NOT FOR PUBLICATION
FOR
INSTITUTE OF CURRENT WORLD AFFAIRS
DER- 42
DER ~
Notes on Nigeria
II
Notes on Nigeria ~ II
Mr. Walter S. Rogers
Institute of Current World Affairs
Walter S.
Institute
522 Fifth Avenue
Avenue
New York 36, New York
Dear Mr. Rogers
Rogers:
delta of that mighty river.mightyriver.
Benin City lies t,o he west oi” the Niger and is near the sprawling
City lies to the
Nigerian town, filled with mud-walled houses and tiny shops. But Benin
is different from the others in its history. All of southern Nigeria
was a land of oppression, terror and fiendish cruelty, of slave raids,
slavery, juju, human sacrifice and cannibalism. But Benin surpassed
them all as a City of Blood.
Nigerian to, filled with mud-walled houses and tiny shops.
These days Benin is just another ramshackle
of
These
is different from the others in its history.
is
is
Just
But Benin
All of southern Nigeria
was a laud of oppression, terror and fiendish cruelty, of slave raids,
slavery,
JuJu, human sacrifice and cannibalism.
them all as a City of Blood.
rituals.
Hundreds of people were tortured to death regularly in Benin’s juju
were
rituals.
only halted in 1897 when the British captured the city. One man who
entered the city in the British expedition gave this description:
These blood-stained orgies went on for centuries,
These blood-stained
on
centuries, and were
in Benin’s JuJu
were
only haled in 1897 when the British captured the city.
One man who
entered the city in the British expedition gave this description:
“…Altars covered with streams of dried human blood,humanblood, the stench
of which was awful…
of
found filled with human bodies, dead and dying, and a few
wretched captives were rescued alive… everywhere sacrificial
trees on which were the corpses of the latest victims—every-
where, on each path, were newly sacrificed corpses. On the
principal sacrificial tree, facing the main gate of the
King’s compound, there were two crucified bodies…”#
found filled with human bodies, dead and dying, and a few
awful.., huge pits,hugepits, fory
with streams
forty to fifty
stench
feet deep, were
fifty feet deep, were
wretched captives were rescued alive.., everywhere sacrificial
trees on which were the corpses of the latest victims—every-
where, on each path, were newly sacrificed corpses.
On the
principal sacrificial tree, facing the main gate of the
Portuguese attempt early in the sixteenth century to convert Benin from
It is said that the crucifixion idea was
It is said that the crucifixion idea was all that remained
all that remained of a
in
juju to Christianity. A Portuguese seafarer had visited Benin in 1485,
the first
sixteenth century
from
JuJu to Christianity.
the first white man knom to have done so.
later, but the mission eventually had to be recalled because so0 many
missionaries died, Fetish worship and juju rites returned and, in
time, Christianity’s only permanent contribution was to give Benin
the crucifixion idea for its mass
white man known to have done so. Missionaries were sent out
A Portuguese seafarer had visited Benin in 1485,
Missionaries were sent out
later, but the mission eventually had to be recalled because so many
missiouarles died.
Fetish worship and JuJu rites returned and, in
time, Christianity’s only permanent contribution was to give Beuln
the crucifixion idea for its mass ritualistic murders.
ritualistic murders,
and the British have hung the title
and the British have hung the title of Commander of the Order of St.
The present Oba,
The
Oba, or King of Benin,
Michael and ot. George upon him. He is the grandson of Ovonramwen,
Commander
is His Highness Akenzua II,AkeuzuaII,
Michael and St. George upon him.
o> Overami, as the Europeans called him, the Oba in power during the
He is the grandson of Ovonramwen,
or Overami, as the Europeans called him, the Oba in power during the
last bloody days of old Benin.
128t bloody days of old Benin. I called on the Oba at his palace one
morning,
I called ou the Oba at his palace one
morning.
witr corrugsted metal,
Trt cnilase is only one story high and it
The palace is only one story high and it is madeismade of mud, roofedmud,roofed
with corrugated metal.
it—no one knows for
2G
ec opt snows for sure—and it
There are something like two hundred rooms to
something like
covers several acres.
it covers several acres.
The Oba
The Oba
History qf Nigeria, London, 1929.
* Bolsragon, The Benin Mas.sacr.e, quoted by Sir Alan Burns
woe oy nth eria,
-“”hisévagon, The Benin Wassacre, quoted by Sir Alan Burns in
is
.
