R’s story is not sufficiently detailed to show much about the development of those reaction patterns which disposed him to meet old age in such a way. He was the only child of a poverty-stricken family who played by himself and got on well with his books. Some local lawyers took an interest in him and helped him through school. He read law and was admitted to the bar. After making a precarious living for a number of years, he was elected to various local offices, and then to Congress. He was reputed to be an impractical dreamer, and enjoyed making rather fanciful speeches. His legislative career as recorded in the _Congressional Record_ was undistinguished, containing the usual quota of pension bills and “extensions of remarks” during tariff debates. He was opposed to the annexation of the Philippines, and hostile to imperialism; in this he went along with his party, and likewise indulged a personal conviction. He practiced law desultorily, after having been defeated for the legislature, and devoted himself to study and writing. His one published volume is a vague disquisition on human affairs, which accurately reflects the indeterminate, rhetorical, and meliorative quality of his thinking. He married a woman of his own age when he was a young man. There were no children. When the paranoid rather than the manic-depressive strain runs through the character, nebulous and all-embracing pessimism about the world is sharpened to specific accusations. Everyone who is prominent in public life is a potential object of such attacks. One might hazard the conjecture that the importance of an individual in the community’s estimation may be measured by the number of “crank” letters to him and about him. One such crank, S, wrote a trunkful of letters accusing public men of graft, of being dominated by “Big Biz,” and offering suggestions to government officials. He complained of being persecuted and victimized by prominent people, especially by Harry F. Sinclair, the oil man. This was attributed by him to the fact that he had written a letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court calling His Honor’s attention to the Teapot Dome scandal which was being ventilated in the press, and naming Mr. Sinclair as the responsible party. Since then Mr. Sinclair had prevented him from getting a job, and paid his own sister to throw him out on the street. During his divorce proceedings he wrote to the American Bar Association to protest against the “shyster lawyers” who were representing his wife, and claims that Mr. Taft and Mr. Root answered him in the papers the following day. When Mr. John W. Davis was a presidential candidate he wrote to him, describing the various attacks to which he, S, had been subjected. Mr. Davis neglected to reply and did nothing about it, so S prevented his election, and feels that Mr. Coolidge owes him something for being elected. “I wrote to Hearst and I believe that turned the trick.” In this letter he divulged the fact that Mr.