Better English

Sirs:

I am not intending to renew my subscription for TIME, which soon expires after a six months' period. I have read every number from cover to cover nearly. At first I liked its terse, piquant style, but have tired of it. Your paragraph titles are frequently frivolous, silly and often, too, misleading. Nor do I approve of the striking adjectives frequently used, not in themselves, but in their conclusion or inferences. I do not accuse the magazine of bigotry towards any one thing or belief.

You have struck an impartial note on the whole, but I believe a revision of your policy of writing, a withdrawal from the jazzy use of words and the substitution of better English would redound to your and the public's benefit. . . .

LEONARD C. TRUMAN

Rochester, N. Y. .

Scrap Book

Sirs:

Can you please print again in TIME the population of the largest cities of the United States! I intended to cut that out, and put in my scrapbook, but TIME, is so popular here that it was gone before I could do so. We read it and then pass it on. I will thank you so much.

MARION J. DYE

LaGrange, Ill.

Populations of the 20 largest cities in the U. S. (according to Newspaper Feature Bureau of Wheeling, W. Va.) are:

New York City 6,323,000

Chicago 3,152,000

Philadelphia 2,052,000

Detroit 1,431,000

Los Angeles 1,269,000

Cleveland 996,000

Boston 860,000

St. Louis 835,000

Baltimore 826,000

San Francisco 709,000

Pittsburgh 686,000

Buffalo 591,000

Washington 536,000

Milwaukee 526,000

Newark 473,000

Minneapolis 449,000

Kansas City 438,000

New Orleans , 430,000

Cincinnati 429,000

Seattle 404,000

Service

Sirs:

In TIME, Jan. 10, you state: "Secretaries Mellon, Hoover and James J. Davis have served since the beginning of President Harding's administration (almost six years). No cabinet trio has continued in office together for so long since the Civil War."

In President Wilson's Cabinet Messrs. Daniels, Wilson, Houston and Burleson served together for eight continuous years. I served with them six years and eight months. Lane served with them longer. Thus there were six men in that one Cabinet who served together longer than the trio mentioned in the article. I suggest you correct your statement.

WILLIAM C. REDFIELD

New York, N. Y.

Cab Driver

Sirs:

Inclosed please find renewal for one year. Aside from being greatly interested in your magazine, financial interests induce me to renew.

Several days ago, while at my occupation of driving a cab, I was engaged in making change for one of my fares. TIME dropped from my pocket and opened itself on the pavement at the feet of my customer. He looked, brightened and increased my tip from ten cents to one dollar. TIME is irresistible.

Surely your enterprising Circulation Manager cannot afford to overlook the potency of this incident. With a little judicious publicity among the cab drivers, laying stress on the above, you could accomplish wonders. As you appreciate, results from a specialized field are always more satisfactory, and if you promise a return of three to four dollars a week in increased tips, no cab driver in the country would hesitate to subscribe.

May TIME never change.

W. T. CUTLER

Philadelphia, Pa.

P. S. Would be glad to represent you among Philadelphia cab drivers at a nominal charge per subscription.

Unusual Story

Sirs:

At a meeting last night a speaker friend of mine told an unusual story to illustrate a point. I recognized that story and afterward said, "You read TIME, don't you?" "Yes, why?" he said. "I, too, read that story," I replied. TIME is great.

D. O. KNIGHT

Dubuque, Iowa.

