Corrects Misstatement

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

May I correct a misstatement made in Monday's CRIMSON? I don't know where your reporter got the notion that I said that Emerson and Thoreau were "subjects of persecution when they attempted to speak out 'for peace and liberty.'" I made no such remark. My speech at the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace dwelt on the aspects of the American tradition most valuable for the world today and cited specifically Emerson's internationalism, Thoreau's determination to stand on principle in resistance to what he deemed an imperialistic war against Mexico, and Melville's and Whitman's conception of the heroic potentialities of the common man.

Incidentally, the sessions of the Conference which I attended bore no relation to the sweeping denunciation made in your columns by Professor Schlesinger, Jr., who was, I believe, not there. The panel on Writing and Publishing was not "exclusively propaganda," but an occasion at which many conflicting points of view were freely presented and debated. F. G. Matthiessen