Secret
Sirs:
What is the secret and mystic meaning of your picture (TIME, Oct. 1) of "Jix" (British Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks) with the caption:
"I am sorry to tell you it is twins"?
You quote Sir William as saying: "Communism is not dead yet. . . . Communists . . . are proposing even to regulate the number of a man's children by law. ... I cannot help feeling rather for the father of a family, who has got almost up to the legal number of children, when the nurse comes downstairs from his wife's room and says, 'I am sorry to tell you it is twins.' I am afraid the nurse would have to ring up the police and tell them of the new crime that had been committed."
Then you drop this footnote: "Supposing that the legal limit were six children and supposing that twins should be born to Their Majesties, who already have five children, then the position of Sir William Joynson-Hicks would be that of his hypothetical nurse."
I fail to comprehend. Why would Sir William's position be that of his hypothetical nurse? Why would he say what you attribute to him in the cut caption, if Queen Mary gave birth to twins in the circumstances mentioned?
ROGER BROMPTON
Boston, Mass.
Through typographical error the following sentence, intended to conclude the footnote, was omitted from TIME:
"Sir William, as Home Secretary, has the duty of being nearby when each royal babe is born, in order that he may officially record and announce the birth."--ED.
Categorical Reply
Sirs:
I enclose herewith a rather categorical reply to your letter of the 20th, asking two questions.
I trust this will give you the information you desire.
ERNEST H. CHERRINGTON, LL.D., Litt. D.
Director
Anti-Saloon League of America Washington, D. C.
The questions asked by TIME were:
1) Will $2,000,000 have been raised on or before Nov. 1, 1928?
2) To what uses, which are without political effect, has or will the money be devoted?
Dr. Cherrington's replies are:
1) The Anti-Saloon League will not, for any purpose, raise two millions for the year ending Nov. 1, 1928.
2) Some uses "without political effect" to which Anti-Saloon moneys are put: publishing "a flood of pamphlets, leaflets, books and articles on the scientific, economic, sociological, hygienic and other phases of the alcohol problem"; publishing the Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem; issuing press releases; "furnishing the religious press (which reaches the great bulk of our supporters) with articles intended to answer wet propaganda"; publishing The American Issue (national monthly). . . .
Dr. Cherrington said: "In view of the fact that Prohibition is just now such a vital issue in the political field, even that which under ordinary circumstances would be considered strictly educational, may not be wholly without political effect, either direct or indirect, but the activities mentioned above are educational in character."--ED.
Wagners
Sirs:
In your issue of Sept. 24, 1928, under the caption "Corruption" you recite the story that one Dr. Jerome Wagner, identified as a "brother of United States Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York" was detained at Rouse's Point and fined for the illegal importation of liquors. Since Dr. Jerome Wagner is in no wise related to the Senator, it is obvious that your publication is guilty of unjustifiably connecting the Senator's name with an illegal act. . . .
S. H. RIFKIND, Secretary
Washington, D. C.
Hooverized"?
Sirs:
Your subscriber, Mr. Hammerel of Minneapolis, accuses you of partiality toward Smith. But I have for some weeks, as a reader seeking facts, been intending to ask if you were not rather strongly Hooverized!
Evidently, in spite of a strong & undoubted tendency to editorialize, TIME is nevertheless still "vigorously impartial" in its attitude--and Mr. Hammerel's accusation and my opinion taken together prove it.
F. S. SCHOFFS
St. Paul, Minn.
Harding Picture
Sirs:
Quoting TIME of Sept. 24, page 9, third paragraph, "As in most G. O. P. offices this year, there is no picture of President Harding."
Why?
R. H. KELLER
Tiffin, Ohio
Let Subscriber Keller wait until his grandchildren go to school. After studying U. S. History (1921-24) they will be able to tell him.--ED.
