A Map

Sirs:

TIME, Jan. 16, p. 12--that's what I call a map. Let there be more by the same artist.

F. R. MILLS

Daytona Beach, Fla.

"Sailors' Story"

Sirs:

Though the Long Island waters were as familiar to him as had been his nursery floor, the young Naval Reserve officer didn't see Fire Island--but Block Island, R. I. (TIME, Jan. 16, p. 6).

And the "sailors' story" is fact; the battleship Texas was ashore here from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1, 1917, according to official records. ALBERT E. WING

Superintendent of Schools Block Island, R. I.

Sirs:

I should like to correct a statement in your issue of Jan. 16, p. 6, footnote.

The U. S. S. Texas went aground on Block Island, and not on Fire Island.

I was a "gob" on the U. S. S. Kestrel, based at New London, when we received orders to proceed to Block Island. There we carried the Commandant of the Second Naval District, Captain Bryan (?), out to the Texas which was surprisingly close to the shore. For the next few days, armed with our "formidable" Three-Pounder, we patrolled the waters--or, as an Army friend put it, we "kept ourselves safe for democracy."

Incidentally, it was at Block Island on this occasion where I ran into a very "seagoing" Chief Boatswainsmate whom I had heard lecture on Dutch and Flemish Painting at Princeton. There, however, he was known as Professor Frank Mather of the Art Department.

I suppose that I should thank you for recalling the days of "gadgets" and "Chiefs."

J. P. H.

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, N. C.

"Denver is Responsible"

Sirs: Twice within a year or so I have read references to F. G. Bonfils, publisher of the Denver Post, in your columns. The first was occasioned by the entrance of Scripps-Howard into the Denver newspaper field. That article, while it mingled fiction and fact, was not, as a whole, unkindly. . . . The second article, published in your issue of Jan. 9 and dealing with the dedication of his great fortune to the cause of humanity, was totally lacking in these attributes. On first reading it seemed to drip venom. After a second perusal, however, I doubt if its maliciousness was intentional. . . . It is my belief bottomed upon years of experience, that while a newspaper should and can be better than the community in which it is published, it must not be too much better or it will rapidly reach the state of bankruptcy in which Bonfils and Tammen found the Denver Post back in the 'go's. In other words, a newspaper, to a degree, must give the public what it wants. Perhaps Bonfils and Tammen erred in the degree, but taking the whole thing by and large Denver rather than the publishers is responsible for the Denver Post. Denver apparently since the gold rush days, has liked its meat raw. . . . Many harsh things have been said about Bonfils and Tammen. Maybe TIME is broad enough and can spare the space to print the estimate of one man who through many years of association believes he got to know the real Bonfils and Tammen. I refer to a letter I wrote to Bonfils when Tammen died in 1924. It follows: "Ever since early this morning when the wires of the press associations flashed the news, 'Harry Tammen is dead,' into the office, I have been pondering what I could say that would palliate the grief that I know is yours and express my own feeling of personal loss.

"But, although writing is my business, I still find myself, after hours of thought, unable to marshal words that will convey what is in my heart.

"The Kansas City Post, under the direction of you and Mr. Tammen, was my high school and my university. From you two, my professors, I learned most that I know of life and human nature.

"Your gifts, transmitted through example and fatherly advice, partook of the sterner qualities, essential in the battle for existence. . . .

"Even alone, each of you, through your dominating characteristics, was foreordained to succeed, but together you formed a combination, the like of which the world has seldom, if ever, seen.

"Even the blood relationship of brothers is as nothing compared to the friendship of 'Bonfils and Tammen,' to link your names in the fashion it has become the custom to do the country over.

"It is in the knowledge of all this that you must find your consolation.

"And when my time comes, as it must, I only trust that I can say that I have been as true to myself as Harry Tammen was to Fred Bonfils and Fred Bonfils was to Harry Tammen.

