HOW ARE YOUR POINTS? 
Dear Floral Friends: 
Altho the measure :nto which Father Time pours the days, hours or minutes 
ailotted to each task, is always too small and is already used up for the prepara- 
tion of this catalog, I would not miss including at least a brief friendly letter 
and the inquiry in the above caption. Perhaps the inquiry is the appropriate 
equivalent of, “How do you do?” 
No doubt most of you have done as well as we have. Rationing has produced 
a few inconveniences but we have had plenty. In a world employed in the manu- 
facture of the destructive instruments of war 
and in their use, in which multitudes have 
died from starvation and entire nations have 
been ravaged and few are sufficiently clothed, 
America has not only produced more ships, 
planes and munitions than other nations but 
has also fed and clothed us and helped to feed 
and clothe our Allies. 
The Houdyshels have enough to eat and 
wear. We even have enough sugar, coffee, shoes 
and meat, altho we have had to substitute fried 
chicken for beefsteak! Let’s ask the Greeks 
and the Dutch for: a little sympathy re the 
fried chicken subsitution for beef! 
We Americans are doing so well that we 
do not appreciate what we have. We have so 
much food, are so well clothed and protected 
and are so comfortable every way that we are 
full of surplus energy. Many find an escape 
valve necessary, in which to blow off this ex- 
cess energy by figuring out just how the 
country should be run and the war conducted, 
where our leaders have made their mistakes 
and in telling everybody about it. 
I only wish to inquire if this energy might 
not better be expended in a garden raising 
fruits, vegetables and flowers and in raising 
a few chickens and rabbits? Or in some kind 
of war work? 
I suggest that we analyze our own actions 
and make a personal inventory of them as they 
affect our country’s war effort. Don’t doubt that the Axis has an accurate cross- 
sectional view of our reaction toward the war. They know about our labor 
troubles, our falling off in construction of vital materials, strikes, absenteeism, 
our mistakes, overconfidence and complacency, shameful quarrels of high offi- 
cials, and even the things talked about among the people. The Axis has found 
much to encourage them and thus prolong the war. We pay in the lives of our 
soldiers. 
Such an inventory will likely reveal to most of us a tew things we can well 
reject, amone them party prejudice. Party affiliation is 99% traditional. Many 
accept, in their processes of reasoning, this as their major premise: ‘“ My party 
is always right.” They are unconcious of this and do not realize that they thus 
allow their party leaders to do their thinking. Any prejudice whatever weakens 
our logic. 
Most political haranguing is inane and especially so when directed against 
fellow party members who cooperate with the “opposition’’ in conduct of the 
war. Our party system is useful in deciding peace time problems. In war, Vic- 
tory should have no impediments. 
This letter is addressed to flower lovers. We are agreed upon the importance 
3 

THE HERBERT MEDAL 
