New Yorker Catches Malott's Miscue

An item in. the New Yorker magazine and a long silence from Cornell's official spokesmen resulted in a faltering start for President Deane W. Malott, who took office at Ithaca last September.

The "Funny Coincidence Department" in the November 10 issue of the New Yorker reprinted parts of the material used by Malott in his inaugural address with that used by Sarah Lawrence President, Harold Taylor, on several occasions.

The two reprints in the New Yorker were almost identical.

The Cornell Daily Sun, campus daily, asked Malott several times for a comment, but was refused word until November 29. Unlike University officials, who stated that the incident was of little importance, the Sun reported that the subject was one of "conflicting opinions and widespread discussion on campus."

The New Yorker reprint shows that the speeches contained almost the same wording. The reprint of Malott's address begins, "Emerson ... best stated the mood of America, at its youthful best, when he asked..." The reprint of Taylor's speech beings. "It is Emerson who states the mood of America, at its youthful best, when he asks..."

In his statement to the Sun, Malott claimed that the material came from random notes in his speech file. He added that it had come to his attention in the form of some "educational handout or filler paragraph in a weekly newspaper which was printed with no reference to source or authority."

Taylor's material was first printed in a 1949 issue of the Harvard Educational Review. It appeared again in a Community Relations Service Pamphlet, a magazine circulated to educational institutions over the country. Dr. Taylor's picture was on the cover, and he was credited with authorship of the article.

Malott further complicated the situation by making a statement on November 23 in a long-distance telephone conversation to the city editor of the Kansan, daily of the University of Kansas. Malott was president of that University prior to his post at Cornell. He announced that his remarks had not been meant for publication.

Malott commented on November 29 that he had refused to give the Sun an official statement "because he felt that there was no purpose to be served by a refutation of the implication that material had been taken by him from Dr. Taylor."