dragging him back to Earth or like tappings on tiny bells which reverberated through his mind and caused it to salivate images and emotions.
VOL. LXVIII APRIL, 1920 No. 4
IS THE WORLD ON THE WAY TO BANKRUPTCY? Inflation as a Means of ‘ Destroying Capitalism.
PARTY POLITICS AND PROHIBITION THE EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT BEGINS TO INTRUDE
Prosperous Days in Peoria and St. Louis.
A SPECIAL investigation has been conducted "with severe neutrality," by the N. Y. Tribune, into the effects of prohibition in other lines. It has developed, so it says, in New York City, "enough arguments in favor of prohibition to wreck the white paper market were they printed in detail and with all their far-reaching ramifications."
IS JAPAN CONCEALING A REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AT HOME?
I AM one who thinks that the theories of seapower advanced by Admiral Mahan may be greatly modified, if not completely shattered, by the sinister triumphs of the submarine and the torpedo.
EXPLAINING THE ALLEGED BREAKDOWN OF LIBERALISM IN AMERICA
● * /V S a body of political and inter-XA. national doctrine, liberalism has practically collapsed." So Harold Stearns, formerly associate Editor of the Dial (in its brief ultra-liberal period) declares in a new book, "Liberalism in America" (Boni and Liveright), which is being widely discussed.
"It stands," Lord Morley says, "for pursuit of social good against class interest or dynastic interest. It stands for the subjection to human judgments of all claims of external authority." Militarism is named by Lord Morley in this connection as "the point-blank opposite of liberalism."
Mr. Stearns refers to the triumph of prohibition as an evidence that anti-liberal forces are dominating the scene in America today.
PHILADELPHIA CRITICIZES NEW YORK
NEW YORK SCOLDED FOR ITS MORAL AND OTHER SHORTCOMINGS NEEDED—A BUDGET SYSTEM TO SAVE TAXPAYERS $2,000,000,000 A YEAR
A BUDGET system in regulating the expenditures of the United States government would save the people $2,000,000,000 this year, according to Roger W. Babson, the expert financial statistician.
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