Vice President's Flag

Sirs: In your Dec. 5 issue, p. 11, col. 2 you state: "Most of the books and the vice-presidential flag etc. etc. My husband, a U. S. Navy man, claims the Vice President does not have a flag. . . . MRS. J. M. SCHMUTZ Rockport, Mass. The Vice President has no specific flag. But in his office is a flag specially made for him. a U. S. flag of rich silk on a short mahogany staff. It is fringed with gold, surmounted with an eagle, has two gold tassels.--ED. Al Smith's Vibrato

Sirs:

Al Smith's "legato has no vibrato" (TIME, Dec. 12) carries the wrong implication: namely, that absence of vibrato is a mark of good singing.

Recent investigations in the psychological laboratory have demonstrated that every good singer uses the vibrato, not only on sustained notes, but on short notes and glides. What musical critics object to is the tremolo. We are prepared to show that the vibrato is used by every one of the Metropolitan opera singers in at least 95% of his intonations; that the vibrato of these singers consists of a pitch oscillation around the heard pitch averaging about one-half musical step in extent; that it also expresses itself in loudness and timbre pulsations; that one-half of the best song tones pulsate at the rate of between five and seven times per second; that the pulsations do not vary greatly with emotional tone or register: that it expresses one of the natural traits of the musical organism, giving mellowness, richness, and flexibility to the tone; that it is present in primitive song as well as in the most highly cultured, wherever the song comes from an inherently musical mind. The untutored singer of Negro blues may have as good a vibrato as the Metro tenor.

Therefore, the meaning of TIME'S comment, "legato has no vibrato," if true, means that the famous politician has no musical feeling to express. The chances, however, are that he did sing with a vibrato which was so subtle as to escape the ear of the critic.

HAROLD G. SEASHORE

The State University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa

Old TIMEr

Sirs:

... I should like to give a year's subscription to my father-in-law for a Christmas present. If you will, therefore, be kind enough to send him your issue that comes out on the date nearest to Dec. 25, I will be very much obliged.

I have been one of your subscribers for about a year, and have found TIME quite accurate in reporting facts with which I am familiar. I do wish, however, that your photographs were more up-to-date, the one of me appearing in your magazine about a month ago having been taken eight years ago this Christmas (at which time I was 18 years old and a freshman at Amherst), and the one of Mr. Trumbull which appeared in TIME recently having been taken I do not know when or where. I prefer to see good, clear likenesses recently taken of those about whom I am interested in reading.

JOHN COOLIDGE New Haven, Conn.

Cross-Lawrence Bet

Sirs:

In regard to my bet with Governor Cross of 1-c- on the Harvard-Yale game, which you mention on p. 56 of the Dec. 5 issue of TIME, I should like to elaborate a little further.

True it cost me 24-c- to pay this 1-c- bet. The envelopes sent the Governor were registered, as I hoped thereby to secure a true autograph of the Governor for my collection, but unfortunately the Governor's secretary signed the receipt in his place.

The Governor, however, later was kind enough to write me a long and interesting letter which he signed. I have been offered 50-c- for the letter. You will remember Queen Victoria received a request from her grandson for money. She replied in a most carefully worded letter refusing, and received a short acknowledgment from her grandson as follows: "Thanks, dear Grandma, for your letter which have sold for one hundred pounds."

Boston, Mass. JOHN S. LAWRENCE

Editors Martin & Mellett

Sirs:

The story about my old friend and former associate, Earle Martin, in TIME of Dec. 5 was very interesting to me.

In the interest of historical accuracy, however, permit me to correct one minor statement. In speaking of Martin's many accomplishments TIME says:

"He organized and edited the News in Washington."

Lowell Mellett was the founding editor of the Washington News in 1921. Martin was editor of the News from April 1, [923 to Dec. 15, 1923, Mellett becoming editor of the Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance (the Scripps-Howard Washington Bureau) on the former date.

On Nov. 14, 1927 Mellett resumed editorship of the Washington News in addition to his duties and responsibilities as editor and director of the SH. N. A. Mellett was not only the first editor, founder and organizer of the Washington News, but its actual builder.

