To William M. Jones, professor of English at the University of Missouri [Letter 496]

Item Reference Code: 141_IJx_034_001

Date(s) of creation

February 4, 1963

Recipient

William M. Jones

Transcript

February 4, 1963

Professor William M. Jones
University of Missouri
College of Arts and Science
Department of English
Columbia, Missouri

Dear Professor Jones:

Thank you for your letter of January 28 and for the copy of the comments which you sent me.[*] I should like to ask you to make just one correction in these comments, namely, in the sentence: “In the past few years Miss Rand has become one of the leaders of the New Conservatism that Mr. Justus mentions.” I am not a “conservative” and am profoundly opposed to some of the new conservative groups. Besides, I have not read Mr. Justus’s essay and do not know his definition of conservatism. I describe myself as “a radical for capitalism.” Therefore, please change that sentence to read: “In the past few years Miss Rand has become one of the leaders of a movement advocating capitalism.”

I deeply appreciate the rest of your comments—particularly the fact that you note that I am careful in defining my terms.

Sincerely yours,

 

Ayn Rand

AR:dk

 

*Professor Jones’s “comments” are his introduction to AR’s “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,” for a reprint in his textbook Stages of Composition: A College Reader (Boston: D.C. Heath, 1966), in the chapter “Using the Language.”