Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Corp.

Sirs:

On behalf of the Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Corporation, I am calling your attention to the following statement contained on page 10 of your issue of February 13, 1928, to wit:--"The day after Senator Johnson spoke in the Senate, a band of Negroes, hired by the Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Company, swaggered down a road near Horning, Pa., and fired revolver volleys into the windows of a school filled with strikers' children. One of the strikebreakers, arrested, said he had been paid $25 by the coal company to shoot up strikers in their barracks. This was reported as a typical incident.

"Who is to blame for the strike? Pennsylvania operators admit that they broke a wage agreement signed by them in 1924. They broke their word to escape bankruptcy, which faced them in the competition of non-union mines."

Not only is the statement regarding the negroes shooting up the strikers in their barracks not true, but the plain inference of the language "hired by the Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Company," coupled with the later statement in the paragraph that one of the strikebreakers had been paid $25 by the Coal Company for this purpose, is that the Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Corporation knowingly and intentionally set about to cause a breach of the peace, which is not the fact.

You do not state what are the facts, to wit: that two of the negro employees of the Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Corporation, who were returning to their homes from work, were fired upon by a party known to be a striking miner, one of the negroes being, wounded; that, upon his being taken to his home, a number of negroes in the camp, enraged thereby, started a retaliatory move against the strikers, and that, after this fracas was over, one of the negroes, at the point of a gun, was compelled to sign a so-called confession dictated to suit the purposes of the striking miners.

. . . Furthermore, when you speak of the Pennsylvania operators admitting that they broke a wage agreement signed by them in 1924, you include in that category the Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Corporation, to whom you had just previously referred. . . . You will find that the Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Corporation carried out its Jacksonville agreement, employing all its miners at the Jacksonville wage scale, until the contract expired on April 1, 1927, though the keeping of this agreement entailed hundreds of thousands of dollars of loss upon that company. I am instructed by the Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Corporation to say to you that, unless the language which I have quoted above is retracted in as prominent position in the next issue of your paper as was occupied by the language in question in the issue of February 13, action will be taken to hold you responsible for this libel upon the company, in order that the reputation of that company may be cleared.

C. F. TAPLIN

Taplin & Fillius Cleveland

Report that the Negro had retracted his statement about being paid $25 to shoot up strikers, did not come from Horning Pa., until after TIME, Feb. 13, had been printed and distributed.

As to breach of the Jacksonville agreement, TIME greatly regrets that juxtaposition wrought injustice to the Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Corp., one of the few Pennsylvania operators that did not choose to break their word to save their financial skin.--ED.

"Autocar"

Sirs:

TIME (Feb. 6, p. 26) made profound typographic error under section headed ART, in item headed "Plastic Advertisements," in third word in fourth paragraph--autocars.

Autocars, plural trade name, registered, well-advertised (not plastically), of motor trucks manufactured by Autocar Company (est. 1897), Ardmore, Pa., invariably, insistently begun with capital A.

Use of word in plural form likewise questionable. ... As an advertised product there is only one Autocar!

ROBERT F. WOOD Advertising Manager

The Autocar Company,

Ardmore, Pa.

"America-men"

Sirs:

True it is, as Patrick Henry, come to life again, says in your issue of Feb. 13 [LETTERS], that Chinese students and certain others resent the use of the term "Chinaman" as applied to them. But why? Their term is Tsoong Kok Nyung, which is, literally, Chinaman. And while in English they do not call us America-men, their term is Mei Kok Nyung which, again translated literally, is no more nor less than that. The pronunciation given is, of course, in Shanghai dialect, but the Mandarin pronunciation is not very different, and the meaning is exactly the same.

Wouldn't it be a pity if the long-suffering foreigner, having been shouldered with the responsibility for the full list of China's domestic disturbances, should now be blamed in addition for the well known peculiarities of the Chinese language?

R. T. POLLARD

Columbus, Ohio

Fits

Sirs:

TIME, unpredictable, printed nothing concerning a matter which would interest many of its readers. ... I refer to a recent issue of the Penn State Froth, which was a parody on TIME. In this parody the opportunity was taken to "razz" many of the pet aversions of the student body as represented by the Froth Staff. It appears that many of these aversions happened to be faculty men--or higher. Not obscene, it was not forbidden the mails, nor was the sale of it in the college prohibited. But--and I have this from a student--the editor was asked to resign from the local literary fraternity, the object of the front-piece caricature threatened libel suits, the wives of the offended faculty threw fits, the faculty itself debated for four hours the question: Resolved, that the Froth be indefinitely suspended and that various punishments be meted out to its officers. The question, to my understanding, still hangs in the balance. . . . Yours, TIME-fully,

WILLIAM J. TURNER Wilkinsburg, Pa.

"Unworthy"

Sirs:

The page, 39, devoted in your issue of Jan. 30 to a description of the manufacturing processes and equipment used for TIME by R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co. should have no place in a magazine of your integrity.

Written in true TIME style, doubtless by TIME talent, it is patent that none the less it was paid for by an advertiser. Why could not this advertisement carry its legitimate and proper signature? Such dissembling is unworthy of your aims.

THEODORE MALCOLM

New York City

The advertisement was indeed written in TIME style. It was indeed written by TIME staff. And furthermore it did not cost R. R. Donnelley & Sons 1-c-. TIME, proud of its new printer, was eager to introduce its 180,000 subscribers & newsstand buyers to the potent organization that prints the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the telephone book of many a U. S. city---and TIME. Let Dissenter Malcolm reread the advertisement; he will see that it did carry "its legitimate and proper signature." The advertisement was signed, thus:

TIME The Weekly Newsmagazine NEW YORK--CLEVELAND--CHICAGO

Puffed Up

Sirs:

As a Canadian living in New York I got a big kick out of your timely appreciation of Conductor Wilfred Pelletier's success with Soprano Jeritza in "Carmen" in Philadelphia. As a TIMEkeeper, I am loyal enough to be puffed up that TIME is the first newspaper to give Canadian Pelletier the praise he has long deserved. . . . He began his musical career by playing in a small movie house in Montreal as a boy. . . .

CANUCK

New York City.

San Diego

Sirs:

... It might be interesting to note that San Diego was the pioneer city of the west coast in inaugurating and carrying out an intensive community advertising campaign. San Diego, since her first campaign, has spent approximately $150,000.00 annually on community advertising, with the result that her population has increased over 100% with a corresponding increase in industrial development and realty values.

G. P. STONE

San Diego, Cal.

Bigger & Better

Sirs:

Surely I must compliment you for producing what I believe to be a bigger & better TIME.

One reason I wish to see the Bigger & Better Chicago of 1950 is that I shall enjoy TIME in the meantime, for I have promised myself TIME for life.

Your advertisers alone are a compliment to your substantial, progressive and all-around worth while TIME.

Thanks for this week's MISCELLANY, MEDICINE, Music, EDUCATION, SPORT, RELIGION, ART and BUSINESS. Would like to see more under SCIENCE, also PROGRESS.

E. W. FISHER General Contractor & Builder

Chicago, Ill.

In Galveston

Sirs:

There is a Rosenberg monument in Galveston, Texas. Rosenberg was a Jew.

W. L. HOLZBAUR

Cleveland, Ohio

"Paderewska"

Sirs:

TIME is such an excellent periodical that I must call your attention to an error commonly made in the United States of America. The name of the great pianist is I. J. Paderewski. Right. But ... in speaking or writing of his wife you should designate her as Madame Paderewska. GRACE C. D. FAVRE

Lausanne, Switzerland

-Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Toledo and many another.