King’ s compound, there were two crucified bodies…”*
But Benin surpassed
May 16, 1955
Malta
Malta
DER 42
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received me in his office at one end of the palace. He is 56 years old,
tall and thin, and he was wearin bi gold-rimmed glasses, a white
6oa and a white cap. He was sitting in a wicker arm chair behind a
desk and he rose and shook hands. His eldest son, the heir apparent
to the throne, was there as well. The prince had Just returned from
England, where he had studied at Cambridge, and he wore weste
dress.
two large electric fans had been placed near the desk to keep the
Oba cool. The walls of the office were lined with drawings and
It was still early iu the morning, but already it was hot and
’I think you ve heard of my grandfather, the Oba said with what
looked like a forced smile. He asked me if I would like a whisky
and I settled for an orange squash. A servant took a bottle of
orange squash from a refrigerator at the end of the room, poured
one for me, one for the Oba and one for the prince and returned
with them. Then the Oba got down to talking about his pet project,
a separate state within the federation of Nigeria for the 1,500,O00
people in the Benin and Delta provluc.s. At present they are part
of the western region.
hotographs o,f the Oba, his father and g,.andfather Ovonramwen.
for a separate state,
self-government in 1956. We do not want self-government until we are
fully developed economically. We want to put our house in order
economically and after some years we will think of other things.
Changes are good but
“The people of Benin and Delta are very uranlmous about the demand
“They are not keen about achievir
” the Oba said
the are coming too fast. The large percentage
of illiterate people don t understand these changes.”
It is easy to see how the idea of a separate state would appeal
to the Oba. It might restore at least some of his faded powers. There
was a time iu Benin when heads rolled and slaves were nailed to
crucifixion trees at the whim of the Oba. Now he has to be content
with functioning as president of a largely elected local council.
The British have reduced him to the position of constitutional morarch
and even as constitutional monarch, he rules over a much smaller area
than did his forefathers.
The Oba then took me on a tour of the palace. A party of nobles
were seated in one room and they all spran to atteution when their
ruler entered. Each noble was wearing a string of beads arotuad his
neck These beads are symbols of-nobility and sometimes au exceptional
commoner is permitted to wear them as well.
Each room in the palace is windowless, but there is an interesting
arrangement for letting iu sunlight. There is au open, rectangular
gap in the ceiling of each room and it may be anywhere up to lO by
15 feet in size. The corrugated metal roofing slopes do to the
gap on all four sides. Naturally this will allow rain water to
pour through the gap in bad weather. To get around this difficulty,
a rectangular pit a few inches deep is dug into the floor Just below
the gap. This serves as a pan to collect the rainwater and a conduit
under the floor drains the water away to the outside of the palace.
1?
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This design is not found elsewhere in West Africa. It has slways
intrigued European visitors and some have thought that it must be Roman
in origin and to have reached Benin via North Africa.
Despite these “skylights, ” he palace rooms were gloomy
The Oba
walked iu front, very slowly and with much dignity. The nobles trailed
along after us. This palace, the Oba said, was not the same one as
in the old days. When Benin was captured by the British, Ovonramweu
was exiled to Galabar, on the coast. His people, the Binis, refused
o acknowledge another Oba as long as that one lived, so the palace
remained desered until Ovonramwen’s death in 1914. His son was
installed as Oba then, but the palace, having stood idle under the
tropical sun and rains for 17 years, was in ruins. It was rebuilt
completely, on the same site and following the same plan. Western
civilization made a few inroads “when it came to the reconstruction.
9he present palace has a corrugated metal roof instead of a thatch
one and the rooms have concrete instead of hard mud floors. Some
of the pillars supporting the roof are of hardened mud, as in the
old days, but others are of brick.
There were JuJu shrines in several of the rooms. They couslsted
of dead birds, small bags containing charms, clumps of dried grass.
At one shrine there was th skull of a monkey. Another consisted
of a group of iron stands. “Those are our fetishes,” the Oba said
with a trace of embarrassment in his voice. “They’re to protec
the inmates of the palace and ward off evil spirits.
the satues and crosses and things in Christian churches
The Oba sa’id no, he wasn’t a Christian. “I follow the traditional
Th,e,y’re like
religion, ” he said
.
