Message aux jeunes américains, édition originale

ORIGINAL FRENCH EDITION. One of 100 hand-numbered copies on Hollande paper.

In 1942, at the request of Dorothy Thomson, Saint-Exupéry addressed the American students of the Progressive Education Association: "Dorothy Thomson asked me to say a few words to you, and I was happy to do so [...] It seems to me that I am simply sitting among you, who are young people of good company, as a comrade, and that I am considering with you one of the problems that is close to our hearts [...] You are at war. You are young [...] The fate of the world is at stake. And you are preparing to work and fight for freedom in the world".

As the United States enters the war, Saint-Exupéry urges young students to take the measure of what is at stake, of this war whose outcome will define man, he urges them to "sacrifice", to "give freely" for the common good, for the free man in the community of men: "When you bring in the harvests without pay, for the good of the United States at war, then you will contribute to founding the whole community of the United States. And so your brotherhood."

Appearing in the American magazine The Sentier Scholastic in a translation by Lewis Galantiere on March 25, 1942, this text was thought to have been lost in its original French version. That was until the Countess de Saint-Exupéry unearthed it.

A poignant speech by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry on the involvement of young Americans in the Second World War.