3,500-Foot Insects

Sirs: That's all applesauce about no flies or mosquitoes where the Coolidges are vacationing because it's above the 3,500-foot elevation (TIME, June 20, p. 5, last col.). There's a big grizzly mounted and some pictures in the Smithsonian Institution that prove it. The pictures show where the bear was killed by Pete Peterson, Cascade mountains, elevation, 7,000. The pictures also show on the grizzly, not 15 minutes dead, FLIES--LOTS OF 'EM. Farther east you go, the worse the flies are. As for mosquitoes, they are one of the joy-killers in mountain climbing. They will be found right at the snow on the edge of the glaciers, LOTS OF 'EM. The farther east you go the worse they get The only places I ever found either absent is where it is fairly breezy or pretty confounded dry. As for rattlers, they're where you find 'em. But why worry ? It's a rare thing to hear of anyone getting bit and rarer still to hear of the victim dying. Autos are far more deadly. You're a stickler for the truth, that's the why of this letter.

F. J. CLIFFORD Spokane, Wash.

Sirs: TIME has been on my list of magazines ever since I got the first copy several years ago. I do not like it to print misleading statements so call attention to TIME, June 20, p. 5. about flies and mosquitoes not being above 3,500 feet. The worst swarms of both I ever encountered were on Rabbit Ear Creek, tributary of Troublesome rivers, 20 or more miles north of Kremmling, Grand Co., Col., at an elevation of 8,000 feet.

T. JULIAN SKINKER Denver, Col.

Sirs:

... I am curious to know on what authority TIME has discovered an "insect-line" at 2,500 feet above sea level. I have been plagued with the ordinary house fly in South America at altitudes above 12,000 feet, when there were horses to furnish the manure in which the flies could breed. I am now located 1,700 feet above TIME s "insect-line" and only wish it were as effective in Arizona as in one spot in South Dakota. I say "one spot," advisedly, because when I was in the Black Hills at Lead, I can assure you the existence of a mythical line at an elevation of 2.500 feet, did not stop the inhabitants from screening the doors and windows. I will admit the general paucity of mosquitoes, but that was due, not to the elevation, but to the great lack of stagnant water in which they could breed. Unless the President bars all horses, except the "famed" electric horse, from the State Lodge, he would be wise not to tear off all the window screens from the kitchen.

H. C. HOPKINS Jerome, Ariz.

Sirs: TIME, June 20, p. 6, col. 3 says "no flies . . . can bother the President. At 3,500 feet . . . flies . . . cease . . . mosquito weakens." Scenic enthusiasts rush for the front platform of cograil-road car up Mt. Washington (6,293 ft. above sea level is the-summit). Fortunate ones spend time brushing away cinders, black flies, mosquitoes. The writer killed a very bloody mosquito 5,500 feet above sea level. Black flies penetrate far above timber line. Scientists may disagree, but I had "bites" to prove my case. Keep the red cover. It will aid newsstand sales. Red-white-blue cover would be unsatisfactory, I believe.

BUELL W. HUDSON Sugar Hill, N. H.

TIME, in good faith, unguardedly, paraphrased idyllic insect states-ments of Custer Park, S. D., officials as reported by the Associated Press; will hereafter be more alert.--ED.

Anti-Humor

Sirs: I note in TIME for June 13, 1927, that Reader A. B. Maloire, Chehalis, Wash., is of the opinion that "More Humor" would not be amiss in your magazine. I believe, as I am sure many others of your readers believe, that we buy TIME primarily and principally for the news it gives us, in the way it is given to us, and not for amusement. If Reader Maloire wants humor, there arc plenty of magazines which devote themselves in part, or in whole, to humor. Let him read the humor magazines and leave our newsmagazine as it now is. Wishing you continued success on the path to "The Better Way of Giving People the Important News,"

JOHN S. DUHON Bridgeport, Conn.

Discloses All

Sirs: You probably are familiar with and have published the following quotation from Sophocles : "Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all." In the quotation, which I fairly stumbled across by the purest accident, the word time was spelled with a cap T.

JOEL C. HARRIS JR. Atlanta, Ga.

Trivial

Sirs: . . . Would suggest that FOREIGN NEWS confine itself to less trivial items. Refer TIME, April 4, COMMONWEALTH. Largely the fact that Friend Peel opens a road house ia of no particular interest or influence to anybody; as a sign of changed times that the type of thing is already history. . . .

B. V. RANDOLPH Porterville, Calif.

Hobby

. . . Particularly do I wish to voice my admiration of the editors who handle your FOREIGN NEWS. The pointed, condensed methods used are excellent. Your weekly words about the China situation are splendid. Congratulations to your China Editor, whom I would really like to know some day, for his subject happens also to be my hobby. I must wish you "Ten Thousand Years."

