(_unfit to print_)
ARDEN, DEL., May 31, 1910.
EDITOR OF THE _Times_, New York City,
DEAR SIR,--Some time ago your news columns contained a despatch to
the effect that three young ladies in Garden City, Long Island,
were undertaking a three days' fast as a result of reading a
magazine article recommending this measure. In your editorial
referring to this despatch, you say that the ladies are "the
victims of a shallow and unscrupulous sensationalist." As I am the
writer of the magazine article in question, I presume that this
means me. I did not intend to make any reply to the remark, as I
figure that I must have long ago lost whatever reputation could
be taken from me by newspaper comments. Thinking the matter over,
however, I concluded that I would venture a mild protest, not on
my own account, but for the sake of the important discovery of
which I told in the article in question.
It is one of the privileges incidental to owning a newspaper that
one can call other people names with impunity, and can always have
the last word in any argument. Will, however, your sense of fair
play give me the privilege of asking you to state just what you
meant by the slur in question? In the magazine article I stated
that I had taken several fasts of ten or twelve days' duration,
with the result of a complete making over of my health. I presume
that the writer of the editorial had read the article before he
condemned it. Am I to understand that he got from the article the
impression that I was telling lies, and that I had never really
taken the fasts as I said I had taken them? Or was it his idea
that I exaggerated the benefits derived therefrom, in order to
make "victims" of the three young ladies in Garden City?
I might say that I took the fasts in question in an institution
where hundreds of people were fasting anywhere from three to fifty
days; that during the entire time I was under the observation of
many people; my weight was taken regularly every day, and all
the symptoms which I described were observed by physicians and
friends. May I also call attention to the fact that I published
in the article two photographs, one of which was taken four years
ago, and the other of which was taken after the fasting treatment?
The contrast between these two photographs was sufficiently
striking, it seems to me, to impress anyone. May I also call
attention to the fact that the article was found of sufficient
interest to be published in one of the most representative of
the English monthlies, the _Contemporary Review_? Also that the
_Contemporary Review_ appended to the article the testimony of
half a dozen people whose cases I had myself observed, and whose
letters I have in my possession?
I fully recognize the fact that many of the things for which
I stand as a writer are abhorrent to you, but surely that is
no reason for condemning recklessly and blindly an important
discovery concerning human health, simply because I happen
to be the person who is telling about it. Setting aside all
personalities, and simply in the interest of the discovery in
question, I respectfully invite you to make an investigation of
the claims which I have set forth in that article. Let me give you
the names of some people who have fasted either under my direction
or in my presence, and who will tell a representative of your
paper of the results it has brought to them. I can tell you of a
dozen such people. Also, perhaps by way of preliminary, you might
be willing to publish as an appendix to this letter of mine the
communication from another of my "victims," omitting the name of
the writer unless you obtain permission to use it.
Yours truly,