Goats and other animals are sacrificed in. the
palace occasionally, which represents a considerable improvement ever
the old custom of usin8 human beings for those rites. In 1936, three
years after Akenzu& succeeded to the throne on he death of his father,
a young elephant was
his “god of good luck.
Another room… A rusty sword, looking like an execution sword,
s,a,crificed by sword thrusts as an offering to
lay on a throne. “That’s the sword of state,
on the throne to show that the throne is neve empty.” There was a
chain running from the ceiling to a bolt in the floor. “The Oba
grasps it to support himself while he is standing next to the throne,”
the Oba explained. “The Oba never stands alone unless he is supported
by the chain. Otherwise he never stands or walks in,
” the Oba said
less he is
supported by two nobles or by one of his boy sword bearers.” In
the old days the Oba was always so loaded dovn with ornaments that
he actually needed help to stay on his feet.
The Oba had been walking around with me without any assistance,
and it seemed that he decided at that point that he ought to follow
the old custom. He looked around for his boy sword beaer and a lad
of about ten came darting out of the crowd of nobles. The Oba said
something to the boy in Biui and the boy picked up the sword of
state and held it upright iu front of him. The Oba leaned ou the
boy’s shoulder and we started off to ths next room. “Yes, now when
I walk through the palace, the boy carries the sword like that and
I lean on hlm like this, the Oba said.
“It re st
DER 42
4
e passed throush several more rooms, soe empty, soe with JuJu
shrines. The Oba would explain that one room was used for audiences
Ithnobles of a certain rank, another for audiences with nobles of
a lower rank. One roo would be for robing and another would be for
ot her ceremonies.
At one point the nobles dropped behind us. The Oba, the boy and I
went on alone. “By tradition no one but me and my sword bearer is
allowed in these rooms, ” the Oba said
.
They were the same as the
others, 81oomy and empty except for an occasional throne or JuJu altar.
Then we cae to a his room that was more like an open court. The
faces of lions were carved on the pillars. “This is where I have
audiences with the women of my country, ” the Oba said
.
“My wives
attend these audiences and advise me on how to handle the complaints.
We walked back throush all the rooms to the outside, pickin8 up
the nobles on the way. I asked the Oba how many wives he has.
have about ten, he said, looking crestfallen.
II
“T
400 wives and my grandfather had over 1,O00.” The Oba’s black face
knotted up iu anger. “I have for economic reasons only ten. There
is no other reason why I should not have 50 wives. Or maybe 100.”
Anger gave way to resignation. “The times have changed,” the Oba
said wearily.
II My father had about
,,
babies are born all the time. I don’t always keep track of them.”
We came out into the dazzling sunlight in front of the palace.
“How many children do you have?” I asked.
The Oba thought for a moment. “There must be about 50.”
“How any sors?”
The Oba thought again. “They must be about equal in number. New
Several American cars were parked there. The nobles .said something
to the Oba iu Binl.
treditional salute to their Oba,” the Oba said to me.
The nobles lined up in front of the Oba. Each man advanced alone,
They want to show you how they make the
pounded his left palm with his right fist, raised the clenched fist
in salute, then finished up by rubbing his palms together.
After a few minutes, the nobles got tired of salutiug their Oba.
Some of them were around ninety years old and any exercise is teo
much. We stood aromd without saying much. “This noble’s father had
66 wives, but nowadays for economic reasons the man himself has
only seven, the Oba said, pointing to one of his ancient vassals.
It seemed that the Oba could not get the injustices of the times off
his mind. We all shook hands and I got into my car aud drove off.
D- 42
5-
At sunset that eveuing I crossed the Niger on a ferry. The river
was very low at that time of year and it was filled with sandbars.
Native fishermen had built temporary villages on some of them.
The ferry steamed along at a fast clip, carylug dozeu cars aud
a couple of hundred foot passengers. In told-stream we picked up a
strong breeze. It had beau “a long hot day aud the breeze felt fiue.
The ferry steamed past several long, thin dugout canoes. I walked
around th dck between the cars and came upon he prince of Benin.
“You knowA” he said, “I have never beeu in some o the rooms you
visited today.” He would have to wait tutil he became Oba to see
them. I asked him how he liked the “democratization” of Nigeria.
“I don’t like it too much, he said.
