Sinclair's Flag

Sirs:

I am enclosing the title or first page of your issue of Dec. 2, in which in a footnote it is declared that on the day of the funeral of the late Secretary of War, James W. Good, the American flag on the Sinclair Building in New York City was not half-staffed.

I do not know the source of your information, but whatever it was, it was incorrect.

I suppose that by this time I should be immune to every sort of misrepresentation about my affairs and myself. Unfortunately, I am not.

I have therefore taken the trouble to ascertain from the employe in charge that our flag was half-staffed on the day of Secretary Good's funeral, and will make an affidavit to that effect if necessary. . . .

H. F. SINCLAIR

New York City

Eyewitnesses notified TIME that the Sinclair flag was at peak the day of Secretary Good's funeral which was also the day upon which Mr. Sinclair got out of gaol. To the employe-in-charge and to Mr. Sinclair apologies for an incorrect report. -- ED.

Five Civilized Tribes

Sirs:

In your issue dated Dec. 16 on p. 12 in a footnote you state: ''Unlike Negro blood, Indian blood carries no social stigma in the Southwest, PROVIDED it is from one of the five civilized tribes: Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, Seminole." Just what is the significance of that statement?

In justice to thousands of Indians, many of them prominent in all walks of life, in the Southwest, but not of the five civilized tribes -- please explain.

J. WHITE SHIELD

Seminole, Okla.

TIME is satisfied that its report, while casting no aspersion on any Indian, accurately expressed the prevalent white view of miscegenation in the Southwest. --ED.

Washington's Dill

Sirs:

We five TIME readers would like a report of the life and present activities of Senator C. C. Dill of Washington.

F. DALE RHOADS WILBUR G. BURR ARTHUR J. LUNDBERG HARRY L. WILLIAMS T. McDONOUGH

Seattle, Wash.

The record of Senator Clarence Cleveland Dill of Washington is as follows :

Born: Near Fredericktown, Ohio, Sept. 21. 1884.

Start in Life: Country school teacher at 17.

Career: He attended Knox Co., Ohio, public schools until a need for money turned him to instructing those hardly younger than himself.

Two years taught him his own ignorance. He entered Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, earned spare-time cash as a trolley conductor, was graduated in 1907. He worked briefly as a newsgatherer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer before going West. At Dubuque he stopped off for a year to teach high school, then pushed on to Spokane where he followed his pedagogical calling for two more years. Studying law at night, he was admitted to the Washington State bar at 26. In his travels he had picked up the seeds of Democracy, but Washington State was poor soil for their growing. Too professionally busy, too politically ambitious to marry, he served as an aide to Spokane's prosecuting attorney. At 28 he was chairman of the Democratic State Convention. A smattering of practical politics came to him during 1913, when he was Governor Ernest Lister's private secretary. In 1914 to the astonishment of all, he, a Democrat, aged 30, was elected to the 64th Congress. It was the first time the Fifth District of Washington had ever sent a man of that party to the House.

In Congress: In the House he was swallowed up by the large Democratic majority. He emerged on the surface of public consciousness in 1917 when he was made chairman of the first House committee to visit the French battle front, to investigate A. E. F. troops, their food, housing, training. Many a soldier publicly wondered why the committee chairman, a young bachelor, was himself not in military service. He explained he felt he could render more service to the U. S. as a legislator than as a soldier.

President Woodrow Wilson's call for a Democratic House in 1918 paradoxically helped to turn Rep. Dill and many another Democrat out of office. Back in Spokane, he practiced more law, bided his time for another political foray. All his good Democratic friends told him he was crazy to offer himself as a candidate for the Senate in 1922 against Republican Senator Miles Poindexter. He was as surprised as they when he was elected with 4,000 votes to spare. Last year he squeaked through to re-election by fewer ballots.

In Congress he voted for the Soldier Bonus (1924), Farm Relief (1927, 1928, 1929), Boulder Dam (1928), Radio Control (1928), the Jones--heavier Prohibition penalities--Law (1929), Reapportionment (1929), Tax Reduction (1928).

He voted against the 15-cruiser Bill (1929).

He votes Dry, drinks Dry, makes no political pother about Prohibition.

In foreign affairs he opposes the League of Nations and U. S. adherence to the World Court. With his fingers crossed he voted to ratify the Kellogg-Briand Anti-War Treaty. He is a vociferous opponent of the use of U. S. Marines in Nicaragua and Haiti, constantly calling for their withdrawal. While he favors the principle of protecting U. S. lives and property abroad, he criticizes the U. S. in the role of Caribbean policeman.

Legislative hobbies: Radio control, a tariff on shingles.

As the Senate's "radio expert" he is the joint author of the Dill-White Radio Law establishing the Federal Radio Commission with its broad licensing authority over broadcasting. Rare is it that a Democrat in the Senate minority thus sees his name tagged to major legislation. As the Senate's first radio enthusiast, he has owned a dozen different receiving sets, keeps one going almost continuously while at work in his Senate office. His radio motto: "Freedom of the Air." He is the sworn enemy of the so-called Radio Trust (Radio Corp.) and is forever tilting against airy windmills of monopoly. His latest satisfaction: indefinite continuation of the Federal Radio Commission.

