The Fellows of the Library of Congress today denied anti-Semitic inclinations or sympathy for fascism in a reply to criticism of their award of a poetry prize to Ezra Pound for his “Pisan Cantos.”
Mr. Pound has been charged with making treasonable broadcasts from Italy during World War II, but was never tried because of his confinement in a mental hospital here. Rep. Jacob K. Javits called for a Congressional investigation of the award. The selection of Mr. Pound for the prize has also been criticized by articles and editorials which began in June in the Saturday Review of Literature.
The Fellows reply, released by the Library of Congress, said of the judges who made the award to Mr. Pound, “no sympathy for fascism, no condoning of anti-Semitism exists among them. To assume that they may or must have such sympathies is to deny them the capacity to perceive literary distinction in a work which expresses and springs from attitudes and opinions they do not share.”
Sen. Theodore F. Green, chairman of the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress, has announced that the Committee will consider the possibility of an inquiry when it meets in the near future. Mr. Pound’s award of the 1,000 first annual “Bollinger Prize in Poetry” last February drew fire from liberals and Jewish organizations throughout the country. The “Pisan Cantos” are said to show the poet’s anti-Semitic and fascist leanings.
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