Ayrshire Yokels
Maister Editor:
I'm sennin' ye back TIME for Sept. 24 jist as it cam tae me, because I haena time tae strauchen it oot. If TIME hisna time tae fauld it ony ither wy than on the bias, an' wi' the aidges o't crush't an' crumple't like the heid o' a pine brod that has been hemmer't by a 10 year auld boy, I dinna want it, for I haena time tae airn't oot sae the pages can be turn't an' read. The last nummer wasna sae sair mutilatit as that for Sept. 24, an' I hae read some o' it. I see ye say that Jix addressed "the gaping Ayrshire yokels." That's a fine sentence. I hae nae doot the chap that wrote it read it twice or oftener, and smile't at his ain smertness. I widna say but he compare't himsel (muckle tae his ain advantage) wi' that Ayrshire yokel, Rabbie Burns. Rabble's fairly weel ken't the day in the literary world, some hunner and forty year efter his first lines appeared in prent. The Faem o' the author o' "the gaping Ayrshire yokels" should gang thunnerin' doon the ages for five hunner year at least. Anither writer chiel, that foonded the city o' Gait, Ontario, and hauds a place in the latest edition o' Wabster's International Dictionary, some 90 year after his daith, was a "gaping Ayrshire yokel," tae. An' Dr. McCosh, President o' Princeton College, Princeton, N. J., was anither. An' sae was Lord Stevenson, famed controller o' rubber, (apologies tae TIME here) who made Herbert Hoover sae jumpy two or three year sin' that some o' oor American papers said that Herbert got his feegurs sae badly jumle't that he made statements showin' that the British, through Stevenson's rubber control, were forcin' us American motorists (I rin a Packard masel') tae pay in increased price for oor tires some three or fowre hunner million dollars a year mair than the price o' a' the rubber that was imported into the kintra.
Ay, Lord Stevenson was a bad yin. I see ye dinna owerleuk him in yer last issue. He was anither o' thae Ayrshire Yokels. He gaed tae the same schule as I did masel'. I wunner what Jix was thinkin' o' himsel', addressin' the like!
But I canna quite mak' oot what TIME is tryin' tae bring tae its readers by the "gaping" in that literary gem. I was born and brocht up ("raised" we say oot here) among the Ayrshire yokels, an' I dinna min' seein' them gap much, except when they might be tryin' tae read a newsmagazine as dull as TIME. No that ony siccan drivel was produced in Ayrshire, but there bein' nae censorship on dullness, some yawn-provokers frae the ootside at times got on tae the newsstaunds, an' were whyles bocht by chaps that werena "on" tae their contents.
JAMES BROWN
Supreme Court, Pierre, S. Dak.
To Subscriber Justice Brown, tongue-twister but no yawn-provoker. ungaping thanks for a scholarly reprimand.--ED.
Sleeping Brown
Sirs:
Is TIME slipping? Yesterday I called on Subscriber and fellow TIME-fan Dr. A. C. Brown. He slept soundly in his office chair, a copy of your October 1 issue in his hand. Too much politics?
TOM L. ANDERSON
The Iowa Hawkeye The Midwest News Magazine for the Deaf Council Bluffs, Iowa
No doubt Subscriber Brown can explain.--ED.
Pea Pods
Sirs:
On page 28 of your issue of TIME, Sept. 24, you have a heading "PEA PODS." I note what you say about them--well, the U. S. Department of Agriculture has only to go to JAPAN and they will show them how to raise PEA PODS for food, as you can buy them in any of the vegetable markets of that country. Since coming home from Japan we have often wondered why the farmers of this country did not raise Pea Pods for the market. Those we had over there were wonderful, and we were able to get them all through the winter months in Tokio as the writer was in business in that city.
EDWARD J. MCNAMARA
Owensmouth, Calif.
U. S. Dentist
Sirs:
I should be glad if you would correct the statement which was made in your Number of September 3, 1928, that King Alexander of Yugoslavia was recently operated upon by "Court Dentist Kostich."
The operation in question was successfully performed by the only American dentist in Yugoslavia, Dr. George E. Reeves of Chicago, who does all the dental work for the American Legation as well as for the members of the local American and British colonies.
Dr. Kostich is not a dentist but a well-known surgeon in Belgrade.
JOHN DYNELEY PRINCE
Minister of the United States of America to the Kingdon of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
Belgrade, Yugoslavia