"If I can, I anticipate no trouble, even with death around the corner, as he knew it was when he wrote me last, in signing, as he signed, 'With Love and Good Cheer.'

"For two men to have known Harry Tammen is a bond between them and so it is with you and me."

There is a good deal of chaff mixed with the wheat in all of us. Too much attention has been paid to the chaff in Harry Tammen and Fred Bonfils and not enough to the wheat.

The former left his entire fortune of some $5,000,000 to endow a hospital for crippled children. Now the latter has created a trust to administer his, variously estimated as high as $40,000,000 or $50,000,000, in the interest of mankind generally.

And TIME, unwittingly perhaps, makes the incident an occasion for slander. DICK SMITH

Kansas City Journal-Post Kansas City, Mo.

TIME prints no slander.--ED.

Sirs:

. . .While a fortune estimated at $50,000,000 was being devoted to the "betterment of mankind" the usual Christmas bonuses to workers on "the greatest paper on earth" failed to materialize; the owner being unable to "afford it this year."

But in all justice to the "big brother" let me hasten to add that there were exceptions to this wholesale disappointment. Girls getting $12 or less per week are reported to have received a half week's extra pay to gladden their Christmas. This munificent consideration was extended to all $12 employes (it is reported) except one girl in the insurance department who was consoled by the explanation that the insurance department was not really a part of the paper and was at most only temporary. . . . A. LOWEMANN

Denver, Colo.

Beautiful Tenno

Sirs:

In Jan. 9 TIME you say His Majesty the Tenno is ugly. I have been very disgusting for your paper because such lye. You could satisfied if you bee such beautiful man like Tenno. You do not understand because poor taste. Coolidge with nose like oyster is nothing to Tenno.

Also in TIME you make silly about Yozo Fuyubayashi flies. Why not pray for Flies? It is not so funny like people waiting for resurrection of King of the House of David, or Amy running away with Holy Ghost, and lots other such things.

Many Americans all right. Other manys narrow like shoe string, because don't can see other people standpoint.

King Hor Sun Hay! Had good lagh for your Chinese spelling. Otherwise TIME is not so bad.

ROY R. HADA

McGill, Nev.

At Cape May

Sirs:

"In the United States there are only two hangars; Lakehurst and Scott Field."

In the interest of accuracy please include Cape May, N. J. Here we have not only one of the largest dirigible hangars in the world but airplane hangars and other equipment constituting a large naval and air station, costing millions of dollars. For reasons unknown, this huge plant is not used, despite its strategic position, located on an excellent deep harbor and near the mouth of the Delaware Bay.

A small portion of the institution is occupied by United States Coast Guard (Base 9) and so efficiently have they patrolled the seas that we have been compelled to retreat to the back country for our alcoholic beverages.

T. MILLET HAND

Cape May, N. J.

Librarian Flayed

Sirs:

If the Librarian of the City of St. Louis would spend more time trying to make his library an up-to-date institution where one can keep in some sort of half-hazard contact with the progress of the modern mind instead of writing notes to the editor of TIME, he would be of much more benefit to humanity.

Of all cities I have lived in of a population greater than 100,000, St. Louis has the most inadequate library of them all, a book having to be at least two years old before the Olive and 14th Street institution has even heard of it!

And then this Librarian, whose name I have forgotten, writes you a letter to show that President Coolidge's "do not choose" statement is not a New England expression, quoting a verse in "Alice in Wonderland" to prove it!

No more need be said of such imbecility.

R. C. LOVELADY

Birmingham, Ala.

Cinema Controversy

Sirs:

I wish to protest. In the past I have used your cinema reviews to guide my footsteps. If you are going to have your reviews conform to public opinion as Mr. Wilmer suggests, why review at all? Just direct your readers to follow the crowd, and use the cinema space for something else. . . .

P. M. FERGUSON

Courtland, Calif.

