I myself am withholding judgment until Donald 
Trump can address this matter at his next press 
conference.

-Steve Hoffman, Takoma Park MD

On 2/19/2017 7:12 PM, Barbara Schmidt wrote:
>   I am posting the following on behalf of Joe B. Fulton.
> ~~~~~
>
>
> In his January 30, 2017, review of my book _Mark Twain under Fire:
> Reception and Reputation, Criticism and Controversy, 1851-2015_, Kevin Mac
> Donnell criticized my inclusion of certain material in my book. I feel that
> clarification is necessary. As Mac Donnell said in his review, there is
> more to the story.
>
>
> _Mark Twain under Fire_ is a history of Mark Twain criticism from its
> earliest stages to very recent criticism. In the book, I rely on many
> archival documents to discuss the forces that have contributed--and still
> contribute--to the scholarship on America's foremost writer and cultural
> icon. It is possible that, reading Mac Donnell's review, a reader might
> form the impression that my use of quotations in illuminating the
> controversy surrounding the Mark Twain Project on pages 142-144 of _Mark
> Twain under Fire_ may infringe on copyright and may even be potentially
> defamatory. This would be an unfortunate, and inaccurate, impression.
>
>
> Let me begin by describing the material. The correspondence written by many
> individuals to many different people was bundled by someone (Mac Donnell
> asserts it was Robert Hirst, director of the Mark Twain Project), given a
> title page, consecutively paginated, and dated July 16, 1985. Mac Donnell
> alleges that the person who bundled these letters together distributed them
> to four Twain scholars.
>
>
> Two of these copies were eventually donated to the Mark Twain Archives at
> Elmira College in Elmira, New York, where they have been available to
> scholars for years. Both have title pages and are dated. The copy I used
> was from the Louis J. Budd Papers and has all the earmarks of a book: a
> cover illustration, a title, a subtitle that calls it "A Selected Edition
> in Photofacsimile," a table of contents, chapter titles and epigraphs, and
> consecutive pagination. I refer to this collection in my book with the
> abbreviation _MTPC_, from part of the title on the cover: "The Mark Twain
> Project's Correspondence." I quote from only ten documents out of this
> 214-page bundle. All ten are on letterhead, one from the United States
> Information Agency. All are essential to the critical history I was writing.
>
>
> I quoted from these ten documents briefly, within fair use guidelines, and
> with the permission of the Mark Twain Archives. As for whether or not any
> of these documents are defamatory, I do not take sides in my book as to the
> charges levelled in those documents. I quoted from the documents in the
> _MTPC_ because they illuminate a dynamic within this critical community
> that is essential to the subject of my history. As Mac Donnell pointed out
> in his review, one _must_ discuss the Mark Twain Project in a book like
> _Mark Twain under Fire_; I would argue, too, that the Mark Twain Project
> has exerted such a tremendous influence on scholarship and criticism, that
> no history of Mark Twain criticism can be written without appreciating the
> conflicts that occurred during the 1980s among important members of this
> critical community. In my treatment, I believe I approached the matter
> legally, fairly, and responsibly.
>
>
> Dr. Joe B. Fulton, Baylor University
>