Letter from Robert Lyon to Isaac Leeser;September 25, 1850 · Isaac Leeser Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

Letter from Robert Lyon to Isaac Leeser;September 25, 1850

Author

Robert Lyon

Contributor

Isaac Leeser

Date Created

25 September 1850

Location(s)

New York City

Philadelphia

Format

Letter. 4 page(s).

Type

Letter

Language(s)

English

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p33776f66/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p33776f66

Physical Characteristics

Unlined Paper

Manuscript

Is Part Of

The Dropsie College Isaac Leeser Collection at the Penn Libraries

content

140 Nassau St New York
25th Sepr 1850
The Revd Isaac Leeser
Philadelphia
Dear Sir
In reply to yours of the 19th instant, I find the explanation you have given of the observations which appeared in the Sepr. number of the Occident totally unsatisfactory you say:
“In regard to your inquiry about the ? of the Asmonean, I have to tell you frankly that if it is true that you charged the people at Albany ten dollars for inserting a reply to Mr Spanier and then refuse doing it nevertheless, it does not look well, and this is what they asked me to print, together with some reflections which I thought it not to my business to make public. My correspondent writes " The Asmonean was directed to insert it and answered in a letter in our possession now to give it insertion as an Editorial for ten dollars. But one day after this the Asmonean came out with an abusive language and its wise editorial remarks.”
Now for the life of me, I cannot discern form this statement whether the people at Albany say, or you believe, that I charged them ten dollars under pretence of giving insertion to what you now call a reply to Mr Spanier and that I afterwards refused to print it notwithstanding they had so paid for it. Inexplicable as is your letter to me, your statement in the Occident assumed the truth, without your having troubled yourself to test your correspondents veracity. However let us look at the facts.
After having refused to notice the Albany quarrel or to side with either party, the Asmonean of July the 19th published the

card from Mr. Spanier, but an early post I was favored with a letter enclosing what purported to be a report of a meeting whereat the members of the congregation Beth El were present who passed certain resolutions therein set forth; the letter requested that I would publish the enclosed report. I replied in two ways firstly by letter probably to one or two persons referred to, and secondly, in the columns of the Asmonean of the 26th of July. My letter to Mr Beckel stated, “I must decline giving insertion to the report in its present form. Justly I have refused' insertion to communications containing personalities against Dr Wise hence I must reject attacks upon the other side Secondly, the whole of the ? resolutions are couched in language unfit for publication and totally inadmissible into the columns of the Asmonean “x x xxxxxxxxxxxxx' The seventh to the twelfth resolution with a slight revision of the language would be inserted.”
“Should you see fit to withdraw the objectionable matter and substitute that now suggested” “the charge for its insertion in the editorial columns of the Asmonean will be 12 cents p line and as it will num to eighty lines the price would be ten dollars which you will please to remit when you forward your instructions ? the same”
It must be understood that the first six resolutions those to which I imperatively refused insertion were a libellous attack upon Mr Spanier. The next resolutions laudatory of Dr. Wise and of exposing the meetings confidence in him as a Preacher &c I offered to insert upon slightly ? the language (making it english). And I ? the entire report as a personal matter, issued for party ends and personal gratification; hence it was an advertisement and to be paid for as such.

From having been assailed in the pages of the Occident. I desire that the same channel should be used to remove the expression aspersion, therefore, I furnish you, as its Editor, with the above Extract from my letter book requesting that you will in the next number, give place in your own name, to a lucid and satisfactory explanation, for you must readily perceive, and acknowledge, how indiscreet was the statement, and arrogant the assumption expressed by you, when you stated “that the publication of the ? of the Editor of the Asmonean would injure him, and increase your circulation.”
I shall not deign to comment on the evident bad taste which induced you, a professor of Divinity, to pen the following “a charge which we do not care just now to bring down upon us” the words undeserved by me, may possibly have reference to your present hostile position with your congregation, or may prospectively regard the forthcoming “Jewish Advocate” but ere the Editor of the Occident wrote just now he should have recollected, that I, as the Editor of the Asmonean, did through its agent at Philadelphia Mr Michael Allen, place its columns at the service of the Rev Isaac Leeser to answer and refute the charges of his opponents. And further that I am in possession of two notes wherein Mr Leeser writes “that he is greatly obliged to the Editor of the Asmonean for his dignified notice of A Review; and in the second Mr Leeser requests a notice, and remarks “that he is not ungrateful for favors conferred”
It matters little to me, how you act with respect to notices or reports; the Asmonean while under my charge will be conducted as I deem fit, but if you refer to an editorial of mine published

July the fifth you will perceive that I publicly announced that matters of public import or general interest would be inserted gratis, but that matter for private ends would be subject to charge. However if I do see fit sometimes to depart form this rule of the profession, the Albany affair was not one to induce me. But this week I shall do so, and shall publish gratuitously a series of resolutions laudatory of yourself and concerning the Occident. And I do this with the feelings that invariably actuate me—to wit—a perfect contempt for personal ?, and a desire to forward everything having a tendency to elevate the intellect and humanise the affections of my fellow men.
As I am particularly desirous that this matter should be entirely cleared up before your next issue of the Occident I must press upon you for an early reply stating the course you purport taking
I am Dear Sir
yours Respectfully
Rob Lyon

The above text refers to Occident Volume 8 No. 5 pages 255 through 257. Click here to view.
The above text refers to Occident Volume 8 No. 6 pages 306 through 312. Click here to view.

Identifier

LSDCBx1FF7_24

Date

1850-09-25

References

True