File contains Kenneth Leslie's letter book from the early years of The Protestant Digest, and the Textbook Commission to Eliminate Anti-Semitic Statements in American Textbooks, dated 1938 to 1943. File contains full correspondence as well as snippets from Kenneth Leslie's letters, Protestant Digest documentation, favourable testimonials about The Protestant Digest, as well as Leslie's efforts to attract scholars to join the editorial board of The Protestant Digest.
The letter book is divided into the following sections:
- Textbook Commission: with a "general invitation to join the Textbook Commission to Eliminate Anti-Semitic Statements in American Textbooks as well as Leslie's letters to Richard E. Gutstadt, Samuel Radbill, Joseph Barth, E. George Payne, Chas. Feltman, Sol Tekulsky, Brigadier-General Chaplain William R. Arnold, St. Anthony Guild Press, the Confraternity of the Precious Blood, E.E. Wheeler, Louis Broido, and Abraham A. Neuman;
- Released Time: responding to critiques from the Editor of Commonweal, the editor of the Friends of the Public Schools of America, Harriet V. Postman, Simon Certner, Mrs. Yorke Allen, Mark Starr, and James King;
- Anti-Semitism: letters and support to Isaac Rosengarten, Marion B. Sulzberger, Joseph Gorelik, Dr Albert W. Palmer, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Hon. Fiorello LaGuardia, Senator James E. Mead, Margaret Lee Southard, Philip Slomovitz, Rabbi Jerome Unger, and Mrs. Louis L. Browne;
- Social Action and Negro: letters to the editor of the New York Post, John T. McManus, the Women's National Radio Committee, Dr Benjamin E. Mays, Donald West, Hon. Sumner Welles, Patrick Malin, Dr A. Clayton Powell Jr., Donald Young, Robert Searle, Bridget Clark, Mrs Franklin D. [Eleanor] Roosevelt, Sylvia Loomis, Annette Smith Lawrence, Mrs. Julius O. Adler, Harold Rosswell, Philip Murray, Chaim Weizmann, Meyer Weisgal, Samuel McCrea Cavert, Dr Adolf Meyer, Eugene R. Shippen, Attorney General Francis Biddle, and the text of a "statement for the special Negro issue of New Masses, October 1, 1942";
- The Protestant Digest, later The Protestant: with subheadings for Documents, Beginnings -- Motif -- Aim -- Purpose, Epigrams (to Nora Bateson, John L. Lewis, Edward T. Friendly, American League for Peace and Democracy, John Temple Graves II, Walter Winchell, Paul Vincent Carroll, Carl W. Shaver, Dr J.H. Rushbrook, Rev. J.T. Widner, Bishop Ralph A. Ward, Sara Graham Mullhall, Maurice Rosenblatt, Mrs. A. Goshawk, Hon. Henry A. Wallace, Cyrus S. Eaton, and Mrs. Leonard K. Elmhirst;
- Comments on The Protestant Digest, later The Protestant, Favorable: with comments from Eleanor Roosevelt, The Christian Register, Zions Herald, Social Action Digest, Reinhold Niebuhr, Dr. W.K. Wilson, Mrs. Andrew Gardner, Presbyterian Tribune, Joseph Fort Newton, Upton Sinclair, Edward Holton James, George N. Falconer, Edward T. Friendly, Nora Bateson, O.R. Thome, Miss Ada L. Snell, A.W. Heinle, Clifford J. Laube, I.C. Thorgaard, Ellis Huntington Dana, Hamish Hamilton, H.A. Crossley, Clarence E. Wilson, Carl W. Shaver, Walter C. Leck, Rabbi Joseph S. Shubow, P.L. Howe, Kay Smith, Robert C. Harder, M. Milton Talkin, Arthur Settel, Robert H. Ellis Jr., I.M. Sholkin, Fred Eastman, Florence L. Cox, Rev. Robert H. Eads, Stephen S. Wise, Angie Wynn, John Granberry, Samuel L. Hamilton, Leon Wolf Levy, W. Edgar Gregory, Guy Henson, R. Lloyd Pobst, Don MacDiarmid, D. Arthur Bowman, Harry C. Steinmetz, Lester L. Greenbaum, the New York Post, R.O. Johnson, Maria Halberstadt, Pierre vanPaasen, Louis Adamic, Sam G. Johnson, Laird T. Hites, Frank Mlakar, C. Oumansky, George R. Bryant, Robert Ulich, Mrs. A.B. Cross, Rev. Hurley Begun, Horace T. Houf, Frank D. Graham, Ivy Litvinoff, Rev. Alfred V. Bliss, Peter Kamitchis, Rev. Edward Morris, Gerald M. Meyer, William Bouck, R.. Dundon, Edwin McNeil Poteat, Stanley High, Ione Riggs, Bishop James Cannon Jr., Olive Anderson, Robert Whitaker Edward H. Redman, John A. Lee, John A. MacKay, Walter M. Kraus, Theodore D. Jervey, Neason Jones, Sidney A. Goodman, Mrs. A. Allyn, Marion Neville, Albert F. Gilmore, Richard J. Davis, and Ralph W. Wescott;
- Invitations to join the Board of Editorial Advisors, epigrams: with letters to Albert Einstein, Sherwood Eddy, Bishop Edward L. Parsons, George Bernard Shaw, Rt. Rev. Malcolm E. Peabody, Charles Evans Hughes, Rt. Rev. Benjamin, Ralph Barton Perry, and Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam;
- The Protestant Digest Associates, epigrams: with letters to Martha Gelhorn [sic], Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Helen Lynd, William Jay Schieffelin, Rev. Edward Morris, Ida Pellar, Judge Benjamin Shaleck, and Cyrus Eaton.
