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EZRA POUND 331
would not escape, his wife was bonded for his safety. If he had
left the grounds, she would have been arrested.
It was this fact alone that prevented me and some other hotheads
from bundling Pound into a car and taking him out of the
hospital in 1950. Other patients were given daily passes into the
city when they were adjudged to be in Pound's "quiet" condition.
I wrote to Overholser's superior, Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby, who
was at that time Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, requesting
that Ezra be allowed to attend the Sunday evening concerts
at the National Gallery of Art. This reached her during the
hectic period of the Salk vaccine imbroglio, when a number of
children died from spoiled vaccine, shortly before her resignation.
She did not reply, and I addressed a similar request to Dr. Overholser.
He answered with a polite "No", explaining that the
hospital had no personnel who could guard Pound during such an
excursion. Since his wife was responsible for his custody, this
struck me as an obvious evasion. To add insult to injury, he noted
that Luther Evans still hoped that Pound would make some recordings
for the Library of Congress!
The only "privilege" that Ezra may have enjoyed was the
absence of hospital censorship of his letters. These were taken
along by Dorothy Pound each afternoon. However, this custom
was practiced by many visitors, and it could hardly be termed a
special privilege that she was not stopped and searched when she
left the hospital.
The reason for hospital censorship of letters written by mental
patients is a curious one. It is done to prevent the sane public from
being victimized by such letters. It is an interesting observation on
contemporary American life that a sales letter, request for charity,
or some similar scheme sent out by a mental patient draws, on an
average, a higher percentage of paying returns than sales letters
sent out by supposedly sane organizations. Jealous businessmen
have imposed a rigorous censorship on madmen, but even so, these
ingenious fellows smuggle out their appeals and cause a great deal
of confusion. Housewives, grammar school students, and university
professors will put ten dollars in an envelope and write, "Please
send me at once your exciting offer!"
Soon after meeting Pound, I had begun to investigate the possi-