Concerning Faunce

Sirs:

In your issue of Oct. 22 appears an article entitled "Faunce Out." This contains a farrago of insinuations and trivialities, many of them untrue. For example, Dr. Faunce appreciates a good cigar and keeps a box of one of the best brands always ready to enjoy with his friends. The appointment of Percy Marks was terminated before the publication of The Plastic Age. Neither Chinese nor Negroes are numerous at Brown, although her gates are open to both, and should be so in a land of equal opportunity. Far from being undistinguished in his undergraduate days, Faunce was one of the leading scholars in his class. You ought to know better than to suppose that the degrees of D. D. and LL. D. are conferred for postgraduate work. Instead of merely receiving these honorary degrees from his own university and from a small southern college, as you imply, a casual glance at Who's Who in America would have informed you that he holds the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Yale and Harvard, and that of Doctor of Laws from half a dozen institutions. Any competent editor on seeing the article in manuscript would instantly have realized that it must be written by a personal enemy of Dr. Faunce and would at least have consulted one of the many prominent Brown graduates within a mile of your office who could have informed him that the article conveys an inaccurate and wholly inadequate impression of the President of Brown.

Inside your front cover are these words: "Cultivated Americans, impatient with cheap sensationalism and windy bias, turn increasingly to publications edited in the historical spirit. These publications, fairdealing, vigorously impartial, devote themselves to the public weal in the sense that they report what they see, serve no masters, fear no groups."

If your magazine is meant to conform to this ideal, the least that you can do is to print an apology for your article of Oct. 22 and tell your readers what has actually been the career of Dr. Faunce at Brown. He came to the university at the close of a bitter controversy over his predecessor which rendered a large portion of the alumni hostile to the new president. Because of his tact, honesty, and faith in the university, the breach was quickly healed. A natural reserve made it difficult for Dr. Faunce at first to enter into the life of the undergraduates, but this defect soon dwindled away because of his genuine desire to share the troubles and aspirations of young men. He has been in office longer than any other college president now living, and he approaches the end of his service honored and loved by all the students who have known him. At the close of his twenty-fifth year and again during his recent illness, large gatherings of the alumni gave enthusiastic expression of their devotion. Nor is he merely the leader of a small university. He has been a prominent and fair-minded exponent of Christian liberalism, and he is one of the very best speakers of our day. Whether he addresses college graduates or businessmen his hearers are stirred by the beauty of his words and the nobility of his thought.

Nothing of all this will be guessed by any reader of your article, which is wholly unworthy of the standards which you usually maintain.

ZECHARIAH CHAFEE JR.

Law School of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

TIME thanks Professor Chafee for his able rectification of certain injustices done to President Faunce in a story which was in general appreciative.--ED.

And Rockefeller

Sirs:

As one of Dr. Faunce's classmates I am somewhat interested in the article relating to him in your issue of October 22, and amused by its many misstatements, some of which I have indicated in the copy which I am returning to you. I would not ask for any published correction but for your personal information would say that Dr. Faunce made a most remarkable and complete recovery from his illness, which was protracted and severe, and he has for the past two years done much more work than comes to the lot of ordinary men.

It is also incorrect to say that Mr. Rockefeller's gifts have been confined to one building. He has made many generous contributions to the College, some publicly and some without public announcement.

Z. CHAFEE

Providence, R. I.

Commissioner Back

Sirs:

I read with considerable interest your article in a recent [Aug. 20] issue of TIME, referring to me under the caption "Commissioner Out."

The picture which accompanied the article purporting to be a portrait of me was--to say the least--awful. It made me look like a lifer and I am afraid it will take a lifetime to live it down. It would give me pleasure to send you another and a better picture, one that really resembles me, for your future use should the occasion arise.

I am glad now to inform you that at the request of Secretary Kellogg and on his assurance that in the future the Government would cooperate with me, I have withdrawn my resignation. I am now back on the job again.

B. OGDEN CHISOLM

International Prison Commissioner on the part of the United States

New York City

When he resigned in August, Commissioner Chisolm said: "They [the U. S. Government] may be interested in aviation but they don't care a continental damn about prisons abroad."--ED.

Brainless Sentimentalists

Sirs:

"Southern Push"

In TIME of Oct. 29, p. 9, col. 3, under the above subheading you dilate on "Big Gun Borah's" invasion of the South in behalf of the Hoover candidacy. You state that on this Southern trip "there was a noticeable departure from the close reasoning which usually marks the Borah manner." In explanation of this you say he thinks "perhaps understanding diminishes and emotion increases below the Mason-Dixon line."

Since "reason" is the leading thought in this paragraph of yours, what "reason" can TIME give for attributing to Senator Borah the idea that the South is made up of brainless sentimentalists. Certainly the Senator never expressed any such thought, and it would appear that TIME has gone a long way out of its way to slap the South in the face with this untrue, unjust and unmerited accusation, if not slander. . . The material accomplishments of southern men in business are too well known in the business mind of the country for TIME to make of us a lot of driveling sentimentalists.

