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23 October 1924
Vienna, IX. Berggasse 19
Dear Jones,
Dr. Reik sent me today the proofs of your book reviews of the next issue of the Journal. I hasten to direct your attention to a historical error in the
review of Laforgue's1 (p. 487) hoping I will not be too late for correcting it. It is the more important as you are about indicting a similar error in Laforgue's relation in the same passage.
You say: One sentence on p. 8 however is a solid mass of erroneous statements. It is to the effect that at the Nuremberg Congress in 1910 Jung, Bleuler, Adler and Stekel separated from Fr., the latter two founding the Centralblatt pour faire1 opposition à Fr. To be sure you are right in contradicting this extraordinary report. But you add from your own: at the same time Fr. founded the Zentralblatt certainly with no idea of self-opposition.2
Now I am sorry to say, your version of the matter falls short of historical truth too. The Zentralblatt was not founded at the Congress, it was not founded by myself. The fact is, later when we were back at Vienna, Adler & Stekel called on me to inform me that they had planned a Zentralblatt and turned to Bergmann at Wiesbaden for a publisher. B. had declined to do so, unless they did succeed in bringing me in as editor. So they offerred the editorship of the journal to me and in order to convince me that no opposition was meant, they assured me I could exercise the right of Veto against any article to be published. Under this condition I accepted.
I need not say that I enjoyed greatly your criticism of the bad, unrealiable and misleading biographical pamphlet of Wittels'.3 Perhaps I could have wished it to be more severe in its tone and his dependence on Stekel might have been more conspicuously exposed. But it is a nice and dignified production. Wittels is an author of the immortal type “Lausbub” [little rascal].—
My chapter on ΨA in These eventful Years was written in Oct.-Nov. 1923 during the intervals of my operations.4 I since had to d