DIY History | Transcribe | Nile Kinnick Collection | Nile Kinnick and Nile Kinnick Sr. letters to William C. Stuart, 1941-1983

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Nile Kinnick and Nile Kinnick Sr. letters to William C. Stuart, 1941-1983

1982-11-28: Page 09

- 5 -
grandfather George W. Clark, who had been governor of Iowa, and
he was looking forward to a career in law and in government.
As the war in Europe developed, Nile forsaw in the summer of 1941
that the United States would be getting into the conflict and
temporarily laid aside his legal and governmental ambitions to
volumteer for pilot training in the United States Naval Air Corp.  He felt it was
his duty to prepare himself as well as possible to do the most 
he could for his country when that conflict developed. Before going into service, he helped coach the football team that fall.
Prophetically, he reported for active duty a day or two before
the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Nile was thoughtful, compassionate and sensitive with a
strong social conscience.  During the foreclosure days of the
great depression, he as a boy of 12 went with his father to visit
one of the farmers in trouble.  He was deeply disturbed because
there was no way that his father in doing is job in enforcing the rights of 
the mortagee could aid the distressed farmer in making repairs to
the roof of their home.
His diary entry for March 10,1942 contains the following
excerpt: "The inequities in human relationships are many, but
the lot of the Negro is one of the worse.  Kicked from pillar to
post, condemned, cussed, ridiculed, accorded no respect, permitted
no sense of human dignity.  What can be done I don't know.  When
this war is over the problem is apt to be more difficult ahn
ever.  May wisdom, justice, brotherly love guide our steps tothe
right solution."

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- 5 - grandfather George W. Clark, who had been governor of Iowa, and he was looking forward to a career in law and in government. As the war in Europe developed, Nile forsaw in the summer of 1941 that the United States would be getting into the conflict and temporarily laid aside his legal and governmental ambitions to volumteer for pilot training in the United States Naval Air Corp. He felt it was his duty to prepare himself as well as possible to do the most he could for his country when that conflict developed. Before going into service, he helped coach the football team that fall. Prophetically, he reported for active duty a day or two before the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Nile was thoughtful, compassionate and sensitive with a strong social conscience. During the foreclosure days of the great depression, he as a boy of 12 went with his father to visit one of the farmers in trouble. He was deeply disturbed because there was no way that his father in doing is job in enforcing the rights of the mortagee could aid the distressed farmer in making repairs to the roof of their home. His diary entry for March 10,1942 contains the following excerpt: "The inequities in human relationships are many, but the lot of the Negro is one of the worse. Kicked from pillar to post, condemned, cussed, ridiculed, accorded no respect, permitted no sense of human dignity. What can be done I don't know. When this war is over the problem is apt to be more difficult ahn ever. May wisdom, justice, brotherly love guide our steps tothe right solution."