On the tariff he is for low Democratic rates. except when they impinge upon the State of Washington's lumber industry.

Vainly he and his Republican colleague Senator Wesley Livsey Jones pleaded for a shingle tariff to shut out Canadian competition across the State line.

In 1927 at Cold Spring Harbor, L. I., he took to wife Miss Rosalie Gardiner (''General") Jones, famed leader of the 1913 suffrage invasion of Washington. Chicken-farmer, bookplate collector, lawyer, manager of a five-million-dollar estate, his wife kept her maiden name, proclaiming: "I refuse to become an echo to my husband. . . ."

Since his marriage, he has effloresced in Washington society. Money no longer bothers him. He and his wife live in the President Apartment Hotel on fashionable 16th Street where they entertain frequently and well. For political purposes, however, he continues to be an active Moose, Elk, Odd Fellow. He drives his own automobile to and from work, has no fondness for long motor trips, in spite of the fact that his wife won fame for a New York State suffrage tour in a yellow Chevrolet.

Youngish-looking, rather slouchy in carriage, he is thickset, round-faced, pudgy-nosed. About him is a deceptive air of rotund jollity. His eyes are greenish blue, his hair a sandy brown. Clean-shaven until last spring, he now wears a pale yellow mustache of the "toothbrush" variety. No meticulous dresser, he is fond of bright neckties, of going without his waistcoat. He neither smokes nor chews. As a bachelor he developed an interest in cooking which, as a mild diversion, he has carried over into married life. He sees nothing comic in the connection of his name with pickles.

Almost distinguished is he as a public speaker. There is a deep clear resonance in his voice that captivates any audience. He campaigns directly to voters on street corners, from a platform especially constructed over his car's rumble seat. In the Senate he makes a good speech, avoids extravagant gestures, thumps his desk occasionally for emphasis. His mind is brightly intelligent if not deeply intellectual.

Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: An ultra-liberal Democrat, he has shown an individual talent for legislation. His political and economic theories cause him to swing naturally into line with the Norris-La Follette Insurgent faction of the Senate G. O. P. He exhibits no capability as a minority party leader. His votes are generally independent, sometimes freakish (he was the only Democrat to vote against the special session adjournment). A good partisan, he flays the Old Guard and what he calls G. O. P. "imperialism" so vigorously that many a conservative mistakes him for a radical. In industry and intelligence he is above the Senate average. His term expires March 4, 1935--Ed.

Ovine Industry

Sirs:

I wish to congratulate you on your section "Husbandry" in your Dec. 16 issue.

As a regular reader of TIME, I particularly enjoy this section and your increased interest in Agriculture a fundamental industry.

May I call your attention, however, to the fact that you have omitted the ovine industry. I suggest you add--

Best sheep (grand champion wether--International) purebred Southdown wether shown by Purdue University.

W. L. HENNING.

Secretary American Southdown Breeders' Association State College, Penn.

Versatile North Dakota

Sirs:

. . . I would like to call to your attention the fact that Olson Brothers of Hannaford in Griggs County, N. Dak., won first prize aged bull, senior champion and grand champion in the Milking Shorthorn class with Hillcreek Milkman, an animal raised in North Dakota. [International Livestock Show, TIME, Dec. 16.] Olson Brothers also won junior champion female in this class, six first prizes and many others.

The winning of a grand championship in the International Show is an outstanding thing in itself, and I have heard it said several times that almost any stock man would rather win a grand championship at the International than be President of the United States.

The Hartley Stock Farms at Page in Cass County, N. Dak., won first junior heifer with Blackbird of Page and first prize two-year old bull with Eventuation of Page in the Black Angus class. These two animals were both grand champions at the American Royal held at Kansas City recently.

The North Dakota State College of Fargo in Cass County, N. Dak., won first for the best group of five steers fitted, fed and shown. Three steers of this group of five also won first as the best group of three Aberdeen Angus Steers.

The North Dakota State College also won second on a carload of fat lambs which sold for 23-c- per pound.

Mr. Joseph J. Shoules of Walsh County in North Dakota won first on Flax. . . .

I, therefore, think that you will agree that in spite of the fact that we, in North Dakota, who live West of the Mississippi River where some of our good neighbors in the East seem to think the climate unlivable, the 'wild jackasses run rampant,' where the buffaloes still eat our cabbages in our gardens and the Indians scalp our children on their way to school, nevertheless can raise high-class stock and grains of all kinds. . . . North Dakota is rapidly forging to the front as a highly diversified farming State.

F. C. POTTER

Fargo, N. Dak.

Irish Setter

Sirs:

. . . I am one of those cover-to-cover readers but I am a cover-to-cover-reader-at-one-''setting." Should I be respectfully referred to as "an Irish setter?"

MAURICE J. O'NEIL

Henderson, N. C.

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