Oct. 7. 1920

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

I hope I may be allowed to save myself much time by writing in English.
To begin with, I want to express my gratification and sense of responsib-
ility at being elected President of the Association, together with my re-
lief at the thought that I shall have your support and advice regularly
and throughout. Among the other valuable functions of this correspondence
will therefore be the opportunity of exercising our united influence on
the official control of all matters concerning the Association itself.

(1) At a meeting of the Council of our Society on Oct. 2, it was decided
to add Mr Flügel to the Council, and to promote Dr Cole to full membership
of the Society, also to elect Dr Rickman as Associate Member.

(2) We have surrendered the rooms of the Press, but have arranged with
our successor there that he is to store and use most of our furniture gratis,
in return for which he will allow our plate to remain on the door and the
address to be still used for the Press, keeping all letters, etc, till call-
ed for. Mr Hiller has the business files at his private rooms and conducts
business from there provisionally. Mr Hirschfeld, whose wife is a grateful
ex-patient of Prof. Freud’s, called on me at Dr Pfister’s suggestion, and
asked me to interview his brothers, who are the proprietors of a large
publishing and bookselling firm, and who wish to publish Psa. literature.

I shall do this at the earliest opportunity and hope to interest them in the
sale of the Journal, as well as perhaps to sell to them the stock of our
bookshop. Another publishing firm has also expressed similar interest, so
that we shall in any case not be at the mercy of Allen & Unwin, who might
take advantage of our financial position.

(3) I have condensed the Jahresbericht (Beiheft der Zeitsch.) to about
three quarters, omitting the polemic part (e.g. Italian) and have arranged for
its translation by eight people, for publication in the 3rd and 4th numbers
of the Journal; the whole of the first volume of the Journal will thus be
occupied by collective reviews, and current reviews will begin in the second
volume only. One section is already translated and I enclose it herewith for
Dr Rank. We must have an American staff for abstracting the literature there,
but the Brill problem is in the way. I had hoped to get a letter from him
before this about the Congress and the Munich money, but as none has arrived
I propose to write to him next week. The same remark holds also for the
question of the American assistant editors.

(4) Re the proposal made at the Congress that we should all follow the
N.Y. example in having in each society a special corresponding secretary
whose duty would be to be responsible for the local abstracts, reports, and
other literary matters affecting the journals. I have reminded the Presidents
of the Swiss and Dutch groups of this, and beg the Presidents of the three
Central groups to commend the proposal to their respective societies.

(5) Re Dr Ferenczi’s proposal about the Statutes of each society. I do not
think it would be possible, or perhaps desirable, that each society should

have quite identical statutes, though certainly the question of having
individual important clauses adopted by each group deserves serious con-
sideration. At present the statutes are not even printed by all the groups,
on account of printing costs. I should like to ask Dr Rank’s opinion as to
the expediency of having the statutes of the eight societies printed together
in the Zeitschrift and Journal (Z. and J. for short), with a number of
separate reprints of them. They would then be compared by members of all
groups and the desirability of adopting suitable ones from other groups
would be seen more vividly. Part of Dr Ferenczi’s suggestion falls under
the task entrusted to the central executive by the Congress, e.g. consider-
ation and report on the conditions of membership, such as the necessity of
the new member previously reading a paper. I intend soon to draft with Mr
Flügel a circular to the various societies asking them to discuss and express
their opinions on a number of definite questions of this kind. I hardly see
the necessity of consulting all societies for each new member, which would
mean much work and expense, unless there is reason to think that something
may be known of the new member in a certain foreign group.

(6) Pfister wrote to me that Dr Spielrein informed the Institut J. J. Rousseau
at Geneva that the Congress had appointed her the official representative of
the Association at that Institute. I have of course done nothing in the
matter, beyond asking Pfister to inform Bovet privately of the state of
affairs, including the lady’s mentality.

(7) To Dr Ferenczi. I wrote to Rivers warmly commending Róheim, and Dr
Rickman had two interviews with him on the subject. Unfortunately there seems

no prospect of an ethnological post. Rivers said that there were a number
of young men personally known who were waiting for the few posts available.
I will ask Dr Eder, who is at present in London, if he can use his influence
with prominent Jews here to find something; I should say that in Rivers’
opinion there might be prejudice of a national and racial sort as well in
the case of official bodies like universities. Rickman tells me that Roheim
asked him to find an English publisher for his Totemism book. I hope you
will remind Roheim that our Press is extremely anxious to publish it and
that it is a bad principle to disperse good Psa. literature.

I am happy to tell you that your letter from Budapest arrived on the
third day. Concerning your remark about Psa in Paris, someone called Berg-
uer has published there a book called La vie de Jésus au point de
vue psychologique et psycho-analytique! I am seeking for a copy.

(8) As I am writing to friends I may be permitted to add some personal
news, that my wife presented me yesterday with our first child; both are
doing excellently. Following the fashion of other analysts (Rank, Hitschmann,
Flügel, etc), we began with a daughter. The doctor, a member of our society,
observed that the child’s first reaction to this world, before the cord was
severed, was to suck her thumb! I wonder if this happens in the womb itself
as a preparation for the arousing of oral excitability for the nipple.

With warmest greetings to you all

yours
Ernest Jones