Monday, Apr. 15, 1929
Baguio's Brent
Sirs: The death yesterday of Bishop Charles Henry Brent of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York has come as a great shock to his many admirers.
One of his outstanding but little heard of contributions to improving conditions in the Philippine Islands was the establishing of the Baguio Boys' School at Baguio, a summer resort high in the mountains north of Manila. This school was established about 1907, if I remember correctly, and the first headmaster was Dr. Remsen B. Ogilby, now president of Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. At the time this school was established, educational facilities in the Islands were practically nil for American youngsters whose parents were in the Islands for military or commercial reasons. At that time, I remember going to a Catholic school in Cotabato where all instruction was given by men in Spanish and I was the only white pupil. Shortly after, an American school teacher opened a public school, and I transferred to it. I sat between a Moro kid, a Chinese, and two Mestizos, and I joined heartily in "My countree 'tis off dee" every time a visitor showed up. What a relief it was to go to Baguio with twenty odd other American boys, and be taught by a small group of the finest men and instructors I have ever had--all hand picked by Bishop Brent. The mountain climate, excellent care and discipline, and the best of instruction make me recall my Baguio days as the happiest of my boyhood, and it was all due to Bishop Brent's realizing a crying need of the times and supplying this need with a school that still is ranked very high among boys' schools.
W. B. HOLDEN New York, N. Y.
To Subscriber Holden all thanks for a TIME-worthy report.--ED.
Raleigh's Eyes
Sirs:
Why reprimand TIME'S correspondent for failing to see Mr. Coolidge rise to shake hands with Mr. Hoover at the Inauguration when no less a personage than Sir Walter Raleigh himself was deceived by his own eyes?
Sir Walter Raleigh was in his prison composing the second volume of his History of the World. Leaning on the sill of his window he meditated on the duties of the historian to mankind, when suddenly his attention was attracted by a disturbance before his cell. He saw one man strike another, whom he supposed by his dress to be an officer; the latter at once drew his sword and ran the former through the body. The wounded man felled his adversary with a stick, and then sank upon the pavement. At this juncture the guard came up and carried off the officer insensible and then the corpse of the man who had been run through.
Next day Raleigh was visited by an intimate friend, to whom he related the circumstances of the quarrel and its issue. To his astonishment, his friend unhesitatingly declared that the prisoner had mistaken the whole series of incidents which had passed before his eyes. The supposed officer was not an officer at all, but the servant of a foreign ambassador; it was he who had dealt the first blow; he had not drawn his sword, but the other had snatched it from his side, and had run him through the body before anyone could interfere; whereupon a stranger from among the crowd knocked the murderer down with his stick, and some of the foreigners belonging to the ambassador's retinue carried off the corpse. The friend of Raleigh added that the government had ordered the arrest and immediate trial of the murderer, as the man assassinated was one of the principal servants of the Spanish ambassador.
"Excuse me," said Raleigh, "but I cannot have been deceived as you suppose, for I was an eyewitness to the events which took place under my own window, and the man fell there on the spot where you see a paving stone standing up above the rest."
"My dear Raleigh," replied the friend, "I was sitting on that stone when the fray took place and I received this slight scratch on my cheek in snatching the sword from the murderer, and upon my word of honor, you have been deceived upon every particular."
Sir Walter, when alone, took up the second volume of his History, which was in manuscript, and contemplating it, thought: "If I cannot believe my own eyes, how can I be assured of the truth of a tithe of the events which happened ages ago, before I was born?" and he flung the manuscript into the fire.
ELIZABETH WINSLOW The Duke Endowment Office of Director Hospital and Orphan Sections Charlotte, N. C.
Sir Walter was wise to stop writing "history." Great explorer, courtier and puddle-cloaker though he was, he, inaccurate of eye, would not have qualified for TIME Staff. The reprimand stands. -- ED.
Ear v. Eye
Sirs:
It has occurred to me that the following astonishing statement by Professor Walter B. Pitkin of the Columbia School of Journalism, who is co-author of A Million and One Nights, a history of motion pictures, deserves editorial comment:
"We hereby file our official forecast on the moral effect of the talkies. We assert that the ear is more moral than the eye. And we predict that the talkies will uplift the movies more than all reformers ever can."
This is quoted from the April issue of Children, The Parents' Magazine.
GEORGE J. HECHT Publisher The Parents' Magazine New York City
One year from now, let Publisher Hecht report such evidence as may have been discovered to prove Forecaster Pitkin right or wrong.--ED.
Old Codger
Sirs: . . . All I ask of TIME is to be polite to our Royal Family who are all the best of good sorts. I have stood in the great hall of the Lincoln memorial at Washington with a very dear American friend (He first sent me TIME)--and Lincoln & Washington in rather nice mezzotints adorn my billiards room here. . . . . . . And Edward of Wales is a very great young gentleman & some worker. Excuse an old codger and all that rot--and God speed all the best in your bright paper.
D. PALMER-JONES Purley, Surrey.
Let Subscriber Palmer-Jones speedily specify if and whenever he considers TIME impolite to T. R. H.'s. -- ED.