”
“The other day I wanted to
acquire some laud. Do you kuow, I had to make au application Just
like anyone else and now I have to wait for it to be processed? In
the old days I would Just point to a piece of land aud it would be
mine,”
The prlnce’s bright smile had disappeared and he stared moodily
at the river aud the canoes as the ferry nudged up to the landing
on the east bank.
Enugu, the capital of the eastern region, lies at the foot of
a steep escarpment. There are a number of coal mines in the area,
the only ones, I was told, in West Africa. As the eastern capital,
Enugu is the stronghold of the NCNG. I wauted to meet the Premier,
Nnamdi Aziklwe, or “Zik” as everyoue calls him. But Zik was out
of town that day and the regional information officer iutroduced me
instead to M. I. Okpara, Minister of Health in the regional government.
hie British Permaueut Secretary, or chief assistant. I couldn’t help
thinking that this was the end of the colonial road, the white-man
and the black man haviug changed seats, or that there, but by the
grace of white settlement, stood Jomo Kenyatta, Mbiyu Koluauage
or Eliud Mathu.
Okpara was iu his outer office wheu I entered, givicg orders to
“That is the cardinal difference between the Actiou Group and the NCNC.
We have never beeu in favor of regionalization. We are in favor of a
“The NCNC believes in one strong united country,” Okpara said.
central government with most of the powers and small, weak states.
I asked him what he would do in face of northern reluctauce about
,,
full self-goverument.
“Self-government must come at the same time for all three regions,”
he said heatedly.
But what if the north refused to string along?
“No one has the right to break up a federation or hold back progress,
he said. He added that the south has the sea ports and might use this
DER- 42
6
to force the north into a federation.
“That sounds a bit imperialistic to me, I said.
“I
this uortheru reluctance about self-goveumeut is not white in origin.”
He may have a tough time bulldozing the west, not only the north,
“Well,” said Okpara, seeking a way ou,
into accepting he idea of one united Nigeria. The west has its own
port, Lagos. The NCNC would not be able to use the matter of access
o the sea to “persuade” the west.
From Enugu I started uorth to Kano. It was early in the morning
when I left uu and children were streaming along the side of the
road on their way to school. The boys were dressed in white shirts
and khaki shorts and the girls wore freshly-iroued dresses Some
carried books, aud even ink pots, on their heads.
Then, a few miles down the road, I came upon somethiu8 else.
A man was sriding along rapidly, decked out in the full regalia of
a JuJu practitioner. He was covered from head to foot wih long
strips of grass. At a distance he looked like a shock of hay. He
bad a grotesque carved mask on his face.
The Ibos, who predominate in the eastern region, were notorious
for cauuibalism iu former years. Burns says that one tribe to the
north of the Beuue river “eat auythiug from rats, mice and bats to
their own deceased relatives; while others, more fastidious, will
not eat their own people, but exchange corpses with ueighboring
villages.”@
do disappear aud we don t know what ppened to themt.hese days? People
A British officer Sn Enugu said “Caunlbalism
guess.” Brutal ritual murders by “Leopard Societies” have occurred
as recently as 1948.
We can only
only
There is a great deal of nudity in the eastern region. Women wear
small skirt, or a clump of grass fore and aft. A number of men
wear only loin cloths and you see some of them aloug thee roads
comple rely naked.
*
Kauo, the gateway to the Sahara, is in the far north of Nigeria,
The old city is surrounded by a mud wall thirteen miles around.
In the old days the wall was thirty o fifty feet high and guarded
by a double moat. There were fifteen gates lu the wall and these
were closed at sundown each day. Now that Pax Britannica has come
to uortheru Nigeria, the wall is no longer needed. It is crumbling
away. In places it is only teu or fifteeu feet high and footpaths
lead over the top. The gates are gone and the archways staud open
day and night.
* ibld.
m not satisfied hat
DER – 42
-7-
In the old city there is all of the filth and squalor of a Nigerian
town. But instead of the usual drab hovels, there is a touch of
architectural effort about Kauo. Many of the buildings look like
little “Beau Geste” forts. Te tops of the buildings are decorated
with “dog’ s ear” projections called zankp. Originally they were
designed to keep the rain from seeping through he cou%ers, but now
they are more decorative than anything else. Some buildings are
decorated with geometical designs cut in the walls.
