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Otago Daily Times, Issue 19616, 21 October 1925, Page 4

MR “PUSSYFOOT” JOHNSON'S VIEWS. TO THE EDTTOB. Sir, —There has been forwarded to me a cutting from your issue of October 17 containing a statement by your San Francisco correspondent in regard to the misrepresentation of Mr W. E. (“F'useyfoot”) Johnson that appeared in your paper. Your correspondent resents our criticism of this. He points out that hi s authority was the San Francisco Chronicle. Ho asks for a full apology. In the light of his statement, lam quite willing lo accept hie declaration that he had no sinister purpose to serve by sending on the item of alleged news. Your special correspondent must know that is not uncommon for the reporters of American newspapers to build up from their imagination stories of things that never happen, and of interviews that never take place. Tins story of the famous Floating Palace and Cabaret outside the three-mile limit that appeared with the most circumstantial details a little while ago, is a typical example. Investigation proved that the ship never existed anywhere except in the reporter’s imagination.

If Mr “Pussyfoot” Johnson had made any declaration that was a reverse of his views on the liquor question, the matter would he one of such importance that we should think it likely that a correspondent would have inquired at least at the branch office of the Anti-Saloon League, San Francisco, to find out whether the facts were as stated. It would appear from your correspondent’s statement that he had no malicious purpose in sending along this abstract from the American papers, and I freely accept his statement In this regard. Mr Johnson’s own letter to me, dated August 20 enclosing a copy of what he - sent to you refers definitely to "that celebrated Kansas City interview which I did not give.” I think that when I describe as an absolutely false statement the report of an alleged interview that, Mr Johnson never gave, I am within the bounds of permitted comment. —I am, etc., J. MiLTOK Motrai, Publicity Organiser.

Wellington, October 18. [The publicity officer of the New Zealand Alliance is less than frank in the above letter. lie merely goes the length of admitting that our San Francisco correspondent had no ulterior motive in forwarding to us the statement to which exception was taken.’ He might, at least, have had the courtesy to admit that there was no reason why our correspondent should suspect that a statement in the San Francisco Chronicle was erroneous.—Et). O.D.T.]