E. C. PORTER

Dothan, Ala.

On the issue of Southern intelligence, Senator Borah may quarrel with TIME, or Subscriber Porter may quarrel with Senator Borah; but Subscriber Porter has no quarrel with TIME.--ED.

Taft Expanded

Sirs:

I am enclosing my check for my renewal subscription to TIME, the most informative as well as the most readable magazine of the day.

I was particularly interested in the article concerning Justice William Howard Taft, as reported in the Oct. 8 issue.

Has it ever occured to TIME that most of our Presidents have diminished in both stature and prestige after leaving the White House and that our Honorable Chief Justice offers a striking exception to this rule? Justice Taft, while he may have diminished in girth as reported in your article, has by his kindliness, his charity and his profound knowledge and application of the law, expanded immeasurably in the eyes of his countrymen, since his tenure of the White House.

DWIGHT L. STRONG

Wyandotte, Mich.

Personal Matter

Sirs:

In an effort to ascertain to what political party the editors of TIME adhere, I was dogmatically informed that the "Republican Party" was the answer to my query. This conclusion was naively based on the fact that you unfailingly award the first column of the presidential issue to that party.

With all due apologies for referring to a personal matter would you kindly justify your action that I may prove to my informant how immaterial this matter is to your political beliefs.

JULIET LINDEN

Berkeley, Calif.

TIME gave first place to the Republican Party because it was the party in power, just as in golf the winner of the last hole is given "the honor" and "drives" his ball first. Erroneous, however, is Subscriber Linden's dogmatic information that the Editors of TIME are Republican: one voted for Hoover, one for Smith. During the campaign, no subscriber successfully demonstrated that TIME favored either candidate or either party.--ED.

Spoonerisms

Sirs:

TIME omits two of Dr. Spooner's most famous alleged lapses. On the occasion of the old Queen's jubilee he is said, as college chaplain (of 500 year-old New College, Oxford), to have said: "Let us pray for our queer old dean." Another time he said to a small audience, "It's beery work addressing empty wenches."

TIME's impartiality is admirable, but it still takes too long to read. Can't you make more of intrinsic interest, less of verbal dressing up?

H. B. ENGLISH

Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio

To Subscriber English thanks for additional spoonerisms. TIME (Oct. 29) printed the following spoonerisms:

"It is kisstomary to cuss the bride."

"Have you, my brethren, ever nurtured in your bosom a half-warmed fish?"

"The kinquering congs their titles take."

Rev. Dr. William Archibald Spooner, 84, insists that the last quoted spoonerism is the only one he ever invented or used. Dr. Spooner's more serious works include The History of Tacitus with Introduction and Notes. He was Warden (1903-25) and is now Honorary Fellow of New College, Oxford. He likes walking and riding. --ED.

Abbot Aghast

Sirs:

Nobody "gaped aghast,'' to use your phrase, on seeing the matter in Britannia, ascribed to me as its correspondent, with more astonishment than I did. Not one single word of all the phrases quoted in your very proper criticism of Nov. 5 was cabled by me, or appears in the carbon copy of my cable, which I have.

I did not see the first number of Britannia until it had been out nearly three weeks. As soon as I saw it I cabled the managing editor that the interpolations in my cable were vulgar, undignified, and inaccurate, and would make the paper and its correspondent ridiculous.

On October 23rd I wrote to Mr. Crawfurd Price a letter, a carbon copy of which I enclose herewith. Of course it would be quite impossible for you to use this letter as it is too long, but I hope you may find occasion to refer at least to my repudiation of these utterly unjustified misrepresentations of my position.

I have had no response from the Britannia office to my protest, but I notice three subsequent articles of mine have been published without any change whatsoever, other than expanding the abbreviated cables into more literary form.

I have no complaint to make whatsoever of TIME's comment. It is absolutely justifiable, only I was not responsible for the idiotic and undignified statements attributed to me in the first number of this British Periodical. I can only conjecture that in the rush of getting out their first number they slipped several cogs. . . .

WILLIS J. ABBOT

The Christian Science Monitor Boston, Mass.

Extracts from Journalist Abbot's letter to the management of Britannia, new blatant British weekly, published by Jingoist Gilbert ("Swankau") Frankau:

. . .While in the west last week I received a telegram from the editors of a paper called TIME, which makes a feature of acid comment on other journalistic products. They asked if I was the Abbot corresponding for Britannia. Of course I answered "yes." Since seeing what your editors have made me say I am apprehensive that in the next number of TIME I shall receive a scorching. . . .

"The fact that the second article appears exactly as I wrote it does give me some peace of mind, as it gives assurance that this action is not to be repeated. Of course if it were I should immediately request, to be relieved of any further association with your paper. . . .

"I am glad to turn to a pleasanter subject, and applaud the variety and value of Britannia's contents. . . .

Yours sincerely

(Signed) WILLIS J. ABBOT