There is a maze of streets in the old city, narrow and twisting
and filled with pedestrians, goats, sheep, donkeys, chickens and,
occasionally, camels. Many of these streets are too narrow for
cars. Vultures hover around in the sky and sit perched on the roofs.
Sanitation is primitive and there are qite a few cases of smallpox,
meninitls and leprosy. “We could stop every disease here if we got
cooperation from the peoole,” a British medical officer said. “But
the people have a fatalistic attitude. And they prefer to go to a
JuJu man first. Or they won’t take their medicine. Or if you
vaccinate them, they will try to wash it off.”
The land around Kano is dry and dusty, but nevertheless large
quantities of peanuts, or groundnuts as the British call them, are
grown. North of Kano the cultivation dwindles out and the land
blends imperceptively into the Saharan wastelands. At this time of
year, before the rains come, Kauo is like a furnace. The temperature
rises to lOO de8rees and more each afternoon and it is not much cooler
at night. During the months of December and January, the harma.t.tan,
a gale wind from. the Sahara, lashes Kano with dust. Sometimes
visibility iu Kano at mid-day is cut to only fifty feet and airplanes
have to be diverted elsewhere. The air becomes so dry during the
harmattan that unseasoned wood splits open.
five and a half million. According to Burns* they are “more or less
Negroid iu origin,” but they have their own distinct language. They
had reduced it to a written form, using modified Arabic characters,
long before the Europeans arrived. Burns says it was the only
language in West Africa to be reduced to writing by the ntives themselves.
The Hausas are the largest population group in the north, numbering
The Hausa states of the north, of which Kano was one, were founded
many centuries ago. They accepted Islam in probably the thirteenth
century. A fairly well developed form of government, based on
Islamic principles, existed in the followlug cenurles and they had
kings, ministers and a Judiciary.
when they were overrun in a
The Hausa kingdoms lasted until the b,eginnins of the last century,
o Muslim holy war, waged by
zealots of he Fulani tribe. The ultimate origin, of the Fulauis is
obscure and Burns says writers have variously described them as
being of Indian, Jewish, Malayan, Phoenician and Eyptiau stock.
Their own tradition is that their last place of residence, before
coming to northern Nigeria, was in the area of the present Senegal.
,
After the Fulani conquest, Fulaul Emirs were installed in the
ausa states. The Emirs acknowledged the suzerainty of the Sultan
DER- 42
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of Sokoto and paid annual tribute to him in slaves. At the time of
the British conques of the northern Nigerian Emirae8 early in
the present century, the power of the Emirs had waned and they
had gron lax and corrupt. Kauo itself fell iu 1903 after offering
only slight resistance.
The Emirs, like he Obas and other native rulers iu the south,
were allowed to remain in office by the British under the policy of
indirect rule. The idea was to effect a smooth transition and avoid
the troubles and upheaval8 that might ensue if the old order were
wiped out at once. The policy had its drawbacks, however, and some
people now consider the Emir a dra on social progress.
Fearful of seeing their Islamic institutions swept away, the
Emirs and other leading northerners have been hostile to cautious
about western education and other change, and the north is still
a long way behind the south by western standards. There are only
two northern doctors and only cue northern veterinarian. All of
he important government posts in the north, if not held by Euglishmen,
are held by southerners. Your northerners now are crying for
“northernization” of the civil service—i.e., get rid of the
southerners. (In the eouh the cry is for “Nigeriauization”—i.e.,
6et rid of the whites. ) Now, impelled by the fear of southern
domination, the north is embarking on mass education but it will
have a long way to go before it catches up with the south.
The Sardauna of Sokoto, a cousin of the Sultan, has not
committed himself publicly on what the north will do about self-
government in 1956. A conference of northern leaders is o be
held next month and the matter is to be decided hen. Some
observers predict that the north will hold out, and will continue
under British administration until such time as it thinks it can
meet the southerners from a position of strength. These observers
scoff at southern talk of forcing the north into a self-governing
federation in 1956 by means of the threat of a blockade. “The
south needs the north as much as the north needs access to the
ea, on observer oaid.
II
here.”
IIThe oouh eto its meat upply from
to “democratize” the Emiraes. Local councils, still pretty much
under the Emirs’ thumbs, are being expanded to include more commoners.