Her, His
Sirs:
The little bull puppy dog that seems to be appearing every week in one of your advertisements seems so natural that I am sure she is real. What is her name? She looks exactly like my own ''Patsy."
(Mrs.) LEWELLYN STOPES Boston, Mass.
Sirs:
To begin as abruptly as your stories often do, "What's his name?" I mean the smart little bull pup in the Bryant Gas Furnace ads you are running. I had a bull called "Baxter" exactly like the beast. Died ten years ago. . . .
C. T. P. BROWN Philadelphia, Pa.
In advts thus far published, Bryant Heater & Manufacturing Co. have not revealed "the beast's" sex. Its name is Bryant Pup. -- ED.
Bull Pups Flayed
Sirs:
You ought to ask the Bryant Gas Furnace Co. why they always have their "pup" a bull pup. Most people in my experience don't like bulls as well as a good many other pups. Look in the funny papers and you will always see it is a bull pup that gets the comedian by the pants. That's bad. Look in the high brow fashion magazines and how many people do you see with pups that have bull pups? I am in the pup business myself, you might say, and I know people don't like bull pups any more. Much better a white Sealyham pup. They are all the go, and being white a gas furnace could be advertised that it don't get them dirty and there would be more sense to it than with the mostly black bull pup the Bryant people are using now. Why not have a different kind of pup every week? . . . JOHN WALSH Bridgeport, Conn.
Snooping Defended
Sirs:
In your discourse on The Cabinet (TIME, March 25) you mention, among other news, the prison-snooping system employed by Mrs M. W. Willebrandt, Assistant Attorney-General (in charge of Prohibition and Taxes), to "keep conditions wholesome in the federal penitentiaries." The latter hinted that this spying system had originated with Attorney-General Sargent It this is true, why did Mr. Sargent fail to approve of wiretapping relative to prohibition enforcement, when the Supreme Court by a 5-4 decision allowed evidence thus obtained to be used in court?
It is a matter of common knowledge what Mr. Sargent said to former General L. C. Andrews immediately after the apprehension of Bootleg Tycoon Wm. V. Dwyer (reputed to be doing a business of $25,000,000 a year): "You might just as well open a criminal's mail as listen in on his telephone." Mr. W. Green, former Chief U. S. Prohibition Investigator, is authority for the statement that without wiretapping Tycoon Dwyer would have never sojourned at Atlanta. The writer is in echo with Mr. Green's judgment of Mr. Sargent as an amateur attorney-general. $12,000 is a lot of money for an amateur.
RAYMOND DASCH Steubenville, Ohio
Mrs. Willebrandt's hint that Mr. Sargent favored or instituted "snooping," was, of course, as incredible as it was misleading. Would Subscriber Dasch suggest that willingness to "snoop" is the only test of a Federal official's "professionalism"?-- ED.
McNichols No Tyrant
Sirs:
There has been much ado about nothing, and I, with the staunchest of school spirits come to defend my Alma Mater, our University of Detroit. The words of Father McNichols have been misrepresented, added upon, made disgraceful and ridiculed over the entire country. A little of his advice to the girls about loitering in the halls has been changed into the words: "You must not look at or speak to the men of the University during class hours . . . you are college widows . . . you came here just to make love and lower the morale of the men."
The news writers have made Father McNichols a tyrant but I dare say that anyone who has had the pleasure of conversing with him will find that he is never tyrannical or narrow-minded on sex subjects.
MARY LOUISE NELIUS Co-ed at the University of Detroit Detroit, Mich.
Let Mary Louise Nelius report her version of what Father McNichols did say to University of Detroit co-eds when he placed restrictions upon their relations with University of Detroit boy-students. --ED.
French Line Flayed
Sirs:
Some years ago an American actress who had been mixed up in some filthy performances came back from Paris bringing with her one hundred pairs of silk stockings. Interviewed by a reporter anent the matter, she said: "The woman who can get along with less than 100 pairs of silk stockings hasn't legs at all, but only things to stand on."
In TIME for March 18 there was a French Line ad containing this sentence: "The woman who doesn't adore the thought of buying clothes there (in Paris), and glittering trifles on the rue de Rivoli . . . isn't a woman . . . she's a misnomer in petticoats."
But wasn't it rather a good thing for America that Nancy Hanks had only things to stand on and that she was only a misnomer in petticoats?
And would you care to hazard a guess as to how many silk-stockinged hussies and adorers of the rue we could afford to trade for one Nancy Hanks about now?
The French Line takes itself and Paris too damned seriously. DENNIS F. CROLLY Crolly Advertising Service Scranton, Pa.
Maertha & Olaf Praised
Sirs:
The picture on your cover of March 25 just received of "Sweden's Maertha, Norway's Olaf" makes me wish it were possible to throw off all immigration restrictions between Norway and Sweden and the United States.
I congratulate you on securing a photograph of two such fine American looking people as Maertha and Olaf and on successfully reproducing it.
LEHMAN JOHNSON Consulting Cotton Seed Specialist, Memphis, Tenn.