Herewith are excerpts from letters come to the desks of the editors during the past week. They are selected primarily for the information they contain either supplementary to or corrective of news previously published in TIME.
No Strutting
Sirs:
In your issue of Nov. 23, referring to the Army-Columbia football game, you mention "the strutting which, by some obscure military convention, West Point cadets are compelled to go through before every football game." What you choose to call strutting has been pronounced by leading military authorities of the world to be the finest example of military marching they have ever seen.
The obscure military convention which compels the Corps of Cadets to execute a few simple little movements on such occasions is an insistent demand on the part of the public that they do so. The cadets do not do this because they enjoy it, but because they feel it a duty to the public which supports their Alma Mater.
If it is not consistent with your policy to refer to the Corps of Cadets in a manner free from flippancy, I request that in future you omit all reference to it from your columns.
M. B. STEWART,
Colonel Infantry (DOL),
Commandant of Cadets West Point, N. Y.
Marching is not strutting. Public demand is not an obscure military convention. Colonel Stewart puts the case in its true light.--ED.
Gracious to a Fault
Sirs :
The many invaluable paragraphs appearing in the LETTERS columns of TIME constitute a fund of interesting and instructive reading. However, the paragraph captioned "Wales Flayed" on p. 2 of the issue of Nov. 16, does not. It is silly, childish, rabid.
Who is Mary Elizabeth Robinn anyhow? Possibly a member of that typical class to which she alludes in the opening statement of par. 2, who did not get her "dance."
What good purpose, even if partially true, could such blatant and impolitic attacks serve ? While I am not wholly English, I admire the Prince. He is destined to rule a great nation whose domain covers the globe. He seeks first-hand knowledge by circumnavigating the earth. His is a severe and delicate task. and he has unquestionably shown remarkable vision and wisdom thus far. He is gracious to a fault; snobbishness he does not know or at least does not practice. The world has welcomed the Prince and no doubt will continue to do so long after Mary from Boston has ceased in her attempt (however ignoble) to belittle the heir apparent to the English throne.
JAMES W. PIERCE
Los Angeles, Cal.
Sirs:
I must say that I smiled to myself when I read the letter signed "A Visitor from England" and dated at Detroit, Mich., in your issue of Nov. 30.
So this precious anonymous "Visitor" (whoever she is) wants to know why I protested because the Prince of Wales dressed up as a girl in The Bathroom Door? Well, well! And on top of that it is insinuated that my English friends are "in the pay of the Reds!"
I can only say to the Editors of TIME that it is self evident to any person of refinement or culture that any young man should behave himself, and that if a young man highly placed misbehaves himself some public protest should accompany the public notoriety which his indiscretions have received due to his prominence. That is why I protested, and I know that many of your readers approved my protest deep in their hearts.
I am glad to see that your correspondent thinks the Prince would be "amused" at my first letter. I have no doubt whatever that he would be! There is often a grain of wheat in a bushel of chaff. MARY ELIZABETH ROBINN
Boston, Mass.
Vestige of Breeding?
Sirs:
I cannot get on without TIME, for, as you are so often told, you give more information about our country, the rest of the world, science and the arts, to the cubic minute, than any paper I know, and give it in a form that I remember. You are to me like a keen, voluble neighbor with a gift for gathering gossip, but--with scarcely a vestige of breeding! After a dose of TIME I generally resort to the Manchester Weekly Guardian to counteract the effect. Those Guardian fellows are humorous and keen and . . . gentlemen!
I do not know who writes your book reviews, and I have made no attempt to find out. I do not object to his slang or the slang of any of the rest of the staff; I enjoy it, at times, with Mr. Tuck. But I feel that you should begin at once to censor the reviewers vulgarities, for your own good. Your circulation cannot depend on your catering to people who would read with relish rather than with revolt such a passage as the following, descriptive of a very brief courtship: "hardly more than an appraising glance and a rush upstairs."