Hoover Policy

Sirs: I wonder on what you base the statement in your discussion of the radio situation (TIME, March 14, p. 11) that "Secretary Hoover believes the large stations give better listener-in service and favors saving them. The opposition maintains that claims .of large and small broadcasters should be treated impartially." I have been associated with Mr. Hoover in radio administration for the last four years, and never heard him announce any such doctrine. His policy has been pre cisely to the contrary. The power of a station is only one element in its efficiency, and by no means the most im portant. In July, 1926, when court and Department of Justice rulings deprived him of the regulatory control which he had exercised, there were 528 broadcasting sta tions, all of which had entered the field under licenses from the Secretary of Com merce. Of these, only 18 could by any stretch of imagination be called large stations, and 302 were using power under 500 watts. That situation hardly justifies a charge of favoritism to the powerful. Obviously, there should be no partiality towards either class. Moreover, Mr. Hoover has frequently in public addresses and before congressional committees stated that the protection of the local stations is essential to the serving of local interest, the development of local talent, and above all to the maintenance of freedom of radio expression and communication. STEPHEN DAVIS

Department of Commerce, Washington, D. C.

TIME summarized differing opinions on radio issues. As the opinion many held of Secretary of Commerce Hoover's policy seems to have been inaccurate, TIME thanks Newsstand Buyer Davis for his correction.--ED.

Cannot Guess

Sirs:

All very pretty, your account of the eastern intercollegiate glee club contest in TIME this week [March 28], but why not tell also about the far larger and more important National intercollegiate glee club contest, which I heard here in Chicago? Northwestern, Illinois, Iowa, Purdue, Michigan, Wabash, Knox, Notre Dame, Grinnell and Milliken sang, and sang beautifully. Why the winners of the eastern contest were not there to pit themselves against our melodious Northwestern, I cannot guess. Northwestern won, with Illinois and Iowa tied for second and Purdue third. TIME-would have had something to say if it had only heard those boys sing Schumann's Lotus Flower. . . .

(MRS.) ETHEL P. MITCHLEY

Evanston, Ill.

"First Youth"

Sirs: I quote from TIME, March 28, p. 11: "Most U. S. Presidents who have bred sons have bred smart ones--witness President Adams the Elder, Harrison the Elder, Lincoln, Cleveland, Roosevelt, Taft." First, don't you know that President Harrison the Elder bred not a "smart son," but a son who bred a "smart son," President Harrison the younger ? Second, are you sneering at John Coolidge by omitting his name from the "smart sons?" He is "the first boy in the land" (or the "first youth." If you prefer) : and deserves no belittling by you. He is such a "smart son" that he is received into the good graces of the daughter of the Governor of Connecticut, my state. There lies a possibility there in which a great many citizens of this state take a great deal of pride; and we feel that John is plenty "smart" enough and has been bred up a fine young man. If you think I write from reading newspaper gossip or seeing John Coolidge's picture in the papers you are wrong. I have seen him several times, I have shaken hands with him once, and I have heard of a "smart" and kind thing he once did. An old lady could not get the window up in a street car, but John Coolidge borrowed an iron rod from the conductor and pried the window open. I have heard this for a fact.

HESTER MARY ROOT

Hartford, Conn.

TIME did not, does not belittle the son of the President of the United States. But John Coolidge is still an undergraduate, and was therefore not mentioned by TIME in recalling "smart sons" of Presidents who have made their mark in the world at large:

1) John Quincy Adams who was the sixth U. S. President, John Scott Harrison who begot a President of the United States; the late Robert Todd Lincoln who was U. S. Secretary of War and President, Pullman Co.; Richard Folsom Cleveland, exponent of high principles in the practice of law; Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., who was Secretary of the Navy, which office his father held before him; Robert A. and Charles P. Taft, able lawyer-politicians of Ohio.

Moreover let not Subscriber Root speak lightly of John Scott Harrison, the only man who ever had a father and a son who were both Presidents of the United States. --ED.

Frontier

Sirs:

In TIME, March 21, speaking of President Coolidge vacationing in the West, you state: "The West is big; it begins, no one knows just where; it ends at the Pacific Ocean." .

Have you never heard of Davenport, "Where the West Begins," in Iowa "Where the Tall Corn Grows?"

J. F. CRAIG

Davenport, Iowa

A Roman

Sirs: I collect and Study everything on the subject of modern Italy, Fascism, Mussolini. Of all the long-winded articles, political, philosophical or descriptive, that exist about II Duce, none present so vivid a picture of him as I find in the short, anecdotal items that you print weekly. Your system is fundamentally sound--the facts, and nothing but facts.

