BOTANIC GARDEN DONORS MAY SEEK RETURN OF GIFTS

It is possible that contributors to the Harvard Botanic Garden since July will request that their money be returned, according to information received yesterday.

S. F. Hamblin, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Landscape Architecture, and discharged Director of the Botanic Garden said yesterday that he had been assured that some such requests will be made, and the president of one of Boston's Garden Clubs, when reached by telephone late yesterday, said that such action was being seriously considered by her group, but that as yet no definite steps had been taken.

Mr. Hamblin yesterday clarified his position with reference to the recent situation which led to the temporary closing of the Garden, and questioned several statements made by President Lowell in an official communication last week.

First Intimation of Change

"The first intimation that I had that there would be any change in the Garden," said Mr. Hamblin, "came with the instructions given me by Mr. Lowell on Wednesday, October 16, in relation to the closing of the gates. I find that the Visiting Committee, departmental heads, officers of the University, and also the Garden Clubs and other people interested in giving for the Garden, knew nothing of this decision.

"If it was decided last spring to close the Garden, as President Lowell said Tuesday, it must have been known to only a few people at that time, for the director and people interested were not notified."

"If it was decided last spring," he continued, "why wait until October 16 to make it public? More than $5000 has been spent since July; the giving public has thus been misled for several months, and gifts received since July can properly be asked to be returned."

According to Mr. Hamblin, plans are now being made to build a bigger botanic garden somewhere else, as an outlet for the enthusiasm for gardening, and to divert feeling in the present situation. "Whether or not the Garden can be used for anything other than a botanic garden is for the proper officials to say," was his statement. "The public will soon center its interests on something else."

One of the members of the visiting committee, who is a member of the North Shore Garden Club, which is interested in the work of the Garden and has contributed to its work, said that "we have always had hard sledding to get funds. The University has always given us $3000 yearly to pay off the debt of the Garden, and we have raised $5000 to carry on the work. Last spring the University, after the debt had been paid, would not continue to contribute their $3000 to the Garden any more. And some time after the last meeting we, the members of the Botanic Garden Visiting Committee, received a statement of the members of the "Visiting Committee to the Department of Botany", with our names listed there as members! It was done without consulting us, so far as I know; the first knowledge I had of it was when I was notified that I was on the Visiting Committee to the Department of Botany. I returned the leaflet to the University with 'Botanic Garden' inserted in parentheses."

Mr. Hamblin has a letter from Roger Wolcott '99, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Overseers, written during May, at the time when the Visiting Committees to the Botanic Garden, the Botanical Museum, and the Department of Botany were consolidated into one group. The second paragraph of this communication, which is reproduced in full below, indicates that no changes in the conduct of the Garden were planned at the time it was written.  23 May, 1929.

Professor Stephen F. Hamblin, Lexington, Mass. Dear Mr. Hamblin,--

There is no misunderstanding of the Garden problem on the part of the Board of Overseers, for Mr. Lowell was present and voted "Yes" on the consolidation of committees, which will go into effect next September. Mr. Straus was also present and voted Yes.

In organizing the new committee we shall do exactly what you wish, namely to put on all those who can be helpful financially to the Garden and to give you a Chairman who will be interested and sympathetic.  Very truly yours,  (Signed) Roger Wolcott

Concerning the statement of several members of the Department of Botany that "the closing of the gates was due to a misunderstanding," and one from the publicity department of the same field which appeared in the Cambridge Chronicle of October 25, that the building of the fence was a "mistake," he said:

"I have written instructions and an oral witness to his oral order to prove that Mr. Lowell ordered the gates closed. The locking of the gates and the building of the fence were my understanding of his definite instructions. The Gray Herbarium, being an entirely separate institution, was not closed."

According to Mr. Hamblin, after his interview on October 16 with the President he wrote the following letter:  October 16, 1929.

My dear Mr. Lowell:-..

This letter is in confirmation of my understanding of your instructions in regard to the Botanic Garden, as given in a personal interview this afternoon.

The Garden is no longer to be operated as during the past five years, but because of failure of the Visiting Committee to guarantee the proper financial support, it is now to be closed to the public and operated only for such purposes in Botany as may be decided upon later.

This means that the gates are closed to visitors, that the workmen shall be dismissed as rapidly as possible, that the heat be cut off the green houses, and no further expenditures be incurred during the period of adjustment.  Sincerely yours,  (Signed) Stephen F. Hamblin.

Two days later the President wrote the following note to Professor Hamblin:  October 18, 1929

Dear Mr. Hamblin;--

I should make one or two small