To the Editor of the Crimson:

It seems unfortunate that the principal lines of Mr. Freedman's attack on the Advocate in Monday's Crimson are based on what would seem to be deliberate misconceptions of the magazine's policy.

Thus, Mr. Freedman suggests that the Editors of the Advocate make no attempt to secure the best undergraduate writing available at Harvard; the facts would indicate otherwise. In addition to three competitions held during the course of the year, which attract upwards of one hundred and fifty candidates, the magazine makes a further canvass of competition courses, seeking out their most capable work; and is responsible also for the Story Magazine fiction contest, which this year, for example, attracted some fifty contributions. That there can be possible objection to the material printed is readily granted; but the Editors of the Advocate, in choosing work, place no restrictions on subject matter or theme, limiting themselves exclusively to the literary value of the work submitted, as they see it.

With regard to Mr. Freedman's complaint that the Advocate prints unsufficient (sic) fiction reflecting "college life," one can only reply that the Advocate has never set itself up as a literary version of the Crimson, that if the contributors choose to occupy themselves with what Mr. Freedman so quaintly described as "Freud and frou-frou," it is in itself a reflection of a prevalent spirit, and that any significant change in the contents of the magazine will come not through peevish, unsubstantiated complaints via the daily press, but rather through attention to the elementary principals of literary form. Marvin Barrett '42, President.