An Open Letter to Lord Beaverbook

notice. Here again, I have received neither acknowledgment nor reply. 8. Such persistent silence, whatever its explan- ation, compels me to bring the essential issue to your notice in this more public matter. Your editor asserts that Mr. Crowley has served a prison sentence in America for pro- curing young girls for infamous purposes. The truth is that Mr. Crowley has never been so much as accused of any crime before any court in any country in the world. Now no honest person can pretend for a mo- ment that any legal process is needed in order to expose the absoluteness of this particular lie. A criminal conviction is a matter of public record, and such an allegation as your editor has made is capable of rigorous proof or disproof, like any other matter of officially recorded public history. It is this obvious fact, instantly felt by every reader, that makes this lie so dastardly. Every reader instinctively assumes that neither care- lessness nor malice could print a downright lie in a matter which is so vital, and which can, from its very nature, be so conclusively ascertain- ed. Every reader assumes that no editor could — 11 —