<--PREV Doc #564  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #566 Document #565; February 4, 1958 To Frank Richardson Kent Series: EM, AWF, DDE Diaries Series ; Category: Personal The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIX - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part IV: Recession and Reform; February 1958 to May 1958 Chapter 8: "To engender confidence"   Dear Mr. Kent: Recently I learned that you have not been feeling up to par; that, in fact, you have had to be hospitalized for the past several weeks.1 I do hope that soon you will be able to resume your normal routine. I cannot claim to be one of those who have known you well, except through your writings. Indeed, I am sure that you will have no memory of a meeting of ours of many years ago. I think that I was a major at the time, but ever since I have retained the hope that some day I would have the opportunity of an informal chat with you about "shoes and ships and sealing wax--and cabbages and kings."2 At any rate, I wish for you a speedy return to your accustomed health and vigor and, of course, many years of good health.3 Sincerely 1 Kent, a syndicated columnist and author, had joined the staff of the Baltimore Sun in 1898 and had been managing editor from 1911 - 1921. His column, "The Great Game of Politics," had been featured in some 140 newspapers since 1922. See The Great Game of Politics: An Effort to Present the Elementary Facts about Politics, Politicians, and Political Machines, Candidates and Their Ways, For the Benefit of the Average Citizen (Garden City, N.Y., 1926). Kent's last column had appeared on January 5. The President probably had learned of Kent's illness and stay at Johns Hopkins Hospital through Milton Eisenhower, president of The Johns Hopkins University. 2 Eisenhower, who held the rank of major between 1924 and 1936, probably met Kent in 1924 while stationed at Camp Meade, Maryland, where he coached the Third Army Football Squad. Between 1927 and 1935 Eisenhower held assignments in Washington, D.C., in the offices of the Chief of Infantry, the Assistant Secretary of War, and the Chief of Staff. The President was quoting Lewis Carroll's poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter." 3 Kent would die on April 14 (see Baltimore Sun, Apr. 15; and New York Times, Apr. 15, 17, 1958). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal To Frank Richardson Kent, 4 February 1958. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 565. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/second-term/documents/565.cfm <--PREV Doc #564  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #566

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