Letter from Burke & Company to Dr. Alfred E. Stearns, June 12, 1915

Letter from Burke & Company to Dr. Alfred E. Stearns, June 12, 1915

Letter from Burke & Company to Dr. Alfred E. Stearns, June 12, 1915

Typed letter sent from Burke & Company to Dr. Alfred E. Stearns. Did not realize Stearns was Lee's financial guardian. Enclosed bill. Tried several times to contact Lee. Sent bill to collections after not hearing from Lee. States company has endured sharp practices from boys at Phillips.

Dear Sir:-

We have reference to your concluding sentence in your note to us of the 8th inst. and want to express our feeling that you do us a very great injustice.

We did not know that you were in charge of Mr. Lee’s interest. Possibly we have been possessed of this knowledge through our Andover representative, but this information was never given to us.

We are enclosing a statement of Mr. Lee’s account, and would say that besides mailing him a bill in due course upon the first of the month following his purchases, we sent him a statement on August 13th, and addressed him a courteous note on November 11th, after we learned that he had gone from Andover to Yale. A notice was sent to him on February 25th, in the name of the Legal Process Company, asking his attention to his obligations to us.

In response to this, we received a note from him, under date of February 26th stating that if we would send him a bill for the same, settlement would be made immediately. Nothing further was heard from him after sending our bill, and on May 21st, because of this fact, we felt obliged to pass the account to the Legal Process Company for collection.

Considering all the circumstances, we don’t know what other course we could have followed, think that if you were in our position you would have done the same as we have done.We regret very much that there should he any feeling arise in this matter.

While addressing you, we want to say that we have borne patiently, and without a murmur, many sharp practices by the boys attending Phillips Andover. We believe that we have never troubled you except in one instance, and this was for some information, which you graciously gave to us. It would seem to be the intent of many of the boys at Andover to play sharp with us, knowing that they were minors, and unless we could prevail upon their parents or guardians to collect our accounts, nothing could be done to them.

We are very sorry to make this report, but it is a statement of actual facts.

Yours truly,

Burke & Company

Phillips Academy

June 12, 1915

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