Mellon and Distillery
Sirs:
. . . There is one question that has been called to my attention of late, owing to the nearness of the election and that is: Does Andrew Mellon still own his distilleries, and make and sell whiskey to the druggists? If you can give me any enlightenment on this subject I will be very grateful to you. . . .
OLIVE JOHNSON
Springfield, Mo.
The following statement has been received from Mr. Mellon:
"I once owned some stock in a distillery company as I owned stock in many other business enterprises. The stock in this company was disposed of before I took office as Secretary of the Treasury; in fact, the distillery company absolutely ceased from doing any of its manufacturing business over three years before the prohibition amendment went into effect, and the entire business was subsequently wound up. At no time was I ever actively engaged in the distilling business. I have no interest in or connection with the distillation of liquor or any liquor business. Very truly yours,
A. W. Mellon Secretary of the Treasury."--ED.
Fake Oath
Sirs:
Congratulations on exposing fake oath falsely attributed to Knights of Columbus. (I am a Baptist son of a Baptist minister.) TIME brings to the dark, bigoted Middle West facts other publications fail to print.
BERT S. CHEWNING
Harrisonville, Mo.
Nobody Lying
Sirs:
Is somebody lying? I was boasting to a friend that TIME was the speediest magazine for printing the news and circulating it on earth. I told him that three years ago you went from Manhattan to Cleveland to speed up your national circulation, and last January from Cleveland to Chicago to make it speedier. I told him also that last summer you moved your editorial offices from Cleveland back to Manhattan to get the news quicker and more authentically.
Then he showed me this advertisement: "Readers of the Literary Digest will receive the fastest service of any national magazine--within 8 days after going to press we deliver everywhere from Maine to California."
Maybe the Literary Digest don't know that you exist yet. Maybe they don't think you are a national magazine. Maybe they are quibblers and in this way recognize TIME as the national newsmagazine and themselves as an ordinary national periodical.
Please tell us the truth?
MELVILLE WILLSON
Chicago, Ill.
TIME goes to press Tuesday, includes important Tuesday news. Three days later, most of its 220,000 weekly copies have reached subscribers. No magazine can compare with TIME in the matter of speed. However, no one is lying. TIME is the first, the only newsmagazine in the U. S.--ED.
Sears Roebuck Tires
Sirs:
Your telegram of August 17, came to the attention of the writer asking for information on our sales figure. We decided for competitive reasons it would not be proper to disclose such figures. We are sorry that it is necessary to decline the information. Anyway our sales have been so phenomenal that if we did give you the information probably half the readers would not believe it.
I am a regular reader of TIME and can appreciate from your article on tires in last week's issue (Aug. 27) just why you wanted the information and I can assure you positively that there are more Sears, Roebuck tires sold today direct to the consumers than any other tire and besides we are making money.
I always enjoy TIME.
L. E. SEXTON Tire Development Engineer Sears, Roebuck and Co., Chicago, Ill.
Shoebill
Sirs:
I catch you in error. You say (TIME, Sept. 10) that New York hoodlums broke the beak of a shoebill heron. Newspapers that I have read called it a shoebill stork.
WM. McFEE
Albany, N. Y.
Science classifies Balaeniceps rex as a heron, although it is very like a stork.--ED.
Timers Want Errors
Sirs:
I know how you can increase your circulation 20%:
Being a business man, you have found out that to succeed in business you must give the people what they want, not what you want.
Now then, every old Timer has a burning aspiration to some day see a letter in TIME with his own signature beneath it. When his letter is printed,--he will take his copy of TIME, frame it, and hang it in his front bay-window. Then he will go to all the newsdealers in the country and buy 8 gross of TIME and scatter them broadside among his friends and relations. He will even give one to each of his mother-in-laws. Ah! How great he will be. All the people who are so fortunate as to know him will look up to him as an author or a devil or something.
Now, it is an unwritten rule of the Timers that in order to be qualified to write a "letter" to TIME, they must find a fault in TIME. . . .
Here is what I suggest:
Insert a few errors in TIME each week as a special added attraction and you will get more mail than Santa Claus.
Without an added expense to you, except for envelope openers, you can make TIMERS take a real live interest in their magazine. All you got to do is:
1. Leave out a comma here & there.
2. Tell 67 important Republicans that they are Democrats.
3. And, I see you have a lot of horse-doctors among your readers. Call a horse a mare, once in a while.
BENNIE KOBIE
P. S. If you have been doing this all the while, why, simply ignore this. Chicago, Ill.
Debaters
Sirs:
Just a few lines to correct a misstatement made by one Eugento Vera in your issue of Sept. 3 concerning the success of the Debating Team of the University of Puerto Rico in the Eastern States this past spring. This team did not win in all its debates. It was defeated by Boston University on April 10, by Bates about a week later and then by Princeton. Of the dozen or so debates in which the Porto Ricans took part, only two were in Spanish. This in itself is certainly an exceedingly fine comment on how much interest is taken in foreign languages in our American colleges. To think that of all the universities invited to debate with Porto Ricans in their own language, only one had the "gumption" to accept. That was New York University.
Yale staged an impromptu debate in Spanish later on with the excuse that they had not known that Porto Rico University was desirous of debating bilingually. As it was, the honor of taking part in the first intercollegiate debate to be held in a foreign tongue fell to New York University. The latter team was defeated but it proved concisely that N. Y. U. had students who were not afraid to face a foreign audience and debate and refute in a foreign tongue. Other colleges were fearful of making themselves appear ridiculous so they declined Porto Rico's invitation to stage bilingual debates.
The Debating Team of the University of Puerto Rico deserves to be congratulated. . . .
I am sure TIME isn't prejudiced against Porto Rico. TIME is too open-minded to be biased against any nationality. "Viva Puerto Rico y los portoriquenos."
MORRIS SUSSMAN
Manager of Spanish Debating Team
of New York University Elizabeth, N. J.
A Republican Editor
Sirs:
Reading the item in TIME, July 23 under caption, Smith vs. White, Mr. White rejoins: "The undertakers are looking wistfully right now at three members of the United States Supreme Court, and with Al Smith as President we should have in that Court three distinguished learned respectable lawyers (who would) declare the 18th Amendment unconstitutional."
Mr. William Allen White assumes to be big enough to tell the whole truth, but being a Republican editor, it is hardly to be expected, especially if smothering some of it will mislead readers and perhaps redound to the benefit of his party.
Gov. Smith nor any other President, can appoint judges of the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Federal Constitution provides: (Article II. Section 2.)
"The President shall nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint Judges of the Supreme Court."
From the foregoing it is apparent that no President can appoint Supreme Court Judges, not even the "dehumanized super-efficiency expert" Mr. Hoover, if by any mischance he should be elected.
It is time the country at large was apprised, so that this and other kindred misinformation peddled by White and his ilk may not deceive the electorate to its disadvantage.
LEE CHAMPION
Beverly Hills, Calif.
Vile Aspersion
Sirs:
. . . and finally let TIME adopt a more gentlemanly tone toward women, and especially toward ladies.
My father held, and I still hold with the great English moralist Acton that "happily for society" we may dismiss the supposition that women have sexual feelings as "a vile aspersion."
I have attained a ripe age. My children number three. And I see no reason why a gentleman should take other than Acton's view.
CHARLES JAMES CARROLL
Baltimore, Md.