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.
"Kastner Is Right"
Sirs: Yes, Mr. Kastner is right in suggesting [TIME, March 22, LETTERS] a reference to the source after each question in Quiz. WILL C. MATTHEWS Omaha, Neb.
Finds No Flaws Sirs: As a physician who believes the public should be better informed in matters pertaining to the advances made in medicine and surgery, permit me to voice my hearty approbation of your department "Medicine." I can assure you it is doing most constructive work, for which the entire profession should be grateful. Your articles on Dr. Lorenz, Dr. Benjamin and Dr. Dandy, in TIME, March 22, are most comprehensive. I have of late tried to find flaws in this department (which appears to be quite a pastime with your readers) but have failed in my quest. DR. H. W. E. WALTHER Charter Subscriber New Orleans, La.
"Bunk" Sirs: In TIME, March 22, under MEDICINE, appears "Virile Lorenz." I do not know how much --* and -- --* paid you for this sort of "bunk", but I do know that I do not want TIME any more. Kindly take my name off your list of subscribers.
F. D. LAROCHELLE Springfield, Mass.
"Clean, Wholesome"
Sirs : I am employed with one of the largest concerns of news dealers in the U. S. (Fred Harvey, Union Station, Chicago), working on the second shift and attending law school in the forenoon. ... I formed the habit of studying TIME and find it the most delightful little magazine on the market. . . . . . . So far not one of our customers who has bought TIME failed to return. It is a pleasure to sell TIME, since this can be done with the full knowledge that the customer gets his money's worth and will always find it enlightening and, what is still better, can safely take it home and let his wife and 15-year-old daughter read it. TIME'S English is superb, unequaled, to the point; its humor wholesome, and its editors are not color blind -- they don't see red. If every European country published one or two magazines to equal TIME, conditions throughout the world would improve and much more would be accomplished in bringing about peace, understanding and good will among nations than all the old world diplomats have done so far. . . . WM. J. BEEKER Chicago, Ill.
Miss Whitney's Speech
Sirs: My subscription to TIME was sent in entirely on the theory of avoiding the poison propaganda of our daily press. I presume that in the main you must depend upon some of the same news agencies ; but I had hoped that misstatements and garbled news would be largely omitted or carefully compared with other agencies to the end that facts would be the result.
There is a correction I wish to make under your report of Charlotte Anita Whitney's speech to the San Francisco branch of the National Women's Party [TIME, March 1, p. 10]. Miss Whitney did not state anything in advocacy of intermarriage between Negroes and whites, as you report and make the basis for comment. She was discussing some laws restricting marriage between the colors, and added in effect that this placed colored women, who were mothers of illegitimate children by white fathers, in an unfair position, which should be rectified by forcing such fathers to care for such children.
The San Francisco Daily News carried a true statement of what she said ; other papers here are prejudiced against the woman.
This to the end that your sources of news should be looked into.
KARL R. SIEBECKER Oakland, Calif.
Anti-Dull
Sirs : My subscription to TIME was because of the sparkling good humor of its columns. I wish to congratulate your sport editor on his articles on Miss Wills, particularly on the article about the recent matches with the visiting Frenchmen. [TIME, March 8, SPORT]. I was greatly disappointed to have you indicate that such items will not be repeated, in your reply to certain subscribers who took exception to them. [TIME, March 22, LETTERS].
Of course dull readers are greatly in the majority when you take the total subscription lists of all our periodicals, and it is natural for you to try to keep the support of even the dullest. But can you have your cake and eat it too? If you intend in the future deliberately to cater to dullness, you will default in the field where you have so well established yourselves and will lose many of your most enthusiastic supporters. SPENCER GORDON Washington, D. C. * * * "Fooled" Sirs: TIME also is taken in (fooled) by the astute dealers in foreign works of art. The Phoenician Fifth Ave. picture dealers and some meddlesome . . . ladies . . . finance an exhibition of examples of the work of American, English and French artists, with the result that the report is handed out for a fool press "about the general fatuity of American art."
You might just as well talk about the general fatuity of American journalism, American medicine, American mathematics--or American finance. Provincial snobbism can go no further. CHILDE HASSAM New York, N. Y.
An account of the trinational art exhibit at the Grand Central Galleries, Manhattan, was printed in TIME for Feb. 8.--ED.
Sailor Sirs: I wish to take exception to the term "insignificant" as applied to a U. S. sailor in TIME, Feb. 15, 1926, p. 16, col. 2.
No U. S. sailor is "insignificant" whether compared to H. R. H. Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden or any other person. With your aptitude for "apt" terms and phrases, several other terms might have been used that would have conveyed the meaning of your comparison without the touch of insult. H. A. TURNER Lieutenant, U. S. N. Balboa, Canal Zone Lieutenant-Subscriber Turner is quite right. No wearer of a U. S. uniform is insignificant. "Anonymous" would have been a more fortunate word choice.--ED. * * * Pursers Sirs : To write knowingly of religion, is it necessary to show one's ignorance of worldly matters? TIME, March 22, p. 22, col, 3, under "Voyage" : "Stewards, deckhands, pursers, eager to chatter." The Purser is the Steamship Company's manager on board ship, is the paymaster, and as such is a ship's officer of equal rank with the doctor. And were he given to chatter he would not be a Purser. ALFRED HEATH Elmira, N. Y.
Voyage Sirs: In TIME, March 22, p. 22, under "Voyage", [RELIGION], you print a story regarding a Mediterranean Cruise on the U.S. Liner Republic, the sources of which are stated as coming from "stewards, pursers and deckhands." The contents of the article seem to verify this. Prominence was given to the absence of tips, number of religious meetings held daily, etc. In the spirit of fairness and your established policy of giving the naked facts, unadorned, will you not give your readers the facts as furnished to the press by Dr. Charles M. Sheldon, contributing editor of the Christian Herald, who was a member of the party, a copy of which is inclosed ? The facts are that a purse of $400.00 was made up for the Cabin Steward and his crew and in addition the party while on the trip contributed between $7,000 and $8,000 to build a school for the Near East Orphans at Athens, also gave generously to a number of missionary enterprises in Egypt and Palestine. . . . JNO. A. GOODELL New York, N. Y. TIME is always glad to print facts, to right wrongs. The false report was derived from the ship crew through Manhattan pressmen. These saw through the eyes of the crew and of passengers who belonged not to the pastoral group; Dr. Sheldon well presents the other viewpoint. -- ED. * * * Babbitt Sirs: I have had little sympathy with the complaints voiced by some of your correspondents over the occasional use in TIME of somewhat unusual words, but what is one to do when reference to dictionaries fails to throw any light on the meaning of a word? Such is the case with "babbitt" used twice in the paragraph "In Palestine" on p. 14 of TIME, March 22. No meaning which I can find fits in any way with the context. LAURENCE C. JOHNSON Hamburg, N. Y. Let Subscriber Johnson inquire at the Hamburg Free Library for a copy of Babbitt, a novel by Sinclair Lewis, whose hero's name has entered the U. S. language as a noun. -- ED.
*In order to avoid libelling two honest surgeons, their names are omitted.--ED.