To Ben Stolberg [Letter 314]

September 27, 1947 

Dear Ben: 

Thank you for your very nice letter. I will be glad to be nominated on the slate for the Board of the American Writers’ Association. It is a cause about which I feel very strongly. But would you ask them to send me a copy of the constitution and bylaws which I have never seen? If I do undertake to be a member of the Board, I would want to be active, and I would like to know the specific stand and program of the organization, apart from our fight against the Cain Plan. 

Thank you for your praise of the SCREEN GUIDE FOR AMERICANS. I was very happy to hear your reaction—yours is one of the few opinions which I value on political matters. Under separate cover I am sending you twenty copies of the SCREEN GUIDE, together with envelopes which were made for the purpose of mailing them. It will be wonderful if you can distribute them wherever you feel they might do good. Let me know if you need more copies and I will be delighted to send them. 

Thank you also for the letter in regard to the International Rescue and Relief Committee. I shall try to approach them here through their Hollywood chapter. 

With best regards, 

Sincerely

Ayn Rand

The Screen Guide for Americans was written by AR and published by the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. It presented “A List of the More Common Devices Used to Turn Nonpolitical Pictures into Carriers of Political Propaganda.” The Guide was published in the November 1947 issue of Plain Talk, a conservative political magazine. It was later reprinted in Journals of Ayn Rand, ed. David Harriman (New York: Penguin), 1997.