"Poke in the Nose"
Sirs:
. . . Your excellent paper has been coming to my home for three years and my aunt and I have always enjoyed reading it. ... BUT--why in heaven's name did you print such an unpatriotic letter as that of Sidney Henderson of Chicago in regard to our excellent President's flight with Lindbergh? (TIME, April 9). In the first place, the letter was decidedly of a sarcastic tone; in the next place he dares to imply that Coolidge is lacking in moral courage and sportsmanship. I'd like to be near enough to Henderson to give him a poke in the nose! I'll bet Henderson has not taken an air-trip over to Paris more than fifty times(?). It gets under my skin to read a letter like Henderson has written and it riles me more to think you would print one like it. . . . Men like Coolidge and Lindbergh are not produced every day, but men like Henderson are born every minute.
Please do not think I am trying to pick a fight, I just want to condemn the general tone and contents of Henderson's letter as an unpatriotic utterance and say that there is no glory in patting a wife and mother on the back and saying: "Your son or husband died a hero." That does not bring them back. What good would it do for Coolidge to take a flight? He's not seeking publicity. He does not need it. He's known and loved throughout the world and I say this although I am a Democrat at heart. I'd vote for a Republican as fine as Coolidge any day.
Kindly do not clutter up your paper any more with letters like Henderson's. If you do not publish this so he can read it, please give me his address and I'll give him a piece of a woman's mind and you know what that will mean when a woman really gets her Irish temper up.
Nevertheless I wish you success.
CATHERINE M. WHITSITT
Bayside, N. Y.
No Dignity
Sirs:
I wish to reply to the letters in your magazine on April 9 and 23 suggesting that President Coolidge take a flight with Colonel Lindbergh. The writers of those letters were lacking in dignity. TIME also showed itself lacking in dignity to print them. You have no business to use your magazine as a medium for making personal suggestions to the President of the United States. I have no doubt that Colonel Lindbergh would be a safe pilot for any man, great or small; but that is no reason why President Coolidge should have his life made more difficult with continual nagging. . . .
I read TIME for the facts it gives me. ... GEORGE A. WATSON
Kansas City, Mo.
Mr. Brand
Sirs:
Enclosed please find a release covering the circumstances which caused me to ask Secretary
Hoover to consider the vacancy of Secretary of Agriculture.
You wrote the nastiest article that was published on this subject [''Burnt Brand," TIME, March 26] and I wanted you to see just how far you were justified.
CHAS. BRAND Congress of the United States House of Representatives Washington, D. C.
Let Congressman Brand see NATIONAL AFFAIRS, this number of TIME, for an account of his release.--ED.
Grudge
Sirs:
Up until the April 9 issue of TIME, I was an ardent reader of and booster for the publication; but since reading that issue containing the wholly unnecessary account of the unfortunate tangle in which the two young sons of Ex-Governor Cox found themselves with the New York Police Department, I am "off" your magazine forever, unless appropriate amends are made.
Did not that proud father suffer sufficient humiliation on account of the episodes themselves? . . .
Would you, Mr. Editor, have been so keen to air the matter further if your own son or sons had been involved? I think not.
And what have the capers of these two young men to do with "National Affairs," under which heading the article in question is classified? Surely nothing.
The only apparent reason for a further airing of the unfortunate affair was no doubt to satisfy a personal grudge against the father of the boys.
To say the least, this was a most cowardly way in which to satisfy one's grievance. If you have a personal grudge against Ex-Governor Cox, why not come out like a man and state it so that he will have a fair opportunity for a reply.
And have you given any thought to the possible influence the publication of such articles may have upon other boys--or girls--for that matter? . . .
I am wondering if you will have the courage to publish this letter in your next issue of TIME together with an apology for publishing the article to which I have alluded. I shall look with interest, and should I fail to find a satisfactory explanation for the "lapse," I shall see to it that the matter is otherwise broadcast, but without doing further violence to an already humiliated father and his two sons.
This is not said as a threat, but an appeal to fairness.
E. B. WESTON
Dayton, Ohio.
