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.
Cherokee Rogers
Sirs: Not that it is a matter of international importance, but merely that your excellent publication may, as always, correctly record the passing show--I call attention to two small errata in TIME, July 19, "Prairie Pantaloon" [p. 20] a) The father of Will Rogers was also of Cherokee descent, with about the same per cent of Indian blood, as the mother of the "Ambassador." No connection with Jingo, living or dead, b) Colonel Mulhall, not Muhlbach. POLLY CHU-WA-LOOKY
Pryor, Okla.
No Babbitt
Sirs: Reading the rules of the game of Babbitt in TIME, July 26, [MISCELLANY, p. 29] we decided to play a game. The first score I claimed was for a redheaded, spatted chap with a muddled face, a monocle and a fancy hat band. I forgot a cane too. My opponent refused to allow the score. We agreed to let you decide the bet--"Was he a Babbitt?" JOHN COWARD
The Hotel Plaza New York, N. Y.
Clearly, the monocle disqualifies the specimen.--ED.
Shoe-Polish Plus
Sirs:
In your admirable review of political corruption in the States you touched upon the activities of the shoe-polish interests in Louisiana, their ardor in drilling new wells for the purpose of making carbon black, in turn to be used in the manufacture of shoe-polish "and other products."
Probably you know well that carbon black is used for far more important purposes than shining the shoes of the nation. If so, this brief comment represents time wasted.
Carbon black is an important ingredient in the manufacture of automobile tires. High quality black is one great factor in giving automobile users of today far greater tire mileage than they had ten years ago. That, assuredly, is more important than shoe-polish, according to the standards of today.
Also, and of particular interest to yourselves, is the fact that carbon black is necessary in the manufacture of printers' ink. One ink factory already operates in the great gas field north of this city. Another large manufacturer now operating in the East is pleading before the high courts for a chance to open a carbon plant. Probably it was carbon black that helped tell your readers about shoe-polish. There are scores of other interesting uses for this black dust that is captured as it flies up from hordes of tiny natural gas candles in the smoke-blanketed carbon black area of the Louisiana gas field. And the "wet" gas furnishes carload after carload of gasoline before it is used in the burning houses. To me it is an interesting industry. I was rather offended when you dismissed it with a snicker--"shoe-polish." You might almost as well call the packing industry the "pigsfeet people"--the farmers of the world "manure spreaders." This is a carping letter, although I did not intend it so. Pride injured by an error of omission prompted it. Perhaps sometime in the near future you will have an opportunity to discuss Southern progress. If so, I trust that you will remember this unique field, devote to it a paragraph or two. CHAS. A. HAZEN
Monroe, La.
Let Subscriber Hazen recall TIME, July 19, POLITICAL NOTES, where a eulogy of Southern progress was reported at length.--ED.
House-Mother Wills
Sirs:
I dislike to see TIME print any inaccuracy. Hopkins Hall, where Helen Wills attended school [TIME, July 26, SPORT], is near Burlington not Bennington, Vt.
An alumna of that school told me that Mrs. Wills was at one time "house-mother."
HELEN S. ROSCOE
Robert B. Brigham Hospital Boston, Mass.
"Belly-Scraped To"
Sirs:
Your idea of culling and presenting universal news in an impartial form, is quite alright, but to a Canadian citizen there is not enough of interest, in what you serve, to make it worth while taking it. There is far too much American, that is U. S., news and far too little from anywhere else, and the way you treat the President and all his doings is, to my mind, quite distasteful to a man of liberal and democratic ideas. I have never even in old time royalistic Europe seen a sovereign of any country belly-scraped to as much, as you are doing it to your own popularly elected head of State.
HERMAN A. LANSEN
Montreal, Canada
Tumid
Sirs:
I subscribed for TIME under your special offer and commend its time saving policy.
Until yesterday I was not shocked by your editorial treatment, but the shock of yesterday struck home like a blow from the hammer of Thor. I refer to your treatment of the recent sad incident in the life of Frank Norris in TIME, July 26 [RELIGION, p. 18], which I regard as an unwarranted irruption of blackguardism. I hold no brief for the Southern preacher ; if a fair trial establishes the fact that he is guilty he should pay the penalty for his crime. Neither do I defend Fundamentalism and Fundamentalists as such ; but I do believe in the integrity of the Bible as the sure word of God including the Genesis story of Creation, and in historical Christianity as believed in and taught by the Church for the past two thousand years. It is evident from your jocose treatment of time honored standards of belief that you do not want the patronage of those who are not willing to accept the half-baked modern interpretation of life which you appear to espouse, and therefore I assume you will have the business honor to refund the price which I paid for your magazine; if you are deficient in that honor you will not, of course, return it-- in any case I do not want this tumid, sacrilegious thing in my house! JOHN R. RIEBE
Wheaton, 111.
