PRINT SOURCE: Thomas Raddall Fonds, Correspondence. From Thomas Raddall to William Arthur Deacon, 1 March 1947. MS-2-202 38.15.
Subject HeadingsWhen his friend and fellow writer, W. A. Deacon in his role as president of the Canadian Authors Association (CAA), sends out a CAA fund-raising letter, T. H. Raddall responds with a $25.00 cheque and an overview of his personal financial planning strategy based on self-reliance and hard work.
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W. R. Deacon March 1st, 1947 Dear Bill, I enclose my cheque for $25 in response to your circular letter. I'm sorry I can't make it more, but I find a widely held illusion that a writer who has attained some prominence must be rolling in wealth, and I am being showered with requests for money from all sorts of organ- izations and private individuals not only in Canada but in the United States and Europe, many of them deserving. I do my best but I can't help feeling from time to time that charity begins at home and that I'd like to be one Canadian writer who didn't support his declining years on the generosity of his friends. It is now nearly twenty years -- twenty hard years -- since I began to write; I have now reached the height of my powers, such as they are, and I am well past middle life; it is time I began to get an anchor down to windward in the shape of substantial annuities or other sound investments, and the only way I can do it is by a rigid policy of savings now while my work is in demand. The other day while looking over my income for 1946 (and wondering as usual where it had gone) I drew up a list of my annual subscriptions, fees and donations of various sorts. It was literally as long as my arm. My first impulse was one of wrath, and I determined to cut out everything except half a dozen local and immediate charities. Reflection washed this out, of course; nevertheless I am determined not to add any more to the list, until I have attained some sort of financial security, at any rate. Had I received any direct benefit from the efforts of the C.A.A.1 I could send you a substantial cheque with a cheerful heart; but as you know I have always fought my own battles and asked help of no one. The new contract, an admirable thing, does not embody anything that I had not wrung from my own publishers in time past. The income tax ruling obtained by the C.A.A. can benefit only those whose books appear at longish intervals. This is not to decry the efforts of the C.A.A. in any way, rather it is to assert that those who derive or expect to derive actual benefit from those efforts should be prepared to pay for them. Two or three Canadian writers have attained wealth, and there is a substantial group of others who have independent means of one sort or another; these are in a position to respond generously to your appeal whether they receive benefit or not. But I do not see how the small group like myself who have achieved self-support by their own efforts, and must provide for their old age in the same way, can be expected to support the annual deficit of the C.A.A. I know your problem, and I know your own unselfishness but, Bill, I can't help feeling that the ship is either on the wrong tack or the starboard watch is being called upon for too much of the blood and sweat. |
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