HAYES A. KRONER Major 30th, Infantry, U. S. Army Presidio of San Francisco, Calif.

Va. Industry

Sirs: I like TIME very much. I was very much amused in a statement that you made in TIME several months ago, which was: "Virginia's chief industries are female academies." I take it for granted that you have never been to Va. or heard mention of that state. Please visit us or look it up and correct your statement in an early issue of TIME. If you do, we will excuse you this time.

JAMES W. SMITH, M. D. Hayes Store, Va.

To a TIME writer a thoroughgoing reprimand for facetious reference to the state which in 1920 led all states in production of iron pyrites and soapstone; stood third in production of lime and manganese, sixth in mineral waters. Virginia's greatest industry is agriculture. She raises more tobacco than any state save Kentucky and North Carolina.--ED.

Collar, Whiskey, Golf

Sirs: . . . Please cancel my subscription and let me know what I owe you for the one copy at once. . . . I would like to meet Robert Garland Smith of Phila. (col. 1, p. 25, June 20, 1927.) I bet he wears a white collar, drinks whiskey and plays golf. . . .

S. D. WICKS

Worms, Guile

Sirs: Mr. Borah [TIME, June 27] should not get excited over trout and worms, as there will be far more suckers caught with guile and salve.

R. S. POND Hot Springs, S. Dak.

Do First, Then Talk

Sirs: Just got through dousing Saphead Dowse [TIME, June 13], when up pops saphead John Muller (TIME, June 20) who forgets that our popular American, Colonel Lindbergh, made the New York-to-Paris flight with only three sandwiches and a bottle of milk.* What German could accomplish this wonderful feat with less than a keg of beer, a barrel of sauerkraut and a whole roast pig ? We Americans do first and talk afterwards, that is why we were so successful in the World War.

BERT THOMPSON Hupp Motor Car Corp. Detroit, Mich.

Cannot Salute

Sirs: To me it has not been evident that one should view with alarm TIME's selection of cuts for its magazine or its news items. And yet when I glanced over TIME, June 27, and found the cut of Slacker Bergdoll on p. 8 and an item concerning him in the same columns as mention such courageous men as Byrd, Lindbergh, Chamberlin and others under the division of National News it would seem that some of the criticisms of TIME have been justified. This is a direct affront to our "Heroes of the Air." The mention of this ill-famed slacker is bad enough but the space the cut uses would have been well left blank. It may be that TIME has forgotten America's part in those hectic days of '17 and '18 as has also "one" Cyril D. H. G. Dillington-Dowse [TIME, June 181. I cannot salute you, TIME, unless the future can show a more judicious selection of news and cuts for your pages. . . .

D. A. LYTLE TJ. S. Veterans Hospital Aspinwell, Pa.

Blatant?

Sirs: . . . Why--honestly, why in your article on Dr. H. W. Reherd's advertisement in the Presbyterian Magazine [TIME, May 16] must you needlessly go out of your way to describe one of God's noblemen as "Blatant," "considering himself the Missionary to the Mormons?" Certainly nothing in his article would lead to that conclusion and again, certainly, if you knew the man, nothing could be more foreign to him, and your sense of fairness would compel you to make an immediate retraction. Just a little more courtesy where an honorable man is involved.

O. W. BUSCHGEN Philadelphia, Pa.

President Herbert Ware Reherd of Westminster College, Salt Lake City, later advertised again in the Presbyterian magazine: "Five special trains and many smaller parties visited Westminster College and Salt Lake City going to or returning from the

San Francisco [Presbyterian] General Assembly. Many saw, for the first time, the superb location and great opportunity of Westminster, the only Christian College in five States." (The italics are TIME'S.) Denominational colleges, other than Latter Day Saints and Roman Catholic, in Utah and the five contiguous states are--Methodist: Gooding (Gooding, Idaho), University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology (Denver) ; Presbyterian: Idaho (Caldwell, Idaho), Westminster (Salt Lake City) ; Nazarene: Northwestern Nazarene (Nampa, Idaho) ; Congregational: Colorado (Colorado Springs, Colo.); Pillar of Fire: 'Westminster (Denver).--ED.

Warner Praised

Sirs: Would like to answer Mr. P. A. Tardy of Bryan, Tex., TIME, June 27, p. 25, where he states that, who is interested in the photograph of Geo. J. Warner, ordinary porter [TIME, June 13]. I would say that there was as many interested in the name of Geo. J. Warner as there was in the name of John J. Kennedy, conductor, whom he did not say anything about and also all porters do not say Yassah Boss, only in such states as Tex.

ANDREW M. BUNCH (Subscriber) River Forest, Ill.