N. D. COCHRAN Editor-in-Chief

Scripps-Howard Newspapers

New York City

Denison's Deeds

Sirs: TIME Dec. 5, regarding Col. E. A. Deeds and National Cash Register: "It was homecoming for Col. Deeds, for he got his start as a young engineer in N. C. R. . . ." "Farm-born Col. Deeds quit N. C. R. with his good friend Charles Franklin Kettering to develop Delco. . . ." No mention is made (as has been made in most similar TIME accounts) of Deeds's formal education. The impression is strong that he grew up in industry untutored. Not so! Denison '97, Deeds has so long been known for his Denison deeds that in Ohio he is usually designated "Denison Deeds," not "Dayton Deeds." Vice president of the board of trustees, he greatly enlarged Denison's campus, built the Deeds athletic fields and stadium, etc., etc., and in 1896, as a junior, he installed and operated Denison's first electric lighting system. The Delco venture was not his first with electricity! Aptly named, Col. Deeds is no speaker--failed (as on many another occasion) to appear for his scheduled important part in Denison's Centennial Celebration, Oct. 16, 1931. Son Charles (after Kettering), Denison '23, fostered what came to be known as the Deeds's House Party. Every spring vacation favored fraternity brothers & girl friends were invited to the Deeds Dayton home. Only partially apocryphal stories say that there each couple was furnished with riding horses, chauffeur and car, pilot and airplane. Able son of an able father, likable "Chuck" was, needless to say, quite popular. Nearly omniscient TIME, still with eyes turned slightly eastward, brings to light many a Yarvard yarn, fails to see many a Siwash romance. CAREY CRONEIS Chicago, Ill.

Duckbill Dinosaur

Sirs: In your issue of Nov. 28. p. 48 in a footnote you give information about the National Research Council and their desire to be notified of discoveries of fossils. Would you kindly furnish me with their address? From time to time we discover fossils, many of which would probably be of interest to the Council. Only recently we discovered portions of a skeleton of a dinosaur which has been identified as that of a Trachadon--sometimes called the Duckbill Dinosaur. It is unusual because of the vast number of teeth in the skull--over 2,000--new ones coming out as the old ones wear down. This is the second or third skeleton of this type reported to have been found in South Dakota, the previous discoveries being by a Professor Cope. They are now in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. This summer we also discovered a skull, apparently of a man, but of very peculiar formation, which we have not as yet identified. It is quite large and in an excellent state of preservation. Undoubtedly the Council would be interested in this also. DAVID M. QUAMMEN

Lemmon, S. Dak.

Let fossil-finders, taking care to leave their finds undisturbed until trained diggers come, notify the National Research Council at No. 2101 Constitution Ave. N. W., Washington, D. C.--ED. Marconi's Parabola

Sirs:

The Dec. 5 issue of TIME carried an article entitled "Marconi's Parabola." I would like to know if any domestic radio companies have successfully developed transmitting and receiving equipment along these lines, and also whether Marconi has representation in this country.

We are particularly interested in this as a gas and electric utility which could use it to considerably improve our service by keeping in touch with service cars and construction crews.

H. H. WEBB

Illuminating Engineer Dayton Power & Light Co. Dayton, Ohio

Western Electric, General Electric, Westinghouse, I. T. & T. and R. C. A. Victor all are working on ultra-short-wave radio sets, will make them up on order for $500 to $6,000, depending on the power desired. Marconi representative in the U. S. is Marconi International Marine Communication Co., No. 40 Rector St., Manhattan.--ED. Dark Market

Sirs:

I have read with interest the article "Dark Market" appearing on p. 22 of the Dec. 5 issue of TIME.

You will be interested to know that much of the material you credit to the W. B. Ziff Co. your article, is taken directly from my book, The Southern Urban Negro as a Consumer, published in the spring of this year by Prentice-Hall, Inc., No. 70 Fifth Ave., New York City. The statistics to which you refer in the first paragraph of your article are from pp. 195 and 196, . . . the material of your fourth paragraph is from p. 179. . . ..

PAUL K. EDWARDS

Professor of Economics Fisk University Nashville, Tenn.

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