"Mister's" Cuffs

Sirs:

I beg to inform you of two untrue statements printed concerning the Secretary of the Navy in the last number [March 11] of your magazine.

His cuffs are not detachable; and in the nineteen years that I have been his son, I have never yet addressed him as "Mister." . . .

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS JR. Cambridge, Mass.

Dashes

Sirs:

I wish to enter a protest against your use of dashes in your Letters columns when you delete profanity. I approve the deletions, but I see no good reason why you should pique the curiosity of your occasionally profane readers by having all dashes of equal length.

I suggest that in future you use single, double, triple and so on dashes according to the number of letters in the words deleted. Thus if one of your correspondents referred to some person as a -- -- -- -- --- it would offend no one, and at the same time members of the Ancient & Honorable Order of Occasional Swearers could figure it out and rest assured that the writer is a brother and not some rank outsider in Russian, Chinese or Sanskrit.

W. B. FRANCE The San Diego Sun, San Diego, Calif.

Swearer France's suggestion, perhaps a-- good one, will be taken under advisement.--ED. Christie Cheered

Sirs:

In TIME of March 18, the letter of Eva A. Lindbergh Christie, calls attention to the figures of the Federal Trade Commission in which "1% of the people own 59% of the wealth, 13% own 90% of the wealth and 87% of the people own 10%." Now this 87% includes those who produce the wealth yet they own only one tenth of it.

This country is the richest country in the world, teeming with wealth, and any person who has worked 25 years should be able to retire if so desired and to have plenty for himself and family the balance of his days. How many have this after working 25 years? With many of them this life is a terrible struggle for existence. A revision of the banking laws as suggested would doubtless be beneficial and in addition to this what we need is a heavy inheritance tax on large fortunes, say 95% on all over a million dollars, use this money to make public improvements and to pay the National debt and to pay the Soldiers' Pensions. . .

J. T. WATTS Oak Park, Ill.

Sirs:

Differing from Lady Kenstroke (TIME, March 25), it has been my privilege to write many of my intimate friends since the appearance of Mrs. Lindbergh Christie's letter in TIME, for the 18th, in which I could not resist paying compliment to the Lindbergh name for having sprung from such splendid forbears, as evidenced by the public attitude of both son and daughter. First the illustrious son, Charles Jr., then his mother, and now the half sister, with thus far not an "error" to mar their public actions or utterances. . . . For similar reasons did my family appreciate a recent number of TIME, the one containing a splendid portrait of Lindbergh and Son, the son showing the pride he felt sitting on his father's knee, confirming what had appeared in the published stories of companionship existing between father and son, back when the lad was possibly 11 or 12 years of age. The same impulse prompted me to address a congratulatory note to the writer of the few lines in TIME of issue of 18th, in which Mrs. Christie made clear why she revered her father's name, which by no stretch could be connected with the motives ascribed by Mrs. Kenstroke. Further did I think so well of her letter that I accompanied my own with a list of 15 or more names for the same issue to be sent them with recommendation to become steady readers. As further evidence that Mrs. Christie was blessed with good "bringing up," her office stationery, entirely apart from any connection with the name Lindbergh, attests that she is secretary of Red Lake County Child Welfare Board, thus recognized by her home county as a worthy member of the Human family. . . HENRY VINCENT Ann Arbor, Mich.

"Blood & Agonies"

Sirs:

Introduced today to my first acquaintance with TIME, and enjoyed description of Ray Long's manipulation of the Cosmopolitan's Coup, re the Coolidge article. It was fine.

To a complete reversal of sentiment I finished description of Cover picture (March 18). The devilish and ruthless exploitation of horses at the Liverpool race course, for which they are trained to suffer painful and needless deaths in order to entertain abnormal or subnormal men.

Do you mean to please your readers by this sort of thing? I find no censure in the article, no intimation that the promoters are barbarians, sadistically indulging in savagery.

This is completely told in the cynical lines, "It is a great day if an eighth of the original field clears the final fence and staggers through the last five hundred yards."

Blood and agonies left on the course, and listed under "Sport" by you. It is shameful, and not extravagant to say so to you.

You must pardon strong language, and believe me,

BELLE EDDY STORRS Brooklyn, N. Y.

Chrysler's Double Sirs:

TIME, March 11, page 50, col. 1,--"Walter P. Chrysler, motorist, alternately scowled and grinned." By letter I am informed that Mr. Chrysler was in Honolulu on Feb. 18. Would you kindly explain his presence in Miami. GRAHAME ENTHOVEN

Managing Editor, The Roxbury Record* Cheshire, Conn.

At the Sharkey-Stribling fight in Miami must have been a double of potent Motorist Walter Percy Chrysler. Besides TIME, observers for three leading Manhattan newspapers reported Mr. Chrysler's presence.--ED.

St. Olaf's v. Dayton

Sirs:

As a brother-journalist interested in accuracy and as an admiring reader of TIME, permit me to challenge a statement on page 32 of your March 25 issue under the Music department to this effect:

"Many persons have still to be informed . . . that Dayton hears . . . the best choral music sung today in the U. S."

