stefansson-wrangel-09-14-012-001

Brewer

October 18, 1923.

Dear Mr. Brewer:

This letter is to carry forward the Noice
developments, but first there is my proposal to visit Dayton,
November 3rd. This will now be impossible, for my managers have
booked me to speak in Cleveland the "morning of November 3rd."
Of course, if it is early enough I may be able to catch a train
around noon and get to Dayton in the evening. I very much hope so.
I shall try to reach Dayton the morning of the 4th if I am unable to
make it the 3rd.

According to Taylor's instructions, I induced
Anderson to stay over. He spent about half the day with Noice but
reported no progress. From his account I am a little inclined to
feel sympathetic because Noice seems to really be out of his head -
almost if not quite insane, at least for the time being. For one
thing, he has an extreme case of megalomania. He proposes for the
time being to stand strictly on his rights but generously says that
he will never be ungrateful for certain kindnesses he has received
from us, and that in later years if any of us are in financial or
other difficulties he will be glad to come to our assistance.

Anderson thinks it is possible that Noice may
honestly have thought from the beginning that he was to have the
money for the despatches. Anderson met Noice's fiancee and got a
very favorable impression. He thinks that she is in complete ignor-
ance of what Noice is going and that in all probability she would
set him right if she knew the facts. Meantime it does not seem
easy for us to get at her in that matter.

I put the legal side of the case before my
lawyers. They say there is no doubt Noice could be arrested for
misappropriation of funds since it can be established that he
received the $3,000. from Pickering on behalf of Taylor. However,
he thinks that it is possible we might fail to secure a conviction,
in which case there would be a suit for damages against us. But in
either case he advises that we do nothing, for the public interest in
Wrangel Island and in me is so great that wide circulation will be
given to anything that Noice cares to say against me. It is the
nature of newspapers that they give less currency to the rebuttal of
a charge than they do the charge itself. Consequently, the one
against whom the charges are made is always the loser irrespective