Democratic Sin
Sirs:
TIME, in its issue of Jan. 30, states the Congress "adopted a resolution by Pennsylvania's Cochran to void President Hoover's eleven orders for Government consolidation."
Be advised that this sin rests upon the conscience of Missouri's Cochran, a Democrat.
I opposed the resolution, believing we should achieve at once the economies to result from the consolidation of various governmental bureaus and commissions.
T. C. COCHRAN
Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Washington, D. C.
To Pennsylvania's Republican and Missouri's Democratic Cochrans, apologies for an inexcusable confusion.--ED.
Transient Shelter
Sirs:
WITH REFERENCE TO STATEMENT ON TRANSIENTS IN TIME FEBRUARY SIXTH, ESTIMATE OF RAILROADS POLICE AND SOCIAL AGENTS WHO PROVIDE SHELTER FOR TRANSIENTS IS THAT FROM TWENTY TO TWENTY FIVE PERCENT ARE MINORS. THIS IS ESTIMATE I GAVE AT HEARING AND NOT EIGHTY PERCENT AS GIVEN BY TIME
GRACE ABBOTT
Via U. S. Army radio
Washington, D. C.
Choice
Sirs:
We of the younger generation down here, steeped in the glory of the Old South and fired with the possibilities of her future, have been taught to speak of the fighting between 1861 and 1865 as the Confederate War or the War Between the States.
I see you invariably refer to it as the Civil War. a term we have been taught to avoid, but one which most people employ; even most Southerners.
Our reason is. of course, obvious: We dislike the thought of having rebelled, though it is perhaps true.
On what do you base your choice of "Civil War" rather than one of these others?
FANNING MILES HEARON
Lynchburg, Va.
"Civil War" is brief, accurate.--ED.
Specialist
Sirs:
Your mention of the Indian climbing perch is interesting but inaccurate (TIME. Feb. 6). People, including scientists, ''know" why it wants to go overland as well as they know countless other facts about fauna. . .
Like the African lung fish, the climbing perch is a specialist. Living in hot, often foul, water holes, it has developed a sort of auxiliary "lung" (labyrinth) that enables it to utilize atmospheric air instead of the oxygen in the water, which is too low under such conditions to sustain piscatorial life.
When the water hole dries up, it is able to wriggle or "walk" overland to another body of water, is aided in doing this by unusually stiff, spiny pectoral fins.
From the 18th Century until just recently (c. 1951) even ichthyologists believed this fish climbed trees. The new explanation (v. John Roxbrough Norman's History of Fishes, published 1931) is parallel to that of the catfish incident: that birds seized them as they wriggled along on the ground, and placed them in crotches of trees possibly for future use.
Most aquarists and tropical fans are familiar with Anabas and many other labyrinthine fishes that are favorites among the 600-odd small tropical fishes being imported for home aquaria. The notorious Siamese fighting fish also belongs to the same family.
LESTER L. SWIFT
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Cocker
Sirs:
I wish to commend your fair and intelligent comments on "Cocks & Cockers," Jan. 30.
Ignorance and prejudice cause this fine sport the unholy name it often carries.
CRAWFORD LONG
Elysian Shades Plantation
Jackson, Tenn.
Rosenwald Forains
Sirs:
In simple justice you should make a correction when you say in your issue of Jan. 30: "Mr. Wiggin's Forain collection is unmatched in the U. S., has only three peers in Europe. . . .''
Mr. Lessing J. Rosenwald of Philadelphia, a trustee of this museum, has a collection which must easily rank with these. He lent to the museum here for exhibition last October 615 items of Forain's work, including twelve paintings, 269 original drawings and 334 etchings and lithographs. . . .
This group of Forain's work is but one item of very many in Mr. Rosenwald's extraordinarily comprehensive and choice collection of prints of all periods.
FISKE KIMBALL
Director
Pennsylvania Museum of Art
Philadelphia, Pa.
Non-dissent
Sirs:
The article "Power and Light Housecleaning" in your issue of Jan. 23 is incorrect in classing our client,The Associated Gas & Electric Company, as a ''dissenter" with regard to the new Edison Electric Institute.
Neither the Company nor its management has expressed any opinion whatsoever on the subject. The proposed practices so far as the public, investors and customers are concerned appear admirable and it is not easy to see how anyone could dissent from them.
GILBERT GOOLD
Daniel Starch and Staff
New York City
Index
Sirs:
. . . Has this ever occurred to you? It's something I wish you would do. Each January publish a TIME.like index of the contents of the previous year's TIME. Then, ten years hence. I will have a complete and well organized reference history of the preceding tumultuous decade. . . .
WESLEY M. DOW
Minneapolis, Minn.
Indexes for each volume of TIME are supplied subscribers on request to TIME'S Circulation Department. 350 East 22nd St., Chicago, Ill.--ED.
Remedy
Sirs:
I wonder if you folks away back East are fully acquainted with the work now being done here in Iowa and Nebraska on conversion of corn into industrial alcohol. As you well know corn really has no price today because there is an underconsumption rather than an overproduction.