Onetime-Subscriber Riebe has been refunded his money. TIME, intending no jocosity, mentioned Genesis only in a phrase accurately describing the Reverend ("Killer") Norris. The phrase: ". . . hot war- whoops of a revivalist-Genesis-trumpeter."--ED. Sirs:
My compliments to the editor of RELIGION. The article on "Baptist Divine Norris" (TIME, July 26th) is clever, interesting, and essentially to the point.
TIME is steadily growing in popularity in this section.
Can you not eliminate some of your typographical errors ?
WM. BOYKIN BALDWIN
Norfolk, Va.
Adventists
Sirs:
Having been a reader of TIME from the publication of the first number, I have been impressed by your impartiality in presenting items of news, and have particularly inclined toward your publication on account of its freedom from editorial views and conclusions which are certain to be contrary to the ideas of many of your readers.
I wish to enter exception to your article, "Adventist" (TIME, July 26, RELIGION). The whole article is couched in language which tends to cast reflection on the denomination rather than to present an item of news which has naturally caused much criticism of the individual; but why asssume that the religion is responsible for the dereliction of one of its adherents? More important yet, why does the editor in the last paragraph imply that it is a foregone conclusion that the "sect" is "fanatical?"
I wonder whether the editor has taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the facts before insulting many of his most consistent readers. . . .
GEOFFREY WILLIAMS, M. D.
Mt. Vernon, O.
For brief elucidations on the Seventh Day Adventists, see RELIGION, p. 19.--ED. Anent Footnotes
Sirs:
So help me, this is the first letter I have ever written to an editor. But inasmuch as I do not want to appear to say things behind your back that I would not say to your face and inasmuch as you have demanded it (TIME, July 12, LETTERS), I herewith make your life complete and break my solemn vow. First, anent footnotes, if you think they belong in the magazine, run 'em. ... If TIME succeeds as you want to run it, you prove that you are right: if it flops, then you are wrong and no breathless tagging in the wandering aimless footsteps of the public can save you anyway. TIME is one of four or five periodicals in America fit for persons of intelligence to read. . . . Particularly do I like your novel phrasing, your occasional Dutch lead, your informality, your nonchalant and indifferent manner of treating a man's religion as if you are referring to his ham and eggs of the previous breakfast, your picture captions, your very illuminating footnotes, your kidding of correspondents who become righteously indignant over something about which you may either be right or wrong, and most particularly do I delight in your sophistry in an age when the daily papers are so shocked at every tiny incident, be it a street car off the track, just another murder, or scandal in public life. It is indeed a restful and soothing experience to approach my newsstand each week. DOUGLAS W. CHURCHILL
Vanderbilt Newspapers, Inc. San Francisco, Calif.
Sirs:
Your use of footnotes is NOT excessive.
To my mind, TIME is one of the best-edited weeklies that has ever appeared in America, and its judicious use of footnotes should not be abridged.
Abandonment of the footnote would remove from TIME one of its most charming features.
I am of the opinion that TIME is different, not for the sake of being different, as, for example, cubist "art" is different from real art, but for the purpose of avoiding the shortcomings of other magazines.
Am I right?
HAZEL ERNEST WEST
Washington, D. C. Sirs: Please do not let a subscriber's momentary irritation deprive us of these footnotes. Valuable--why ? . . . They are like the final strokes in a painting--to clear up detail here and there. Please let us have them. ALICE B. NICHOLS
Wellesley Hills, Mass. Sirs: I vote against the use of footnotes. Use parentheses and smaller type* for "footnote matter. ..." F. THURMOND MUDD
J. C. Penney Co. Falls City, Neb.
Sirs:
The interesting side lights thrown in on your articles by the use of reference marks add zest to the reading.
WILL C. MATTHEWS
Matthews Brokerage Co. Omaha, Neb.
Sirs:
Anent subscriber Hibbard's criticism of your footnotes. ["Footnotes," TIME, July 12, p. 21 I wish to cast my vote in their favor.
This is one of the features that has made me feel that TIME is indispensible, because so frequently the footnotes give me just the information that I would like to have and that is not usually found in other sources of news....
J. E. FAW
American Telephone & Telegraph Co. New York, N. Y.
TIME'S footnotes stay. The ratio of "ayes" to "nays" with hundreds of subscribers voting: (more than) 20 to 1. Here ends the footnote controversy until TIME-readers taste is altered radically.--ED.
*Time does use "smaller type" for "footnote matter."