Box 52

Scope and Contents:

(Diary 1. Green leather.) This is the earliest dated diary in the collection. Burks is 16 years old, a senior in high school and writes mainly of his love for fellow student Jane Lyle. He is an otherwise typical student, spending time with friends, attending sporting events, and having difficulty in French class.

Scope and Contents:

(Diary 2. Brown leather with zipper.) Burks writes of a possible future with Jane and posits that, "75% of marriage is just good companionship." He comments on the novel Flotsam by Eric Remarque and offers several pages of quotations and political interpretations of what he refers to as "the European problem."

Scope and Contents:

(Diary 3. Small brown leather with rope design and silver lock.) Includes comments on Roosevelt's speeches including his defense of trade agreements and unemployment. Though only twenty-five years old, Burks begins to be invited to lecture in various undergraduate political science classes. Upon hearing a lecture by Major George Fielding Eliot, Burks remarks, "like most strategists he confused military policy with diplomatic policy."

Scope and Contents: (Diary 4. Black leather with gold lettering and silver lock.) Burks writes from Minnesota and reflects on Roosevelt's four freedoms and the growing crisis in Europe. He busies himself attending lectures at the University. His friends and colleagues include pacifists, communists, and socialists and he ponders the question of what it means to be an American. He graduates in June and bids farewell to Minnesota. He returns briefly to Cincinnati and sees Jane to renew...