A Message to the American People -- When I read your letter it seemed to me impossible that I could send any message to the American People. But thinking it over at night, it came to me that, if I had to address the American people, I should like to thank them for their writers who flourished about the fifties. I would mention Garrison, Parker, Emerson, Ballou, and Thoreau, not as the greatest, but as those who, I think specially influenced me. Other names are Channing, Whittier. Lowell, Walt Whitman -- a bright constellation, such as is rarely to be found in the literatures of the world. -- And I should like to ask the American people why they do not pay more attention to these voices {hardly to be replaced by those of financial and industrial millionaires, or successful generals and admirals}, and continue the good work in which they made such hopeful progress. -- Leo Tolstoy