AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED (ALS) Complaining about the A.S.P.C.A

Letter. Normal creases. Near Fine. Four-page letter on both sides of one 9-5/8" x 7-1/2" sheet of Curtis Hotel, Lenox Massachusetts stationery folded in half and addressed to Mrs. Bell and SIGNED as "E. Wharton." Wharton states that she has received a letter from her husband following his talk with Mrs. Bell "& of the more hopeful attitude of the board," adding "I am so afraid of having shown trop de zèle in my long screed to Mr. Opdycke (written on the way here) that I send this line to ask you all to believe that all I want is to help & not to direct this movement." Wharton further asks her correspondent to tell Mr. Opdycke "to disregard, in (truncated) my letter, whatever is not relevant, & above all, not to bother to answer it.... Just forward this to Mr. Opdycke & ask him to regard it as a postscript. I am always haunted by the fact that we started this campaign with so few specific cases in hand & I simply wrote him suggesting points which might be made against the Society's general management." In a postscript Wharton reports, "Here is a small instance of the Soc.'s methods. A very respectable man whom Teddy has known for years, & who owns valuable shooting dogs, told me that five or six years ago he lost a very valuable Irish setter, a pedigree dog. Being convinced it had been stolen, he went, after two or three months, to the S.P.C.A., stated his case & asked if they would look through their record of newly licensed dogs (it was just after licenses had been given out) & see if the dog could be traced. The answer was: 'Too much trouble''. He then offered to pay the expenses if they wd. employ some one to have it done, & they refused.-- Result: one possible subscriber alienated." Wharton's correspondent was likely Edith Bell (1857-1946), wife of Leonard Opdycke Sr. (1856-1914), a New York lawyer and social philanthropist. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in New York in 1866. (Inventory #: 021769)