At he moment here are no direct elections to the northern House
of Assembly. Represeutativee are chosen in a complicated electoral
college procedure and there is no secret ballot. Direct elections
and the secret ballot are to be introduced eventually and it is
said that the Emirs, fearful of losing their powers, are opposed to
these.
Side by side with promoting education, efforts are being made
The north, however, is deeply rooed in tradition and authority
and it remains to be seen whether western ideas of parliamentary
democracy will take hold. Talk goes on about ballot boxes and
political parties, but slavery still exists in parts of the
northern region. It has no legal statue, of course, but it exists
on a voluntary basis.
DER~ 42
Before %he adven of the British, he slaves brousht o Soko%o
as tribue from the vassal Eirs were apportioned ou aon6 he
palace retinue. These days the Sulan has been reduced to an
allowance and can no longer afford to maintain a large retinue.
The retainers have drifted elsewhere and some have become poor
farmers and poor town dwellers. Their slaves and he slaves
children or randchildren are still wih 5hem.
The slaves ow that they can leave their masers if they wish,
but hey have no other place to go. Some have been in slavery for
so many enerations that they have no idea from what village they
were taken. Even if they found the village, they would be unwanted
strangers there. In some towns where there is development and
opportunities for employment, the slaves have left their masters.
But there is little work in Sokoto.
of his slaves, an educated northerner .said o me.
“Sometimes if the master is very poor, he will sell one or two
IIThe slaves do
II
not mind because they know there will be more food for them in the
house of a man who is able to pay money for them.
In Kano itself, au Emir was installed in 1926 ou condition that
he get rid of some 3,600 palace hangers-on, all slaves. They had
been errorizing he countryside and extorting money from people.
There are opportunities for work in Kano and the ex-slaves have
been absorbed into wage employment. Another old custom in northern
Nigeria was the keeping of euuchs in the Emirs’ palaces. I was
told that there are still a few today. “I know of two, one man
said. “But I do not know if they became that way from disease
or from something else.
au
The Kano market is one of the greatest in the Western Sudan and
it probably has changed but little from the old days. It covers
several acres and dozens of languages are spoken in it. You see
tribesmen arriving from the Sahara, mounted on camels and leadin
trains of pack camels. Tall Tuaregs, the blue-veiled men of the
central Sahara, are there iu numbers and Fulani nobles arrive
mounted on fine horses. Southerners hawking JuJu charms and Hausas
peddling cheap watches rub shoulders with fierce Shuwa Arabs from
Lake Chad, who speak a dialect of Arabic and use classical words
uo longer spoken by other Arabs The stalls are tiny and a great
deal of money changes hands iu the market every day. Some Hausa
traders, after acquirin a stock of goods, will set out on Journeys
that will take them as far as Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo.
You can buy Just about everything in the Kano market and the wares
include camel’s hair blankets, swords, daggers, ornamental Maria
Theresa dollars and 19th century French five-franc pieces, high-
pommelled desert saddles, embroidered saddle blankets and cruel-looking
bits.
I stopped to photograph an old Tuareg man. e stared at the
camera first in suspicion and then in amusement. Perhaps he had
never seen one before. I laid a shilling don and a Hausa quickly
DER 2
I0
snatched it up. “He is his master,” explained All, a young Hausa who
was showln me arouud. I put anotheP shilling in the Tuareg’s baud.
The Hausa qu,i, ckly demanded that one as well. We walked on through
the crowd.
Ale.’ In he old days those Tuaregs were devils,” All
exclaimed. “I’hey would come down here fighting and killing all t, he
time. But now that the British have come there is no ore of that,
of course.
That afternoon I boarded a plane to fly to Tripoli, Malta and
home. We flew over the Sahara at 15,OOO feet and it was cold that
high up. The plane was filled with Euglishmen and their wives and
children. They had Just completed au arduous tour of duty in Nigeria
and now they were going home for a long-awaited holiday. They were
iu a gay mood and he drinks flowed free and the plane was noisy
with talk and laughter.
The desert was more han two miles beneath us. Its desolate
exoanses reached to the horizons. The sun was seting. Fore a few
moments, the Sahara was ablaze with blues, reds and oranges. The
sun-had set on many a now-forgotten Sultanate, Kingdom and civilization
around the great desert before. Now, in Nigeria, it was setting
ou British rule. Something new, and probably different, was about
to rise in its place.
Slncerely,
David E. Ree
i
Received New York 5/23/55.
