Governor Gardner's Back Sirs:
May a reader who enjoys TIME -- its frankness, its sometimes bluntness, but especially the little bits of news, side-lights if you please, that are found in no other paper to my knowledge; may I make just one little complaint? TIME, " Sept. ... 21, in "Drop-a-Crop" subhead Other States... in North Carolina estimated crop 715,000 bales) Governor Oliver Max Gardner turned his back on the South." At least some of us North Carolinians think our excellent Governor did no such thing. We think he showed more wisdom that some other Governors--he implored Governor Sterling of Texas admittedly the key man of the key State to call a conference of Governors and their Commissioners of Agriculture in Memphis --specified NO SPEECHES, a two-day session to formulate a concerted, uniform program for the South in the cotton crisis. We think subsequent events have proven him more nearly right than other--some of whom have called legislatures, passed "No Cotton Laws" based on 75% of the producing States doing the same. Texas then upsets the plans by passing a 30% acreage law, making the No Cotton Laws of no avail since there can be no 75% prohibition of cotton without Texas. Now nothing remains for the States with No Cotton Laws but to repeal and pass other laws, necessitating other special sessions of legislatures if anything is to be done to help cotton this year. . . . Governor Gardner knew that cotton prohibition in the South would play into the hands of the Egypt, Russia et al; he knew the economic loss the South would suffer from no cotton; loss from employment in gins, plow hands, cotton pickers, truck drivers, warehouses, cotton buyers of loss employment in gins, plow hands, cotton pickers, truck drivers, warehouses, cotton buyers. He knew that the South would miss the money its crop brings in -- around $500,000,000 this year at 6-c- per Ib. -- that some institutions, merchants, banks would suffer.
We are satisfied that Governor Gardner had a logical slant on the cotton question: that he did not "turn his back on the South.''
THOMAS H. SUTTON Fayetteville, N. C.
TIME'S was phrase "turned his back on the South" was unfortunate. All praise to North Carolina's Gardner for turn his back on the South's other Governors when he conscientiously disagreed with the direction they were heading.--ED.
Spooler & Warper Sirs: Please -- it's Barber-Colman [TIME, Sept. 21, p. 55] and it's a spooler and a warper -- two different machines. . . . Also this system is acknowledged to be one of the foremost developments of past decade in textile manufacturing, greatly speeding up & simplifying the preparation of the warp threads for the loom and the weaving process. Preparation of the cotton fibre for weaving is a complicated process with too many operations involved. Present mills are seeing and will see a good many simplifications and combinations of these spinning operations (occurring prior to the spooling & warping mentioned above). You might call attention to the above. Correct it on the part of Sherwood Anderson as he is undoubtedly to blame -- I noted the same error in a recent issue of Vanity Fair.
JOHN C. COOK Western Manager Cotton P .S. It is surprising that you donot have more errors of this type in your good paper -- but I believe in justice to Barber-Colman Co., one of the leaders in serving America's second greatest industry, some correction should be made. Chicago, Ill.
Cordial Bottum Sirs: Now that the time draws near when we will again be "snowed in" for some four months, I want to say this: I sit here at a $535 GF all-steel desk that George C. Brainard, President the General Fireproofing Co. sent me. I glance at an Illinois watch that General Manager Bob Miller of The Illinois Watch Co. sent me. I smoke a pipe filled with Edgeworth that Advertising Manager R. W. Holloway, Larus & Brother Co. sent me and "tap-tap" on some Coupon Bond Eagle Brand writing paper that President Sam (Alias "Sidney Louis," TIME, July 13) Willson, sent me and with a Victor typewriter that Vice President Al Buhler, The Victor Adding Machine Co. sent me. My feet rest on a choice "Quaker" rug that Dwight L. Armstrong. Vice President The Armstrong Cork Co. sent me and I marvel at the whiteness of the Murphy Da Cote enamel on the window and door trim that Salesmanager H. H. Pratt, Murphy Varnish Co. sent me -- while Doyle Advertising Manager The Lloyd Mfg. Co. rocks contentedly in a trick rockerless rocker Lloyd Loom Chair he sent me.
This is an actual occurence here and -- Nope! I do not advertise-- I simply have a private hunting camp for my boys. now then what do I do during the cold winter months--when the gaunt Timber Wolves howl? I read TIME magazine that my good friend De Witt F. Reiss of The Vollrath Co. sent me. Cordially yours for a good Newsmagazine. CHAUNCEY A. BOTTUM ("The Bear Hunter") The Wildernest Lodge Iron River, Wis.
