Authors, Editors Laud Matthiessen In N.Y. Meeting

Leading writers, editors, and publishers' honored Francis O. Matthiessen, late professor of History and Literature, at a memorial ceremony in New York city's Freedom House yesterday.

One hundred and twenty-five people, especially invited to the meeting, heard five speakers testify on what chairman Malcolm Cowley '20 called Matthiessen's "achievements as a critic and scholar and his warmth as a human being."

The five were Cowley, author and editor; John Clardi, Briggs-Copeland Assistant Professor of English Composition; Muriel Rukeyser, poetess; Matthew Josephson, historian; and Alfred Kazin, author.

Meeting Felt Necessary

Cowley told the CRIMSON last night that the meeting had been scheduled because of the "feeling of several people that Matthiessen's death should not be allowed to pass by just with the comments of the Boston papers."

In his own speech at Freedom House, Cowley said that he did not think that Matthiessen's suicide was the result of political persecution. "He had too much strength to be killed off by a columnist," the chairman stated. He added, however, that he thought the world tensions referred to in the professor's death note had helped to bring about Matthiessen's depressed state of mind.

Sponsors of the New York conference included Kenneth B. Murdock '16, professor of Literature; Mark de Wolfe Howe '28, professor of Law; Mark Van Doreen, author; Frederic G. Melcher, editor of Publisher's Weekly; and George Braziller, president of the Book Find Club.