literature

This self-described "magazet" Friendly Chat, dated August 1934, was "published by Philip L. Kretz, Foot of Broadway, Newburgh, N.Y., to share with others thoughts that will promote mutual friendliness and right professional relations." A display advertises optometrist services provided by Dr. Kretz of Newburgh and Highland Falls. It is unclear if he authored the newsletter, or applied his brand to stock content which may have also been published by other businesses. Authorship is unattributed; no copyright asserted.

The title may allude indirectly to fireside chats by President Franklin Roosevelt in the same era. The home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in Hyde Park is a half hour's drive from Newburgh, of which FDR is quoted, "All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River."

Contents include poems and moral stories titled: The Weed, Rumors, The Lawn-Mower Society, Who Painted The House?, Grouchy Eyes, A Perfect Match, The Legend of the Happy Man, No Overtime, and Our Enemies.

Apolitical and commercial in its aim, the look and feel of Friendly Chat seem styled after The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest, published a generation before by the famous Utopian socialist turned rugged individualist Elbert Hubbard of Roycrofters fame, who employed the craft of writing in the western town of East Aurora, near Buffalo, and went down on the Lusitania in 1912, an early casualty of the First World War.

At this point, I'm not able to google anything about Friendly Chat magazet or the good Dr. Kretz of Dutchess County. Perhaps, seeing this, a descendant or local historian will fill me in.

The above document reached me through channels that I don't recall, from my grandfather, Arthur H. Rue, who owned a bookstore in Detroit at the time it was published (quite a ways from Newburgh). No idea how it reached him, I presume he retained it, at least in part, because it is dated the month that my father, Bud, his second son, was born. I also have an copy somewhere around here dated December 1938, though the significance of that date (if there was any) is unclear to me.