(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be withheld. Only letters under 400 words can be printed because of space limitations.)

To the Editor of the Crimson:

The letter appearing in the Harvard Crimson of May 9 is an obvious masterpiece of evasiveness manifesting a woeful lack of logic on the part of a pseudo-philosopher.

Harvard is an academic corporation granted a charter under certain specific conditions. This is tantamount to a license to engage in the teaching profession, provided the University abides by the provisions of the charter. The appointment of Bertrand Russell is grossly out of accord with the conditions laid down.

Russell claims the right to "think, speak and behave as he may wish, within the law." As to the privilege to think as he may wish--Mr. Russell is undoubtedly aware that neither the courts, nor the law makers, are psychic. As for the right to speak as he may wish, within the law,--I wonder if Mr. Russell is unaware of the fact that most civilized communities have laws that forbid indecency of expression as well as profanity.

Most of the actions manifested by Mr. Russell are countenanced by neither the moral, nor legal code. Many are classified as the types of crime that decent people mention only in a whisper when it becomes necessary to refer to them at all.

I understand that Mr. Russell was engaged to teach mathematics, but if his reasoning in that line is in accord with his obvious lack of logic in other lines, then Harvard boys will be going out into the world under the mistaken impression that two and two makes five.

Reasonable and thinking people naturally frown upon any such appointment as the appointment of a man of the known proclivities of Bertrand Russell. Maurice H. Sullivan,   City Councillor.

(Ed Note: (1) The General Laws of Massachusetts contain a broad admonition that Harvard endeavor to "impress on the minds . . . of the youth permitted in its care . . . the principles of chastity and those other virtues which are the ornament of human society." The appointment of Bertrand Russell does not contravene that clause, as Mr. Sullivan suggests. Dr. Russell has stated that while on a Harvard platform he will confine himself to his lecture subject--announced as logic and semantics--since "even if I were permitted to expound my moral views in the classroom, my own conscience would not allow me to do so . . . they have no connection with the subjects which it is my profession to teach." Hence his utterances as a Harvard lecturer, the only utterances with which the General Laws cited are concerned, will not violate "the conditions laid down."

(2) Mr. Sullivan is really in agreement with Dr. Russell so far as the latter's private views, utterances, and actions are concerned. If any of Dr. Russell's statements violated "laws that forbid indecency of expression as well as profanity," or if any of his actions were not "countenanced by . . . (the) legal code," then clearly Dr. Russell would be subject to legal restraint; he has not claimed exemption from this, since all he asserts is the right to "think, speak, and behave" as he may wish" within the law" and when "not engaged" in his "professional duties." That is Dr. Russell's right just as it is Mr. Sullivan's.)