Chang's Butt Sirs: How come and for why publicity of Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang with pistol butt exposed in shoulder holster under right arm? (TIME, Sept. 21.) I wonder how many people noticed and commented upon this, and where they live. In this domain of Ross Shaw Sterling where National Guardsmen and Texas Rangers make pistols noticeable, we hardly miss. . . . TOM T. MAIN Tyler, Tex.
Reading Tariffs Sirs: I would like to know if the U. S. has ever been guilty of levying a tariff on any kind of literature coming into her borders. If she (or he) has I shall be like "the boy the calf ran over." If not. I rise to protest that it is tyrannical to make a poor prairie farmer who can get only 4 1/2-c- per Ib. for his wool pay $8 for TIME when a Californian who is protected by a 31-c- tariff can get the same publication for $5. ...
R. M. FARTHING Lousana, Alberta The U. S. levies tariffs on: 1) books and periodicals printed abroad by lithographic process (fashion periodicals, 8-c- per lb.); 2) books less than 20 years old in English by foreign authors (15%) or by U. S. authors (25%); 3) children's books (15%), "toy" books (70%). But bibles, books for public libraries or in foreign languages are duty free, no important foreign periodicals are affected. -- ED.
Cotton & Constitution Sirs: Your Sept. 14 issue notes the recent agitation for no-planting laws in the cotton States. As a lawyer who devotes most of his time to fianacial and economic matters. I have been disturbed by the apparent total absence of concern in the minds of the advocation Governors and the complete ignoring of what seems to my lawyer friends and myself as an insuperable constitutional inhibition involved in such legislation.
It seems to us that such a law is so far out side the police powers of a State, as delineated thus far by the decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court, as to make it clearly contrary to the prohibition of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the U. S. As we understand it, State restrictions on oil flow are expressions of an entirely different legal power, which is based on certain inherent rights of of the State in so-called "wild" products of nature which have not yet been captured or appropriated.
Where are the attorneys general who are supposed to keep the Governors of the respective States advised? Or is the proposal merely a political beau geste? In any event, if false impressions and hopes are being built up in cotton, perhaps to be followed in other commodities, isn't a clarification of the situation such news as the Press should give the public as well as to bewildered lawyers. DAVID STOCK New York City
Flying Squirrels Sirs: ''He [Earl Carroll] was the first man to land an airplane in Manhattan's Central Park" (TIME, Sept. 7). Early in the spring of 1914, I landed a Sloane-Deperdussin monoplane, 50 h.p. Gnome motor (some power fer them days, by gravy!) in the sheep meadow at 66th Street. Was arrested for something--possibly, publicity for the cop who arrested me-- and discharged by Magistrate MacQuade next morning. The Aero Club of America suspended my license for six months. If I remember correctly, George Beatty landed a Model B Wright on this same field at least two years before I did, and the late Blair Thaw turned the trick along about 1915 with a private plane built for him by Harold Kantner. It would appear from TIME'S paragraph that the Bathtub Earl did not join the Central Park Flying Squirrels until 1917, which would put him a long way from charter membership. I suggest that the archives of the Carroll Press Department be altered accordingly. GUY GILPATRIC Cros de Cagnes, A.M., France
Mate Adams' Killing Sirs: In the Aug. 24 issue of your interesting magazine you published the news of arrest ef one L. C. Adams, mate of American ship Sundance, charged with the murder of one of his crew in a foreign seaport. As my occupation is similar to his I wish you would inform me of the outcome of his trial. . . . JOHN M. WHEATON Port Arthur, Tex. While the Sundance was discharging cargo at Ghent, Mate Adams dragged mutinous Seaman Myak Wooker, 6-ft.-6-in. Esthonian, from beneath a bunk. Seaman Wooker seized a fire axe. Mate Adams shot him dead. Belgian authorities cleared Mate Adams. Last month, charged. with murder on the high seas, Mate Adams was freed by a Manhattan grand jury. -- ED.
Pittsburgh's Dodo
Sirs: The picture of a stuffed dodo (TIME, Sept. 14, p. 40) is, to the writer's untrained eye, much like a stuffed restoration of the dodo which is prominently displayed in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh bird differs from the Iowa reproduction principally in having a feathered tail instead of the cottontail effect, the coloring is apparently somewhat more uniform and there are slight differences above the eyes. Why then can Iowa claim "the only Stuffed replica in the world of the dodo?". . . L. L. NETTLETON Pittsburgh, Pa. There is also a reconstructed dodo in the American Museum of Natural History, Manhattan. The Iowa Museum, however, lays claim to possessing the first U. S.-made dodo. The other two replicas-- were made in London. -- ED.
