The last extant letter to Reid confirms what any one examining
the publicity Whitman received in the Tribune, particularly
in 1876, suspected: the poet frequently supplied Reid with press
clippings from Philadelphia and Camden newspapers. In this letter,
at the top of the page, Whitman has scrawled: "? Under Bits of
Criticism in Sunday Tribune." Then he supplies the
headline: "A defence of Walt Whitman From the Philadelphia Press."
There follows a clipping from the Press concerning the
Boston censorship of the Osgood edition of Leaves of Grass.
So far as I can discover, this excerpt did not appear in the
Tribune. Significantly, presumably in the hand of Whitelaw
Reid, we find at the bottom of the letter the words "not
answered."
