As we approach this year's "Woody Guthrie Birthday Bash VI" in Downtown Manhattan, following is another interesting excerpt from Woody's July 15, 1946 letter of 60 years ago (to Moe Ash, I think):

"I have never sung nor made songs just to entertain the upper classes, but to curse their clawing, reckless racketeers, and to warn the nervous ones that live and die by greed...

"I have decided, long ago, that my songs and ballads would not get the hugs and kisses of the capitalistic `experts', simply because I believe that the real folk history of this country finds its center and its hub in the fight of the union members against the hired gun thugs of the big owners. It is for this reason I have never really, sincerely, expected nor dimly prayed, nor hoped for a single solitary minute for a penny's worth of help from the hand of our landlord and ruler...

"I think that I have proved that a folk singer, to sing best what the people have thought and are thinking, is forced to turn his back on the bids of Broadway and Hollywood to buy him and his talents out. I feel like my work in this field will someday be seen as the most radical, the most militant, and the most topical of them all..."