The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-11-23
LOVES PLEADING
 FOR RESTITUTION
Oscar HammerStein Is the 0b-
 ject of Alteration
FAILURE IN ASPIRATION
Opera Singer Is Reduced to Despera- ton By Oscars Treatment as All of His Letters Are Filled
 With lnfatuation.

New York, November 22.-(Special )-In further substantiation of her claims in her suit for s10OOOO for breach of contract against Oscar Hammerstein, Miss Frances Lee today gave out excerpts from some of the letters she claims MT. Hammerstein wrote her during the 10 years and mofe of the acquaintance of the impresario and the singer. One of the letters, dated August 25 1904 contains nearly 2000 words, and reads in part as follows: At your departure on that hot June afternoon you kissed me, you hugged me before a lot of people, in a particular place almost, and I felt I was leaving behind me two souls enraptured with me. l was proud and happy man. Through these years you had shared my efforts to lift myself from terrible financial dis aster into prosperity and prominence. You watched over me, you sympathized with me in temporary reverses and gloried with me in success.
 'In our room in Forty-sixth street at your side I made my most prominent in ventions and conceived and carried out my enormous enterprises. It seemed as if a genius was with me, and when I left you took my head in your hands and kissed my forehead and eyelids-it was a mingling of love and reverence. I repaid you for it by preserving for you and you alone every artery of love- a love so sweeping that every minute and moment of my existence contained a thought of you. Never in the seven years have l been untrue to you even in thought. Your letters of late have been stereotyped in character and cold, and when I thought, of the last one my blood stormed through my veins and I lay still in my bed pray ing to be struck dead. I knew I was going mad. Was that my Bruce-my girl, my love, my wife in all but name-that had suddenly turned from me, writhing in mortal pain.
 That she could turn away from Oscar Oscar Hammerstein-of whim the town is proud, who, even if I say it myself towers above common mankind; of Oscar Hammerstein, the almost boy-lke man with the heart of a girl, who never wronged a human being in his life, who had one pleasure in life, one happiness in his terrible struggle with adversity, who called Bruce his own, his life, his sunshine.
 My mind was liar. I ran away from the doctors; so it was Friday; I thought to come to Bethel on Saturday to see if Bruce was Bruce or a phantom, but they told me that Bruce was in White Lake at the Casino with a jolly crowd. She in a jolly crowd with the knowledge that was mortally inl YOUR OSCAR"
 The above, says Miss Lee, was written to her while she was in the mountains for the summer. She says MT. Hammerstein believed that she had young friend for whom she cared more than for MT. Ham, merstein, but that it was purely imagina- ton.
 Another missive, dated August 6, 1904, written to her, she says, while she was in the mountains, ran in part like this:
 'grhe only thing you admit is that you have hired rig. You never told me; it was probably none of my business. When a woman loves a man deyotedly she has no secrets. Every little happening she tattles and prattles to the loved one; it is a pleasure to her and it makes her so much more lovable. am making show of myself. You are the only person that I confde everything to- You have been one-half of me for the past seven years. I watch over you. It is only for the pleas ure of being with you few hours each day, to share your joys and troubles and kiss the eyes and mouth that always were the sweetest on earth for me-"
 One letter, dated July, 1906, reads in part:
 My Only Bruce:
 Don't lock yourself up, Bruce, Go and enjoy. I want you to come back with those glorious pink cheeks that l fell in love with so many years ago. It seems but yesterday. A long kiss and great hug from your ever loving
 OSCAR"