Letters

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.

New Dean

Sirs:

For some weeks I have watched closely for some recognition of the fact that my friend, Alfred J. Schweppe, 34, a young Seattle attorney, has been appointed Dean of the Law School of the University of Washington. He is a graduate of the Law School of the University of Minnesota, and one of the youngest men if not the youngest to become dean of a law school. Have your correspondent, if you have one in Seattle, get a good story on him.

At least give Mr. Schweppe the story that is due him for his advancement in the field of education.

FRANK L. WALTERS

Attorney and Counselor at Law Ilwaco, Wash.

To Subscriber Dean Schweppe, congratulations; to Subscriber Walters, thanks. --ED.

Question

Sirs:

Will you kindly advise me to what extent your typographic room is unionized, that I may judge how much your reports of the present British labor situation are influenced by such unionization ?

F. O. WYSE

Milwaukee, Wis.

TIME happens to be printed by open shop labor, but that makes no difference to TIME. --ED.

John Ericsson

Sirs :

It is certain that mine will not be the only letter you receive in correction of the awkward blunder in TIME of May 10 [EDUCATION], when you state that H. R. H. the Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden comes to America to be present at the unveiling of a monument to Leif Ericsson, the early discoverer of America.

It is to honor the memory of Captain John Ericsson, a Swede who made the greatest contribution to the success of the Union cause in the Civil War, that the memorial has been erected.

Ericsson successfully undertook to build an ironclad war vessel in 90 days to cope with the dreaded ironclad Merrimac with which the Confederates hoped to destroy the shipping of the North. In constructing the Monitor, Captain Ericsson invented the turret and its mechanism, and more than 40 patentable ideas which made this armored vessel the precursor of the modern battleship--and all these inventions he presented to the Government for its use without charge. He made for use in this man-of-war the first forged projectile, which he had demonstrated at the proving grounds would penetrate the armor of the Merrimac as it had been reproduced from the specifications furnished by spies. It was the regret of John Ericsson's life that the Merrimac was not sunk by the Monitor in the first encounter. The powder charge required to drive the shell through the armor had been cut in two by order of the War Department, it being deemed unsafe to the gunners. In the second encounter, after the Monitor had narrowly escaped being rammed, the crew in desperation used a full charge, which drove the projectile into the vitals of the Merrimac, and this ironclad never waited for another such broadside but turned and fled, leaving the little Monitor the master of the sea, and the savior of the Union.

Honors were showered upon Ericsson by the Government, but he modestly refused them. The title and pay of an Admiral of the U. S. N. was offered him, but he preferred to use the title of Captain which he had received in the Swedish army. After his death, his remains were taken in a U. S. cruiser to Sweden, where the burial took place at Philipstod, Varmland.

Ericsson was the inventor of the screw propeller first used on the S. S. Princeton in the U. S. N. and which displaced the large vulnerable sidewheels.

The memorial to be unveiled at Washington is a well-earned tribute to a great genius, and that is recognized by the Swedish government in sending the beloved Crown Prince to be present as the official representative of John Ericsson's homeland at the unveiling of the monument.

We prize TIME highly and fully realize how easily mistakes will occur in a publication.

VICTOR E. LAWSON

Editor, Willmar Tribune Willmar, Minn.

TIME thanks Editor Lawson for his illuminating letter.

Ericsson's designs for the Monitor were complete in 1854, when he offered them to Emperor Louis Napoleon of France. The monument ceremony at Washington is scheduled for May 29, and John Ericsson's picture is to appear on 15 million 5-cent stamps.

T. R. H. The Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden left Gothenburg last week aboard the Gripsholm for the U. S.-- ED.

Genitor

Sirs :

In TIME for May 10 under "THE PRESS," you state that Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., nee Littleton, is the daughter of Martin W. Littleton, distinguished attorney of New York City.

This is an error on the part of your genealogist.

Martin W. Littleton and Mrs. Vanderbilt are both children of Thomas J. Littleton long a resident of Roane County, Tenn. He was the father of 18 children, Martin W. being the youngest by the first wife Hannah Graham, who was the mother of nine, and Rachel the youngest by the second wife Anna McKnight, who gave him a like number. Martin W. Littleton deserves a great deal of credit for the success he has attained, but his father should not be entirely forgotten. Denied early school advantages, which were scarcely to be had in the '60's in this section of East Tennessee, he learned to read and write after his first marriage. He managed to secure an education while fathering 18 children. He was a man of strong character and helped his children to the extent of his ability.

It is sad that a genitor after Roosevelt's own heart should be entirely forgotten.

E. J. LANE

Harriman, Tenn.

Rhythms Sirs :

Apropos of your sad reflections on the falling off of Kipling's powers [TIME, May 17, p. 13] as revealed by "some verses" "contributed" by him to the British Gazette during the strike, may I remind you that these five lines are taken, probably by the editor, from "A Song of the English," copyrighted in The Seven Seas in 1896, that generation ago when "his genius alone was sufficient to set mighty rhythms beating in the blood of even his calmest readers"?

If his young critics were his "readers," could they fail to recognize even a fragment of that splendid song?

KATHARINE LEE BATES

Wellesley, Mass.

TIME regrets that it did not detect this error in the mass of ambiguous information which came a fortnight ago from England. --ED.