A subscriber of such long standing as Dayton's Weston should know better than to accuse TIME of a grudge against anybody.--ED.
The Lincoln of Ohio
Sirs:
What a pity that you are unable to see anything good or able in Fess--the keynoter. You slurred, in life, Senator Willis and now you turn loose on his friend and former teacher. If you knew Senator Fess as I have known him from boyhood, you could not belittle yourself by using the language concerning him which appears in your issue of April 16. Were this 1860, your small-bore magazine would see nothing in Lincoln worthy of commendation. He would be to TIME, a tall, bony, gaunt, ugly, poor-little-town-minded politician. This and nothing more--judging from your description of Senator Fess.
TIME seems utterly incapable of appreciating the fact that this is a new era in American politics and the dominant parties are demanding a higher type of leadership. The people require such leadership. S. D. Fess is the Lincoln of Ohio and I venture the surmise that if the Editor of TIME knew the Senator as some of us know him, he would make public apology for what he has said. . . .
Again, Senator Fess represents the highest political and moral ideals but pray inform us, if you can, what TIME represents?
J. M. RUDY
Church of Christ Pastor,
Ada, Ohio
P. S. I happen to be a classmate of Senator Fess and feel that what you say is an insult.
Four Plays
Sirs:
A few words.
The Dramatic Club of West Virginia University, proud possessor of a Cumnock Cup (1927), early this school year leased a local theater; called it The University Playhouse; presented four major plays, The Pelican, The Family Upstairs, Outward Bound, In Love with Love; attained the distinction of being the only organization of its kind possessing, by deed or lease, a playhouse; presenting therein major plays; receiving only advice from its collegiate connection; making expenses.
If only for its uniqueness deserves mention in unusual and stimulating TIME. . . .
J. D. FAUST, '29
West Virginia University Morgantown, W. Va.
To West Virginia University, high praise; to Subscriber Faust, thanks for TIME-worthy news-facts.--ED.
Many Mothers
Sirs:
... I always read your articles on people with much interest. As you say "Names make news." Do you know of any other person with more names than this: When visiting my friend Mrs. Edward Beckford Crane at her winter home in St. Petersburg, Fla., we discussed the duties and pleasures of motherhood. She said to me, Do you realize how many kinds of mother I am: twelve. I enclose you the list she gave to me.
Mrs. Crane is the widow of George W. Beckford--a famous granite king of Hardwick, Vt., he having built such buildings as our Post Office at Washington, D. C. They had two sons and one daughter. This daughter died at the age of four years. She then adopted a little girl the same age.
After Mr. Beckford's death she married Dr. Edward Crane of Hardwick, Vt., who had one son. This makes her all those kinds of mother, and a real one she is to each of them, looking after their many needs.
Can any other woman do more than this?
ETTA KERR BEATTY
Pittsburgh, Pa.
The list:
Mother Grandmother
Foster-mother Step-grandmother
Stepmother Godmother
Mother-in-law War-mother
Foster-mother-in-law Step-War-mother. Stepmother-in-law
What She Wanted
Sirs:
When I turned page 14 of TIME, April 16, and saw the smiling face of Miss Sylvia Pankhurst with her first-born in her arms, it recalled the days when this lady led the mob of wild, dissatisfied, would-be unsexed women who thought they wanted the franchise. What a different facial expression then and now, it is evident that she has got what she really desired: Motherhood; Finis can now be written to her political activities.
J. R. SMITH
Philadelphia, Pa.
Copped
Sirs:
Truly TIME is great. Its style is spreading and now comes a new weekly which has copped its paragraph headings and its lively method of introducing the news. I refer to Affairs, an information service which gives all the low-down on what goes on in the corridors and cloakrooms of Washington. It is very specialized and does not cover the world as does TIME, but its wisdom in borrowing TIME'S features should make it prosper.
H. C. LODGE
Washington, D. C.
Horrid
Sirs:
If you publish again that horrid picture of Clarence W. Barron, someone should speak to you quite sharply.
J. J. LIPSEY Colorado Springs, Colo.