According to the unanimous verdict of the critics in east and west, north and south, Dayton must be satisfied with the second best in this sphere. For all have agreed that "in all America there exists no musical organization devoted to choral song quite comparable to the St. Olaf Lutheran Choir of St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn." For the evidence read the ravings of otherwise hardboiled critics in the enclosed folder:

Herman Devries, Chicago Evening American: "The choir is the greatest of its kind in America, perhaps in the world." Frederick Ramig, Cleve- land Times: "Dr. Christiansen has the greatest vocal ensemble this country has ever heard. The St. Olaf Lutheran Choir is the criterion for all choirs." Richard Spamer, St. Louis Globe-Democrat: "In all America there exists no musical organization devoted to choral song quite comparable to St. Olaf." New York World: "Some two score youths and maidens from Northfield, Minn., put on immortality for approxi- mately one hour and thirty minutes last night at the Metropolitan Opera House, for the most exacting listener surely must admit that the choir of St. Olaf College, during the moments they are intoning their music, can only have been recruited from the angelic host. ..."

That should be sufficient evidence. Not that Northfield does not wish to be generous, but in the face of such evidence I am confident that Dayton will accept the correction.

HERMAN ROE

National Editorial Ass'n Northfield, Minn.

Priest v. Plumber

Sirs: I certainly don't marvel at the staggering nerve of Mr. J. T. Sanders, Sioux Falls Plumber. (TIME, March 25). We, all of us, are so at the mercy of his 11 Trovatore musicians that plumbers have become demigods shattering the peace of our bedrooms and laying waste our bankrolls. I know a God-fearing man who got drunk for a week after a little fairy of a plumber got into his home for one day. It took the God-fearing citizen a year to find his religion again. And Mr. Sanders runs true to his tribe; he's oh, so chesty. He wrote you: "The Catholic Hierarchy does not speak for me." All right, Mr. Steam and Gas Fitter, I don't fancy Catholic bishops will lose their rings or their tempers about that. But who--who on earth ever gave you the right to speak for the "rank and file of Roman Catholics if let alone by the Catholic Hierarchy?" The Catholic rank and file, in spite of this metallic voice pounding in the wilderness of South Dakota--yes, the Catholic laity do want parochial schools for their boys and girls. They are eager to have their children trained in religion which makes for morality and turns us out finer citizens and gives parents better results from their offspring. The parochial school is doing what the parent may not have time to do himself in this sad workaday age of ours. The fact that laymen are perfectly willing to pay taxes for our public schools and then support at the same time parochial schools indicates how Catholic parents feel; they make sacrifices to maintain both. The public schools for those who want them; the parochial schools ditto. Plumber Sanders brazenly declares, "I am a member of the Catholic Church and in years gone by !" He's probably the kind of member that comes for his own funeral when he can't kick any longer. I have one parishioner (?) who has not darkened the door of our church for 40 years. A zealous Mason tried to capture him for the order. The Mason told me he'd failed, and this was the reason: "Why, laws, I'm a Catholic! I belong to Father W." I gave the Mason a drink; the joke was good--and it was on the Mason and me. FATHER WILL WHALEN Old Jesuit Mission. Orrtanna, Pa.

Seventh Commandment

Sirs:

LIBERTY, famed product of potent tycoon Medill-Patterson-McCormick-dynasty, March 9, p. 4, editorially, re "DIVORCE AND COLLUSION," says:

"In our marriage vows the Seventh Commandment still stands: thou shalt not commit adultery."

Has DIVORCE--or the tycoon dynasty-- changed the order of the Ten Commandments? I'm neither Editor nor Theologian, just an old-fashioned fellow who learned--and still understands--the Commandments run thus: 6th: Thou shalt not commit adultery. 7th: Thou shalt not steal. Am I out-of-date? Have the Commandments been shifted? If so, by whom? when? why? To supremely subtle, sublimely succinct, superlatively sane TIME I turn for correct information. J. J. SHERLOCK Hollywood, Calif. Unless Subscriber Sherlock learned his commandments from the Vatican account of Exodus, he has forgotten his early schooling. In Bible texts today, Deuteronomy & Exodus concur: 6th: murder 7th: adultery 8th: stealing--ED. Secretary Morton

Sirs: In a footnote of your issue of March 18, on page 13, you speak of J. Sterling Morton as "Secretary of the Interior under Cleveland." May I ask if you are not wrong in this placing of Mr. Morton? If my recollection serves me right, Mr. Morton was Secretary of Agriculture instead of the Interior under Mr. Cleveland. In fact, Mr. Morton was the first Secretary of Agriculture, as the department was created under the administration just preceding Cleveland, who was the first president to fill that important department. In addition to being the first Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Morton was a pioneer in the development of Nebraska City, having founded a packing industry in that city, which is still in operation. He was also father of Arbor Day and induced the Nebraska Legislation to establish that as a state holiday and most of the other states have adopted it as a state holiday. Mr. J. Sterling Morton established Arbor Lodge at Nebraska City, and his son, Joy Morton, head of the Morton Salt Company, recently deeded Arbor Lodge to the State of Nebraska as a state park and memorial to his father, and it is one of the most interesting state parks in the Central West. M. E. SPRINGER

New York City. Subscriber Springer is right in remembering that J. Sterling Morton was Secretary of Agriculture in Cleveland's second Cabinet (1893-97). Secretary Morton was not the first but the third to hold that office. He was politically active in Nebraska history--a member of the territorial legislature, then Secretary and Acting Governor of Nebraska Territory.--ED.

*Of which Walter Percy Chrysler Jr., is Chairman.