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To the Customers of the 
Elliott Nursery Company 
The bulb order which you entrusted to my company last year was badly 
handled—perhaps no part of it was filled—and you are entitled to be told why. 
When I left my office on the evening of May 9th, 1940, my company, 
owner of the largest retail bulb business in the world, was a prosperous, 
efficient, smooth running organization. Twenty-four hours later it was dis- 
rupted and disorganized. When I reached my office next morning, lying on 
my desk was a cablegram from Amsterdam telling me that HITLER HAD 
INVADED HOLLAND! 
To me the invasion and conquest of Holland was not merely another 
case of the overrunning of a harmless, peaceful neutral by the brutal Nazi 
war machine. This was personal. When one has dealt with a people for half 
a century as my company had dealt with the Dutch, and found them decent, 
honorable, tending strictly to their own affairs, business does not remain 
cold-blooded. My friends were being assaulted. Men with whom I had often 
dined, played bridge, attended the theater, were being murdered in their beds. 
Women who had most graciously entertained me in their homes were now 
homeless, their dwellings bombed to dust. Purple-faced with impotent rage 
I cursed the Nazi Dictator, forgetful for the time of my company and of you, 
its customer. 
I was not allowed to forget you and the Elliott Nursery Company for 
long. Shortly my secretary handed me the file of the day’s orders and in- 
quired, “What shall we do about these?” With Amsterdam a blazing inferno, 
Leiden garrisoned by the Nazi armies and Haarlem bombed by Nazi planes, 
there was nothing that I could do. Obviously your order could not be filled 
and you must be disappointed. 
Bad enough that the Nazi Dictator should murder my friends; bad enough 
that the Nazi Dictator should cause my company to fall down on its services 
to its customers. Yet this is not the whole story. As a result of this Nazi 
crime, tens of thousands of dollars of my company’s resources were wasted. 
Much of the savings of three generations of Elliotts were wiped out on the 
night of May 9th. 
Until the war is over, my company will furnish you with carefully selected 
American material which you will like as well as the Dutch bulbs you have 
been accustomed to planting. And when the Nazi Dictator is finally driven 
out of Holland, as he surely will be, we will again import for you fine Dutch 
bulbs. In the meantime we do not need or want your pity. Though his 
friends have been murdered and his business damaged, an American does not 
whine for help. I am an American, glad indeed that my ancestors had sense 
enough to get out of Europe and settle in America. So my company is asking 
for your order now because you know that now, as always, we will send you 
material of the highest quality and nothing else. 
Very respectfully yours 
RHEAGESZELLIOTD 
President, Elliott Nursery Co. 
