D O C U M E N T 2 1 8 F E B R U A R Y 1 9 2 4 2 1 3
a word, also belong to this category. Now the war itself and especially its outcome
substantially worsened everyone’s living conditions and, furthermore, obligations
were imposed on the state to a degree it cannot afford.
These circumstances are causing a readjustment to occur toward professions ca-
tering to the immediate need, and it must continue. It is an incontrovertible fact that
the plight of intellectual workers is to some extent very bad,
indeed.[3]
But this mis-
ery cannot be solved by donations of money. Added to that, I had occasion to see
that accepting cash contributions does not have a good influence on people, quite
disregarding the difficulty of getting the money to the proper recipients.
One can only really help in two ways, namely: by procuring jobs for intellectual
workers abroad, and by working toward alleviating the heavy burden on the country
through international agreements.
One should furthermore consider that Switzerland itself is poor and economical-
ly at risk. Who knows whether the donors are not often poorer than those whom the
contributions in fact reach?
For all these reasons I cannot participate in this enterprise, whose noble motives
I do fully appreciate.
In the hope of seeing you again soon, I am with kind regards, yours sincerely,
A. Einstein.
218. To Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe
[Berlin,] 27 February 1924
Dear Mr. Anschütz,
The kind letter from your
wife[1]
and also from you greatly soothed my wife and
dispelled her
preconception[2]
that you harbored any ill-will toward her or wanted
to draw me away from her. One must take women simply as they are and make life
for them as easy as possible—if not purely out of good nature, then half out of good
nature, half out of wisdom. ¢and² You kindly helped me by doing so. I would very
much like to come to Kiel again later; I just must attend the philosophers’ congress
at the beginning of May in
Naples.[3]
This could not be avoided because a special
session there is being dedicated to rel[ativity] theory. But I can very well come to
Kiel in the middle of May and am already looking forward to it. With the spherical
shell in motion, it cannot be completely avoided that ¢forces² rotational moments
be translated onto the sphere by the magnetic
field;[4]
¢although² but the error gen-
erated by that cannot be significant, probably not larger than the one caused by wa-
ter
friction.[5]
Simply nothing can be done about that. The important thing is that