Sirs:

As a regular subscriber to your weekly, I should like to inquire to what extent your policy of mollifying Mr. Wilmer (TIME, Jan. 9) is to be carried out. Will this principle of reviewing from the point of view of public whims, rather than from any real standard of criticism, also be carried into your Literature, Drama and Music departments? Am I to look for "blurb" and "positive" advertising rather than critical opinion, in these columns?

FREEMAN S. HOWLETT

Wooster, Ohio.

Sirs:

I object to your acceptance of Newsstand Buyer Wilmer's criticism of your cinema reviewer as sound, and therefore to be heeded by you. Your reviewer has well represented the intelligent class advertised as appealed to by TIME. . . .

Again, the muzzle of the commonplace and commercial does its dirty work.

CAPT. THOS. J. BROWNE

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Sirs:

. . . Your critic's column, I judge, has not been written for the morons who form the majority of the cinema's patrons, but for discriminating readers--who occasionally attend, and who want a criterion and thus be saved loss of time in attendance upon puerile showings. The daily newspaper cannot be depended upon, as it would appear that the advertising department exercises a "blue pencil." Only the "impossible" seems ever to be "panned." Take for instance Love, now showing locally: Was mislead by local reviews (and advertising)--should have known better, having been fooled so often --into attendance. Thought I'd see something like the novel, Anna Karenina.* If it was, then water through which a chicken has been chased at a fast run is chicken soup. . . .

ROBERT A. WELDON

Chicago, Ill.

Sirs:

Are TIME'S reviews to be advertising propaganda or the honest expression of critical opinion? And, are TIME'S judgments to voice the thoughtless popular opinion of gum-chewers and tabloid readers, or the intelligence of careful analysis?

CHESTER WARREN QUIMBY

Department of English Bible Dickinson College Carlisle, Pa.

Sirs:

. . . Many subscribers like myself must have welcomed the return of the Cinema column after its long absence, liking its frank and sane appreciations. Most of us, I think, recognize the piffle that still permeates many films, and we like to be told in advance where it may be found--or avoided. Do not, TIME, cease to tell the truth in art as your reviewer sees it, until you cease to tell the truth in news. . . .

EDWARD P. GOODNOW

Boston, Mass.

To this extent is Newsstand Buyer Winner's criticism sound: cinemas are intended to appeal to popular rather than to recondite taste; they should be considered according to their intention, rather than according to the tastes of a critical dilettante. With this in mind. TIME will report them accurately, estimate their excellence as precisely as possible.--ED.

In Meridian

Sirs:

. . . Believing that your magazine would welcome information of a correction of any statement in your magazine, I am taking the liberty of calling your attention to a statue erected to Israel Marks, a Jewish citizen of Meridian, Miss., and which was erected during his lifetime in the year 1913. The statue was erected in honor of Mr. Marks by public subscription, voluntarily donated by the people of all creeds and classes living in the City of Meridian, and it now stands in Highland Park in the City of Meridian. It was an appreciation to Mr. Marks who was a factor in the building of the City of Meridian, a public spirited man, generous, and beloved by all the people. . . .

GABE JACOBSON Meridian, Miss.

No Ritual

Sirs:

TIME, Jan. 2, p. 6, col. 1, "In Ohio," line 17, "Baptist ritual."

I was reared in a Baptist home, graduated from a Baptist college and a Baptist seminary, have been a member of a Baptist church 47 years and an ordained Baptist minister over 30 years. I have spoken at Baptist conventions city, county, state, provincial, inter-provincial, national and international from coast to coast in the United States and Canada. But I have never met "Baptist ritual." It is time for me to do so. If you will be so good as to furnish me a copy or advise me where I can secure one I shall be pleased to pay all the expenses and be delighted, interested and surprised to get the information which has eluded me all these years.

FLOYD H. ADAMS

Lincoln Square Baptist Church

Worcester, Mass.

To signify what Baptists usually do on similar occasions, TIME chose the word "ritual." It was a poor choice.--ED.

*Written in 1871 by Count Leo Nikolaievich Tolstoy.