CHARLESTON, W. VA., March 30, 1912. "Owing to delayed trains, did not reach home nor receive your telegram of Friday until last night. West manuscript received and read this morning. Am directed to renew protest against its publication as contrary to facts in most important particulars and most unfair in attitude and spirit. An article published in your journal on a matter so important should be prepared by one of your own staff from facts gathered by your own investigator. Am authorized to place in your hands immediately five hundred dollars, being amount estimated by you as necessary to cover expense of special examination and article, and urge you in justice and fairness to accept and use it for the purpose. It is impossible to prepare an answer to the West article and have it in your hands tomorrow, nor is one-fifth the space given West article sufficient for an adequate reply thereto. If you decline to make your own investigation and report, it is submitted that justice requires that time be given so that West article and reply may appear in same issue and space equal to article be given for reply. If you refuse this I respectfully ask the publication of this protest with Mr. West's paper." [Signed] NEIL ROBINSON. [Secretary West Virginia Mining Association.] * * * * * In line with the general practice of THE SURVEY when an article makes major charges against an institution or industry--a copy of Mr. West's manuscript was sent on March 20 to the secretary of the West Virginia Mining Association, with a request that he indicate any points which "seem to you in error." On March 26 THE SURVEY received a letter from Mr. Robinson, who called in person the day following to protest against the publication of the article as unfair, and not of the calibre expected of THE SURVEY by the public. He also offered us every facility if we would make an independent staff investigation. We stated that such a staff inquiry in the West Virginia field was beyond our means, that we had exercised due care in selecting Mr. West as a non-combatant observer, and that the manuscript had stood the test of criticism in various quarters. Further, we stated that if Mr. Robinson could there and then dislodge the major statements of fact in the article, we would surely not publish it; otherwise, we would hold two pages of the same issue of THE SURVEY open until Monday of this week for a statement in rebuttal. In the interval a galley proof of the article was sent Mr. Robinson containing revisions to cover minor points of criticism made by him and other critics. Later issues of THE SURVEY are open to the West Virginia operators for a full reply; and the findings of a federal inquiry which would resourcefully and dispassionately cover the ground would, of course, be handled at length. Y. M. C. A. GROWTH