USE OF NON-DE-PLUMES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 124, 24 April 1940, Page 10

USE OF NON-DE-PLUMES.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Your courteous correspondent "Sinner" wonders why I am so prejudiced concerning anonymous writers. 1 will endeavour to explain, prefacing my explanation with the statement that iike all other specimens of humanity the ranks of anonymous writers contain good and bad. The latter make statements in a good many cases that they would not make over their own names, and masquerade to deceive the public as to their real station in life. The position in life of a person who expresses an opinion places the value on that opinion. Let me illustrate m,y point. A person writes over the riom-do-phime of "Mother of Nine" and comments adversely on the Government's policy as affecting the household, intended to sway public opinion. The public value that opinion according to the source of emanation. But what if the alleged "Mother of Nine" is a man ? The public are deceived by a wolf in sheep's clothing. With that procedure, the pen will never be mightier than the sword. One would not expect to get an article on submarines from a draper, for instance, but from a shipwright it would carry some weight. In dispensing justice, where would the judge of a court l>c if he had to rely on anonymous evidence? The young generation require to be educated on facts, not fiction, and the public get a lot of the latter under the cloak of anonymity. I think my brother "sinner" will agree that the Greatest of All did not hide His light, and that one's signature guards one's utterances. lie "Young Worker," he states that "Seeker" did not slur the pensioners, but he proceeds to do it himself. It is a wonder "Young Worker" does not seek to have the old age pensioners prohibited from being in the Square at all. Where does he want them to go ? What is the good of erecting memorials to deceased pioneers when the living ones are subject to "Young Worker" and company's treatment?—l am, etc., W. F. CUTLER. 47 Ada Street, 22-1-40.