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TLS, two pages, 8.5 x 11, personal letterhead, February 6, 1948. Letter to literary agent H. N. Swanson regarding a contract dispute, in part: "This confirms our telephone conversation of Thursday evening in which I told you that I was forthwith abandoning the idea of an exclusive agency through your office, and I also told you some of my reasons. Let me emphasize again that there is nothing in any way about this which even remotely indicates a lack of friendship for you personally and for the rest of your staff, or any lack of appreciation of your services to me or faith in your abilities as an agent within the proper and natural frame of your activities. Letters like this are apt to have a nasty, formal tone, but believe me I am sincere in the above.
I always thought that Pete Bruington's argument about the legal limitations of an agent's service in connection with the supervision of contracts was open to the implication that it was made in defense of a position to which he had committed himself and from which it was almost impossible for him to withdraw. It therefore seemed to me proper and wise and in no way antagonistic to Pete that I should secure other legal opinions on the same subject, if possible of equal weight with Pete's. I have a formal written opinion from a firm of attorneys not connected with the motion picture business in any way, so far as I know, and the tone of my discussion with them satisfies me that this is the case. This opinion supports Pete absolutely. It declares that an agent may not render or procure any legal service for a client as a matter of his agency obligation, and since he may not render the service it automatically follows that he may not promise to render it. One of these attorneys is an elderly man of great experience and a barrister at-law in England and in Canada as well as a practicing attorney in California. The other is a young and rather aggressive man, lately back from four years' service in the Navy, and in some ways is not unlike Pete himself. If you or I ever had a tendency to regard Pete's position in this matter as a little extreme, we can no longer think so. He has stated the law, and the law is what he has stated it to be.
When, after you and Eddie Carter came down here to talk to me and David Tyler, I agreed to carry on with you, it was in express reliance on your assurance that I needed no personal attorney in connection with my professional affairs. It was an honest mistake on both sides, but it is now clear to me that it was a mistake. Lacking this mantle of protection which traditionally somehow agents have managed to wrap around the shoulders of their clients, I find that the idea of exclusive agency falls to pieces so far as I am concerned. In saying this I do not speak for writers as a class; I speak for one writer in his own individual circumstances. I have always wanted to try handling my own affairs, but I didn't think I knew enough law and I knew I did not have the organization. How I have the organization and it is obvious that I have to buy the law in any case. To a large extent I am already handling my own affairs. I make all the decisions; even such trifling matters as the wording of a copyright clause in a minor contract are referred to me: trifling in the amount of money involved, but not trifling in that they involve a determination of a point of law and this is something which, as we are both on notice, you cannot determine.
There are certain things which only agents can effectively do and when and if such things have to be done for me it would be only natural for me to ask you to do them, if you were willing. You have certain continuing rights arising out of previous commitments, none of which I have any desire to diminish. If any literary property now in your hands should prove saleable to motion pictures in the near future, I should be only too happy to have you handle the transaction. If MCA comes through with a radio deal within their stipulated period (ending February 15) or such clear evidence of a deal actually in the making that I should be justified in incurring the expense of a contract, that should properly by your affair too. But you are not a radio agent and you have no real radio department, and I do not think that your participation in any radio contract which might be procured by any other agent after February 15 would be such a continuing right as I have referred to above. If I am wrong about this, please instruct me. I desire to be completely fair in every way. Except for these specific matters which may be regarded as pending and your interest in those completed insofar as contractual obligations are concerned, I now regard myself as a free agent. We have no agreement which needs to be set aside; only a verbal understanding which was at one time intended should be reduced to a written contract, if a contract acceptable to both parties could be achieved. Since no such agreement has in fact been achieved, you must regard this notice of termination purely as a matter of courtesy and in no sense as an indirect recognition that a contract exists between us." In fine condition.
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