Press On Sirs: Kiwanians of the McKanArk district, alert to the need of a timely gesture of courage in the face of the business depression properly to launch their convention at Joplin, chose a TiMEly method when Convention Committee Chairman Harry Horner of Wichita arose at the start of the initial session and read from TIME, Sept. 21 issue, The Presidency, the full article from which the following are excerpts: "At 4 p.m. one hot day last week President Hoover kept his regular appointment with the Press. . . . The U. S. public is being unduly alarmed about the degree of hardship in prospect for this winter. . . . The psychology of fear should labelled. be . . ." exiled and a national sign hung out As he neared the end of the quotation, Chair man Horner paused dramatically, the delegates waited for the plum. He raised his voice to a shout as he voiced a platitudinous slogan, be loved of all civic clubbers, and from over the room came a shower of cards bearing the same admonition: "KEEP SMILING." Keep smiling the delegates did through ever-accumulating evidence that even the service club industry must needs adjust itself to a reduced income. A speaker neatly manipulated chalk and eraser to convert DEPRESSION into PRESS ON; from others came vague assurances that business is upping, but in its final meeting the convention adopted a significant report recommending drastic economies in club operation, euphemistically referring to "this period of men tal and spiritual unrest." ROBERT L. HUTCHISON Joplin, Mo. Dirt-Doubers Sirs: Sapient Bermudans who foretell the hurricane season in Bermuda by observing spiders weaving their skeins on low bushes instead of up in tree tops, as told in TIME, Sept. 21, have nothing on Negroes living on either bank of the muddy Roanoke River in North Carolina.
A story is told that before the Civil War, a Negro slave won his freedom and that of his family by foretelling the season for heavy freshets which destroyed all cotton and corn crops along the river, by observing the way certain species of wasps known as dirt-doubers built their nests under the river banks in the early spring.
Should the wasps build their nests low and close to the water, there would be no freshets that summer. Contrary to the Bermuda spider, should the nest be built high, then look out for freshets. W. G. Cox
Burlington, N. C.
Drexel Hillster
Sirs:
. . . Some weeks ago I noted but did not read very carefully a full column or more about an unheard of Chicago publication--the Chicagoan. Why? Who on earth is interested in every town's local booster sheet? One will admit that Chicago is a big town--that's the word--big, noisy, but in no sense interesting. What Chicago reads, wears, thinks has not the least interest for anyone but inmates of that town so why clutter your valuable space with so much of that sort of thing? Why not The Baltimorean or some other?
One other--a week or so ago was a column or more about a group of morons in Los Angeles-- 1 think it was called the Terrible Somebodies or the Horrible Somebodies* and it was illustrated. What town ever did not have its local cutups but why waste your time on them? Space in TIME is too valuable. . . .
E. H. SCOTT
Drexel Hill, Pa.
Let Drexel Hillster Scott be more tolerant. TIME the national newsmagazine will continue to bring all things from all cities. --ED.
League Dues
Sirs:
An indication of how League-of-Nations-conscious TIME'S readers are would be furnished by the number of letters you receive re your statement in the Sept. 21 issue, p. 16 that the "distinction of membership costs . . . $450,000 a year (Britain, France and other great powers)." Of course, you do not quite say that Britain and France pay the same, but most readers would probably draw that conclusion. Accuracy has been sacrificed to conciseness. Great Britain's 105 units has amounted to $450,000, or thereabout, annually, but frugal France contributes only 79 units, as does Germany, while other great powers, Japan and Italy, give but 60 units each. Moreover, Great Britain's contribution is entirely distinct from that of Canada and the other dominions. ... It should also be noted that the total expense of the League of Nations (International Labor Organization and Permanent Court of International Justice included) from its beginning to the present time is but little more than the cost of one battleship.
HOWARD WHITE
Oxford, Ohio
The number of "units" each nation contributes as League dues is determined by the League Assembly from the budget estimate of the State in question. This year 986 units-figured out at an average of $5,903.70 each, to a total of $5,821,048.54. Great Britain's contribution is distinct from the Dominions. Some dues for 1931:
Number
State of Units Total Amount
Britain 105 $622,282.67
France 79 466,630.95
Germany 79 476,804.68
Japan 60 352,965.32
Italy 60 353,543.79
--Ed.
* Horrible Hemingways was the name.--ED.
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