- September 14, 1944 – Ellwood Rabenold (77 Clinton Ave, Brooklyn) to JSA
My dear Apperson:
There are two methods for idea propulsion: one would adopt existing , established vehicles and then seek to mold and direct their activities; the other would create its own vehicle, centered upon an immediate objective. The former has the advantage of initial momentum and established clientele and finances, with the disadvantage of diffusion and cumbersomeness; the latter, though verdant and virginal, has the advantage of single-mindedness, homogeneity, and conscious devotion to a special cause.
You have generally favored the latter approach, chiefly out of youthful impatience, to avoid waste of precious time. You diverted from the staid respectability of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks to form the Forest Preserve Association, and now you by-pass the aristocratic Lake George Association to form the Lake George Protective Association.
Some may say that this is just another expression of your irrepressibility, your iconoclasm, your rebellion against the established social order, kicking shins, bespattering boiled shorts, intruding as gadfly and general provocateur. I know better – you want things done, in a direct line, stripped of all extraneous considerations, while yet there is time.
May you succeed!
Sincerely, Ellwood Rabenold