Anything that will create a demand for corn will increase its price and this seems to be the first real constructive thing that has been brought out that will increase consumption.
Again to remove the alcohol from corn does not hurt its feed value one bit for stock. It will not keep as mash but will produce as many pounds of pork or beef as corn itself.
The work so far has been limited to 25% mixtures of alcohol in gasoline, which will increase cost of mixture to the car user only 4-c- per gal. but will give him from 35% to 45% more power and mileage, and using the Iowa December gasoline figures if this could be adopted the price of corn would be 25% in less than two weeks.
None of the domestic allotment talk has made much impression here, and especially with a product like pork. But they are all hot & bothered about this and I believe it would bear looking into by you people as it is news that is news to a farmer and we are all farmers back here.
RALPH LOVELADY, M. D.
Sidney, Iowa
Sirs:
. . . No prosperity will return to the U. S. until the farmers can sell or dispose profitably of their entire crops. The remedy is simple:
Conversion of farm surplus products as wheat, corn, rye, rice, potatoes, beets, grapes, apples, peaches, molasses, etc. into denatured alcohol to replace a very small percentage, say not more than 5%, of gasoline or motor fuel.
The total consumption of motor fuel in 1929 amounted to 409,240,000 bbl. of 42 gal. each. This quantity would require [a blend] of 20,000,000 bbl. of alcohol, obtainable, on a rough estimate, from about 40,000,000 tons of farm products or byproducts, damaged crops which at an average cost of say about $10 per ton would yield the farmers in this country about $400,000,000. . . .
MARIO P. TRIBUNO
President
California Grape Products Co.
New York City
Chase Choice
Sirs:
The story of the election of Harry Woodburn Chase to the presidency of the University of North Carolina (TIME, Feb. 6) has caused much comment among the members of the "Old Soldiers' Home" (faculty bachelor eating club).
There was not at the time of the election of Professor Chase to the presidency, nor has there been since, any division of the faculty along sectional lines. There has never been an organized group of the faculty known as the "Damyankees." TIME is here adding another legend to the already voluminous apocrypha of Chapel Hill. Of course the epithet "Damyankee" is occasionally applied with facetious intent to one or another of the faculty, both by Northerners and by Southerners, but the idea of forming an organization along these lines excites mirth.
The faculty of this University have no vote in the election of a president. It is customary for the Board of Trustees to ascertain faculty sentiment, and in the case of Professor Chase's election, faculty sentiment undoubtedly played some part, but the faculty voted neither for nor against.
The story of the election, as told by a close friend of Professor Chase some days after the event is more dramatic than the fiction. The Committee of the Trustees designated to recommend candidates for the Presidency had made its report to the Board of Trustees. Several nominations had been made, supported by various people, and speeches favoring this man or that were in progress when one of the oldest members of the Board took the floor. "Mr. Chairman." he said, "I am a Southerner, a Confederate Veteran, and a Democrat. I have voted for the last time for any man solely because he is a Southerner, a Confederate Veteran, or a Democrat. My vote on this question goes to the man whom I believe to be best qualified for the presidency of this University. That man is Professor Chase." That short speech settled the question and the election was practically unanimous.
THE "OLD SOLDIERS' HOME"
GEORGE McKIE
A. MCLAREN WHITE
E. W. McCHESNEY
T. P. NOE JR.
JOHN E. CARROLL JR.
ROBERT M. WALLACE
J. GROVER BEARD
W. S. JENKINS
JOHN D. WATSON
C. B. ROBSON
C. H. PEGG
Chapel Hill, S. C.
Wisconsin's Bickel
Sirs:
Reading p. 21 of your issue of Nov. 28, that "Frederic March would have been vastly surprised a dozen years ago had anyone predicted that he would ever receive . . . the Academy's approval: he was football manager and a member of a track team and went to work in a bank." May I who knew him as a classmate state that few of the thousand members of the University of Wisconsin class of 1920 sensed any surprise over this greatly deserved award of our senior class president? He was elected to Pi Epsilon Delta, dramatic honors (read Who's Who at Wisconsin--vol. 1, published by White Spades, p. 89 "Frederic Bickel" and p. 194 "Scholastic"). He was the only one ever to refuse membership in Haresfoot (dramatic society where men take girl parts and a more popular organization making annual tours and having gay social contacts), preferring Edwin Booth (the society producing only drama, resembling the Theatre Guild).
Born of a brilliant father, a prominent minister in Racine, Wis., Freddie was greatly endowed with artistic and intellectual ability of considerable versatility. His election to Beta Gamma Sigma evidenced the highest honor in the commerce school and equipped him to be an expert banker. His sweetheart of those days, a sorority sister of mine, also talented and honored for dramatic work, felt that stage life was incompatible with home happiness, so again Freddie pursued his greatest desire--acting--giving up Miss.
Frederic March has now reached this high attainment through recognition in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde not by luck but through great sacrifice, hard work (see Movie Screen, August 1932) and sincere devotion to an inborn interest.
JANET LINDSAY POLLOCK
Milwaukee, Wis.
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