D. W. HALL
Andover, Mass.
Promiscuous vulgarity is inexcusable, but the quoted phrase as a description of some of Mr. Sherwood Anderson's work does not seem altogether out of place.--ED.
Carping Eye
Sirs:
I have read the four copies of TIME received since I enrolled as a reader. I like the whole paper and read it from cover to cover. One of the amusing pages is the LETTERS. Frontal attack, rude and discourteous, many letters seem even when accusing you of the same offenses. I fear some readers have a carping eye and are what I term piddling readers--they miss the flavor of the meat because they object to the pattern of the dish. More power to ye, Mr. Editor. I'm wid ye.
The Rev. ANGUS E. CLEPHAN
New Philadelphia, Ohio.
Change in Policy
Sirs:
Alice Foote MacDougall's criticism is most fitting: your peculiar, stilted method of writing makes TIME difficult to read and detracts considerably from its many merits, so that I too hesitated--on this score alone--about renewing my subscription.
A. S. MARLOW
Lincoln Park, N. J.
Sirs: Alice Foote MacDougall [on the LETTERS page of the Nov. 16 issue] expresses what to my mind is a defect in TIME--your style of English, "Came the President," "Sneezed the Senator" and all that sort of thing. It is grotesque, unattractive and as irritating as a sore thumb.
Why not say it in plain, concise, conversational English and hold our regard and subscriptions ? It is not pleasant to be made to feel that someone is trying to see what he can do to the English language. You have shown that you can do it. Why not now be good and let it go at that?
C. T. CONOVER Seattle, Wash. In accordance with the suggestion of Subscribers MacDougall, Marlow, Conover, TIME has abandoned the hated "inverted verbs" for this (Dec. 7) issue.--ED.
Judge and The Mails
Sirs:
Forgive me, but isn't your item on JUDGE (Nov. 16 issue, p. 26,) a lapse from your usual standard of courtesy?
At lunch at the Yale Club the other day, some of us, after complimenting TIME, opened a copy to settle a dispute, when this editorial struck us like a slap in the face by a favorite son.
Obviously you don't know Cooke. I have known him for 20 years, since he left Andover. He is about the last man of my acquaintance to pull a publicity stunt of any kind, much less of the kind you suggest. I have never thought of him as a "shrewd" man; always as the most genial of men.
No one was more astonished by what happened than he, except possibly Norman Anthony, his editor.
How would you feel, if you were in his boots, or in Anthony's ?
E. R. CROWE
New York, N. Y.
TIME printed under the heading THE PRESS an item to the effect that the so-called Parisian number of JUDGE had been barred from the mails. TIME implied that the barring had been done not without the request and consent of the publisher, Douglas H. Cooke. TIME has been unfair to JUDGE, to President Cooke, to Editor Anthony. Apologies are herewith made, and thanks are offered to E. R. Crowe for having brought justice to pass.--ED.
Wastes No Money
Sirs:
I have been a reader of TIME for over a year and have renewed my subscription for two years. The latter shows my opinion of TIME. I can't be without it.
At a recent teachers' meeting, the State Head of English spoke in a most flattering way about TIME and I heartily agreed with all he said.
Since I have no complaints to make about TIME, why do I write? Because I wish Mr. Roy E. Larsen would change his methods. To say the least, he is certainly wasting your money. The inclosed card and a letter is the third I have received sine I have been a subscriber. Two I returned to him stating that fact. This one I am sending to you, asking if you will not see that he stops sending soliciting letters to those who are already subscribers.
I trust I shall not be annoyed by any more such letters.
HELEN M. FERREE
Media, Pa.
Roy E. Larsen, able Circulation Manager, makes every effort to prevent duplication in mailing circulars. But a perfect check is impossible, and if possible, would be a great deal more costly than a few "wasted" circulars. Besides many of these wasted circulars are passed on to non-subscribing friends of the recipients.--ED.