Can your students write this well? This kid was 12:
Letter from 12 year-old John Kennedy, asking his father for a raise in his allowance, in 1929. Click image for larger view. Photo from Peter Lenahan
Found the image at the U.S. Scouting Service Project site, part of their celebration of the history of Scouting.
John Fitzgerald Francis Kennedy, President of the United States, was a Scout in Troop 2 in the Bronxville, NY, from 1929 to 1931. This letter was written when he was 12 years old in 1929.
Transcript: A Plea for a raise
By Jack Kennedy
Dedicated to my
Mr. J. P. Kennedy
Chapter I
My recent allowance is 40¢. This I used for areoplanes and other playthings of child- hood but now I am a scout and I put away my childish things. Before I would spend 20¢ of my ¢.40 allowance and In five minutes I would have empty pockets and nothing to gain and 20¢ to lose. When I a a scout I have to buy canteens, haversacks, blankets, searchlidgs [searchlights] poncho things that will last for years and I can always use it while I cant use a cholcalote marshmellow sunday with vanilla ice cream and so I put in my plea for a raise of thirty cents for me to buy scout things and pay my own way more around.
Finis
John Fitzgerald Francis Kennedy
Contributed by: Peter Lenahan, Bronxville, NY
Related articles
- The Scout Cabin in Bronxville, New York (Troop 2 is still going, it appears)
- Scouting is expensive, Mowry Journal (great photos of Kennedy and Scouts)
- Wiki Answers: Who was the first president who was a Scout?
- Boy Sout executive gives Fort Worth dinner audience something to chew on (star-telegram.com)
- What can change a life? You. (bedfordscouts.wordpress.com)
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] Here’s another approach, which I read courtesy of Ed Darrell over at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub: a letter from a future President asking for more allowance. […]
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