Again, Red

Sirs: Here is one subscriber who does not favor a red-white-blue cover. In fact I am strenuously opposed to your present red-white combination. Adding another color would be nigh unbearable. Your former white cover was ideal, quiet, calm, conservative and suited to the contents of the magazine and to the quality of your readers. But your present red cover is AWFUL. Every time I see it I say to myself: "There is that terrible cover again. How much longer are the subscribers of TIME going to stand for it?"

ROBERT F. MILLER Reading, Pa.

"Do Not Cheapen"

Sirs: . . . Please do not cheapen TIME with a red, white and blue cover. Leave that for the American or some periodical of its stripe. TIME needs no improving.

VINA MAE DOYLE Colorado Springs, Col.

Anemic

Sirs: The "red cover debate" is becoming irksome--not because TIME publishes letters criticizing the red border, but because the reasons given for abolishing it are so unfounded. The other day in rummaging through my bookcase I found an old copy of TIME without a red border--it looked anemic, "pepless" and it was not readily distinguishable as TIME at a glance. The red border makes TIME distinctive, it makes it attractive to the eye, it brings out the centre white panel of the cover, and it strengthens the cover of the magazine and the magazine itself psychologically. Could these people who render so much destructive criticism to the red cover give a very good reason for abolishing the red from the American flag? I believe they are all wet.

ED. FLAHARTY Parco, Wyo.

Annoys & Irritates

Sirs: I have been a subscriber, through my daughter, Mignon Downing, to your newsmagazine for the last two years, and I am in receipt of your letter asking me to renew my subscription or give you my reason for not doing so. Very well: I do not wish to renew my subscription' because your magazine annoys and irritates me. Your attitude toward all things is ... cynical, and especially so in your treatment of the greatest news story of all history, viz: the Lindbergh affair. I also consider the publication of the letter regarding same of one John Muller of Milwaukee [TIME, June 20], as especially insulting, and its publication by you inexcusable. I trust this makes my position clear as to why I will not renew my subscription. Of course all this makes no difference to you. You will go on publishing your magazine as before, and I will no longer be annoyed by having it around.

CHAS. S. DOWNING Denver, Col.

Calendar

Sirs: In TIME (June 27, 1927, your article "Calendar" under BUSINESS & FINANCE) you have surely given ear to a worthwhile idea. Now, why not further it? Ask TIME readers, many, potent, forward-looking, to write in their approval (or disapproval) and then transmit their voices as a helping hand to progressive George Eastman. Include my name in such a listing.

S. LESTER MITCHELL Bridgeport, Conn.

Let subscribers, "many, potent, forward-looking," turn again to "Calendar" (under BUSINESS & FINANCE, June 27). Let them comment, pro and con,--ED.

Veal Cutlet

Sirs: . . . Folks who rail at TIME because it's not like each and every other magazine remind me of the lady who on visiting New Orleans bitterly complained of not getting "veal cutlet served like they do in Philadelphia," while I was having the time of my life enjoying all the strange items on the daily menus--shrimp in various ways --baked Pompano--the delectable trout from Lake Pontchartrain, crab gumbo, etc. ! ! !

KAY ESKAY Philadelphia, Pa.

Ingersoll's Belief

Sirs: I question if either cocksureness or ignorance is properly a substitute for ordinary honesty in a review. TIME'S sense of fairness is evidently not wide enough to care that Robert Ingersoll was an agnostic and Thomas Paine a deist, neither of them an atheist. The usual decencies of intelligent controversy do not necessitate that a man be mealymouthed, either in the statement of his own views, or in his attack upon the views of his adversary, but they do at least prohibit misstatements of fact. It may be, to be sure, that TIME quoted Mr. Cameron Rogers* in its choice of terms, but it is sometimes hard to tell when TIME is quoting and when TIME is merely trying to be funny in the college humor fashion, and in either event TIME might keep itself better informed. In order to forestall any attempted wisecracks about my religious beliefs, please note that I believe in God, and that my faith is neither helped nor hurt by TIME's jackassery. And I may add that my authority for Ingersoll's agnosticism--not atheism-- is, in addition to the evidence of his lectures, the statement of his wife, who probably knew more about his opinions and beliefs than does even the infallible vaudeville artist who edits the literary section of TIME. Easily the most unsatisfactory point about TIME is the air of shoulder-chip infallibility which the editors of TIME affect, and not even a belief in God justifies this in a reviewer.

T. C. HOEPFNER Memphis, Tenn.

To TIME'S Book Editor a thoroughgoing reprimand for overlooking the loose usages of a subordinate.--ED.

* An error. Colonel Lindbergh took with him four sandwiches, two canteens of water and emergency army rations. -- ED.

* Author of COLONEL BOB INGEBSOLL--Doubleday, Page ($3), reported in TIME, June 20.--ED.