January 10, 1949

Mr. John Berryman,
120 Prospect Place,
Princeton, N. J.

Dear Mr. Berryman:

The special Poetry Number of the Saturday Review of Literature is to appear on March 19. I am writing you to ask whether you have a short poem (I say "short" because I do not know how much space I will be allowed) which I could publish in it. I should like very much to have you in the Poetry Number. If you have a slightly longer poem that you would like to have published I would be glad to consider that too and use it if I can possibly get the space. I hope, in any case, that you will let me hear from you before February 1.

With cordial best wishes,

Sincerely,

agm

William Rose Benet

February 17, 1949.

Dear Mr. Berryman:

By now you will have seen
your request concerning Stephen
Crane printed in the February 19
issue of the Saturday Review.
I'm sorry I'm not to have a poem
from you, but I understand per-
fectly how you feel.

Sincerely,

agm

William Rose Benet

February 17, 1949.

Dear Mr. Berryman:

agm

COPY - for W.R.B.

120 Prospect Street
Princeton, New Jersey

November 4, 1949

Mr. Henry Seidel Canby
Chairman: Editorial Board
The Saturday Review of Literature
New York, N. Y.

Dear Mr. Canby:

I have the duty of forwarding to you the enclosed
letter signed by seventy-two American writers and intellectuals,
to which is attached a separate statement by Mr. John Dos Passos.
In behalf of the signers I urgently request that the letter be
published in a conspicuous place in your columns at the earliest
possible date, and that at your earliest convenience you notify
me whether it will be published and if so on what date. I have
on file the authorizations for the signatures.

P.S. This sort of thing seems to me personally very
unfortunate, and I venture to hope that your
staff will feel obliged to comment editorially
upon a protest so broadly decided.

COPY

November 4, 1949

The Editors
The Saturday Review of Literature
New York, N. Y.

Sirs:

The literary and political values of the poetry of Ezra Pound offer wide latitudes of support and opposition, as all poetry does in one degree or another. Discussion of the Bollingen Award in these terms was to be welcome.

But the methods employed by Robert Hillyer in the recent attacks published in your pages (June 11 and 18, 1949), and supported by your several editorials, are in our opinion reprehensible, in the following terms:

Under pretense of attacking the award of the Bollingen Prize to Ezra Pound, you sanctioned and guided a prepared attack on modern poetry and criticism, impugning not only the literary reputations but the personal characters of some of its foremost writers. In this blanket attack you included persons not connected with the award in any capacity, as well as its donor. Through the technique of the smear and of "guilt by association" you linked the names of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Paul Mellon, and Carl Jung, and adumbrated a Fascist conspiracy, for which you did not produce the evidence, and by implication you included in this attack not only certain of the Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress but also a larger group of unnamed writers who were participating in the "conspiracy". We submit that public decency, to say nothing of personal honor -- two indispensable standards of democratic action -- required you, in view of the gravity of the charges, to name specifically all the accused persons. Considering the number of printed retractions and apologies in subsequent issues of your journal, we are forced to believe that your critical examination of the validity of Robert Hillyer's allegations, before you published them, was somewhat less than disinterested, and that thus your campaign was conducted in a dangerous and unprincipled manner.

We therefore protest against the methods of your attack, which in our opinion has violated the standards of responsible literary controversy, and thus has dealt a blow to American culture.

Signed:

James Agee             Frederick Mortimer Clapp      Joseph Frank
Newton Arvin           W.T.Couch                   Francis R.B.Godolphin
Joseph Warren Beach   Malcolm Cowley               Clement Greenberg
Joseph D.Bennett      Louis O. Coxe                Stanley Edgar Hyman
John Berryman         R.S.Crane                    Randall Jarrell
Dorothy Bethurum      E. E.Cummings                 Alfred Kazin
R. P. Blackmur        J.V.Cunningham               Weldon Kees
Harvey Breit          Francis Fergusson            Lincoln Kirstein
Cleanth Brooks        Robert Fitzgerald           Adrienne Koch
James Burnham        John Gould Fletcher          Harry Levin
Hayden Carruth       F. Cudworth Flint             Dwight Macdonald
Richard Chase         Wallace Fowlie                 Maynard Mack

(Signatories continued on next page.)

COPY

(2) To the Editors of the Saturday Review of Literature

(Signatories continued:)

Margaret Marshall
William Meredith
Arthur Mizener
Samuel H. Monk
Frederick Morgan
Howard Nemerov
Whitney J. Oates
William Van O'Connor
Elder Olson
J. E. Palmer
John Pick
J. F. Powers
Brewster Ghiselin
Henry Rago
Philip Rahv
I. A. Richards
Ralph Gilbert Ross
Mark Schorer
Delmore Schwartz
Charles S. Singleton
Donald A. Stauffer
James Johnson Sweeney
Peter Taylor
Virgil Thomson
Rosemond Tuve
Andrew Lytle
Leonard Unger
Mark Van Doren
Eliseo Vivas
Glenway Wescott
Ray B. West, Jr.
John Hall Wheelock
Philip Wheelwright
Oscar Williams
W. K. Wimsatt, Jr.
Yvor Winters
Stark Young
Morton Dauwen Zabel*
B. H. Hagein

*Mr. John Dos Passos authorizes the publication of a separate statement as follows:

Westmoreland, Virginia

October 26, 1949

Since I haven't followed the controversy over the award of the Bollingen Prize to Ezra Pound it would be hard for me to make any specific statement about it. This much I can say however: I thought the award to a poet who, although erratic to the point of insanity, still remains one of the masters of English prosody showed great courage and a feeling for the solidarity of the republic of letters pretty unique in the world today. I can say this in spite of the fact that I have only aversion for Ezra Pound's political notions and no personal affection for his work. I sincerely hope that there will arise enough defenders of the great humane concept which in my opinion underlay the decision of the committee that made the award, to shout down its detractors.

Signed: John Dos Passos

Transmitted on this date to the Editors of the Saturday Review of Literature by John Berryman.

/sd/ John Berryman