I think I am unprejudiced. Mussolini has achieved more power than I should like to see even in the hands of the Angel Gabriel ; he has effected enough reforms to be able now to say: "L'Etat, c'est moi." But it is not enough. He means to make Italy count in the world, he means to make her very great. He does not intend to keep her spiritually and intellectually enslaved as she is today. He has saved her from Communism, he must yet save her from Fascism. That is why I hope he will not die a failure. The day will come when TIME will be printed in. Italy as well as in the U. S. Per bacco! GAITANO RICCHI

Pinehurst, N. C.

Grave

Sirs: Do you publish all the letters written to you ? Or do you toss some in the waste paper basket? If the latter, you are making a grave mistake for you are sure iff lose subscribers by so doing. I once wrote a letter to a newspaper and it was published with my name right under it and I have liked that newspaper ever since. By all means publish all the letters you receive. Would also suggest an index to same so that each letter writer may readily locate and read his own production and not be tempted to read the trash, appearing over the signature of others. If you publish my letter I will continue my subscription provided I don't get too disgusted with the other letters I read. ROBERT H. HASKELL

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Goose, Gander

Sirs:

I enjoy reading TIME very much. So does my stenographer. She eats it up. What's sauce for the goose is duck soup for the gander.

LEO F. STEPHENS

Pittsburgh, Pa.

Why

Sirs:

Why give us a brief magazine and then defeat your purpose by using the difficult "Who's Who & Why" style throughout the whole periodical ?

J. N. STOOPS, M. D

Scottsbluff, Neb.

Women v. Men

Sirs:

The quizzes which you published in TIME, March 21, were great fun. But I notice that, in common with nearly all the quizzes which have recently come out in the different magazines, they favor the male contestant. The business and financial world, football, baseball and basketball rulings, makes of automobiles, etc., are certainly subjects on which a man is apt to be better informed than a woman. Why not insert a few which most women (I realize you may challenge me here ! ) could easily answer, but which might give the men some trouble? For example:

1) What is a French seam?

2) For what are Mathilde Harper and

Frances Fox noted ?

3) What is the "folding in" process in cooking ?

4) What is the best way of getting a) rust stains out of a piece of white cloth? b) fruit stains? c) grass stains?

5) What, within ten degrees, is the temperature of "a slow oven ?"

6) What is the difference between a "water wave" and a "round curl?"

MARGARET CROSBY MCLEAN

Little Rock, Ark.

Carlotta v. Bertha

Sirs: -... In regard to the Pullman girl's name (Question 17, Game 8), I hold that my name is just as good as "Bertha." I named her "Carlotta," though at first I called her "Caroline."

My wife who is a part-TIME reader answered 119 out of the 200 questions correctly. I, who read all the TIME, answered 148 correctly. When I say "correctly" I mean the answer was the same as the one you gave, and all the same. Any opinion or information of ours, correct as it might be, did not count so far as the game was concerned; "part right" was counted "wrong." J. J. LIPSEY Colorado Springs, Col.

Elbert Hubbard

Sirs:

You can not imagine my pleasure on receiving my copy of TIME for March 21. How delighted I was with your supplement of "eight pages of Questions & Answers," and what an entertaining time my roommate and I had playing "The Game!"

We found the questions both stimulating and instructive and feel sure that we shall be forever in your debt for doing a work which can only be compared with that of Elbert Hubbard. . . .

BERTRAM ENOS

Clark University, Worcester, Mass.

Worth the Chips

Sirs: There is little danger of ever losing me as a subscriber--a year ago I won a General Information Quizz prize of $25.00, a feat which I attribute to TIME'S timely assistance. Thus I feel I can subscribe for five years FREE. Even after TIME will continue to be worth the chips. ALLAN M. SHEAHEN

Champaign, Ill.