"I Hate You"
Sirs:
Please cancel my subscription to TIME and also to LETTERS.
Your insulting remarks about Senator Arthur R. Robinson of Indiana [TIME, Nov. 12], whom I greatly admire as a fearless and honorable gentleman, has finished TIME for me. . . . You display the same gratitude and loyalty as the average laboring man. I hate you. . . .
In times like these one appreciates more than ever the Saturday Evening Post. . . .
ALMA I. SINCLAIR
Louisville, Ky.
Dizzard
Sirs:
Some tome, it is. Pages, 2,956; avoirdupois, 11 lb., 9 oz.
According to its title-page, its purport: "Designed to Give, in Complete and Accurate Statements, in the Light of the Most Recent Advances in Knowledge, in the Readiest Form lor Popular Use, the Orthography, Pronunciation, Meaning, and Etymology of All the Words, and the Meaning of Idiomatic Phrases, in the Speech and Literature of the English-Speaking Peoples."
Its current use in our establishment, to follow TIME'S omniscience in etymology.
And yet, no dizzard, sly or otherwise! How come?
FAYETTE SOULE
Lillian, Ala.
Let Reader Soule see p. 761 of the 3,350-page, 17 lb. 10 oz., New Merriam Webster for "dizzard: a jester, a fool, a blockhead."--ED.
Slipping Barrymore
Sirs:
Reference made to Columbia's row of hits needs some correcting [TIME, Nov. 12].
You included Twentieth Century as one of the trio. I think Columbia would rather substitute Lady for a Day for the John Barrymore picture.
Twentieth Century was not even a good grosser. Even Columbia's luck for taking slipping stars and rebuilding them couldn't affect Barrymore's box office ability. Barrymore may remain a starring figure, but as far as the box office is concerned, he has never proved the sensation most people think they believe he is.
HERBERT M. MILLER
Managing Editor
Jay Emanuel Publications Philadelphia, Pa.
Guilty as Rapist? (Cont'd)
Sirs:
Would like your subscriber, who suggested in TIME, Nov. 12, that the judges and physicians who refused to aid the little girl in her misfortune of "Involuntary Motherhood" are as guilty and be given the same punishment as the offender, to know I agree with him.
If this is impossible "judicially," I feel they should be boycotted in their respected professions.
(MRS.) EDITH C. MCCLENAGHAN
Penfield, Pa.
. . .
Sirs:
Some day we will come to the knowledge that all motherhood to be effective in producing right-minded and right-bodied children must be voluntary in the female. . . .
Yes, reader Guy P. Rego is right as to the guilt of the asinine system and the judges thereof, who would prolong a wrong merely because it had started.
R. J. CALLMAN
Tupelo, Miss.
Overlooked by Readers Rego, McClenaghan and Callman is the fact that under Colorado law abortion is a crime unless two reputable physicians declare it necessary for health and safety of the mother. In the case of Denver's 12-year-old victim of rape (TIME, Oct. 22), the role of Juvenile Judge Stanley H. Johnson was that of guardian. He could consent to an abortion, if the physicians he readily called in advised it; but he could not order it. Off the bench, Judge Johnson has boldly attacked the laws on birth control and abortion.--ED.
. . .
Sirs:
I beg to disagree with your correspondent, Guy P. Rego, in his contention that the judges and the physicians . . . should be punished as assistant "rapists." . . . Rather, these men are to be commended for upholding the fundamental right to life in the face of severe emotional criticism. . . .
To take the life of a child by the "simple operation" of abortion is murder. To commit murder for the purpose of saving an unmarried woman to respectable society is decidedly a contradiction betraying a rather warped estimation of respectability. . . .
FRANK B. FLYNN
Detroit, Mich.
. . .
Sirs:
. . . Has my fellow reader ever heard of the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill?". . . Would anyone contend that abortion is anything but cold-blooded murder? . . .
Will people never stop calling conscientious, God-fearing men oldfashioned?
WALTER WILDERMANN
Weehawken, N. J.
. . .
Sirs:
... To me, a mother out of wedlock need not be saved to our "respectable society," for there is no sin in childbirth, and I would not assert that she was a sinner to be so fortunate as to be a mother without a marriage license. . . .
But perhaps I am not respectable. Maybe, but, to oblige Guy P. Rego, I would become a criminal if I operated as he would have us doctors do to save a mother for "respectable society and really we cannot oblige him because of the U. S. law and our own ethical rules and personal objections to do the dirty work for his society.
W. CHALMERS-FRANCIS, M. D.
Los Angeles, Calif.
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Man of the Year
Sirs:
Following out your invitation of Nov. 19, I beg to place in nomination as the "Man of the Year," the Honorable James A. Farley, Postmaster General of the U. S.
The first Postmaster General since Burleson to balance the budget, and with a $12,000,000. surplus at that, Mr. Farley also piloted the Democratic Party to unprecedented political heights. . . .
MAURICE S. SHEEHY, Ph. D.
Director Survey Council
Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.
. . .
Sirs:
I nominate Upton Sinclair as the 1934 "Man of the Year" because: . . .
He focused public attention on social legislation. . . . He scared the holy daylights out of hidebound conservatives. . . . He gave visible proof of the fact that politics need not be a gain for politicians alone. . . . Persons like Sinclair are turning elections into debates on economics and sociology.
SIDNEY R. HAHN
Florence, Colo.
. . .
Sirs:
I hereby nominate Upton Sinclair for the honor of being TIME'S "Man of the Year" of 1934. Reasons:
. . . His campaign and his defeat, regardless of the virtues of his platform, have national and international significance in that they did lay bare the dictatorial and violently dishonest nature of bourgeois democratic machinery; they educated millions.
F. JAMES BABCOCK
Toledo, Ohio
. . .
Sirs:
I nominate Eleanor Roosevelt for your 1934 "Man of the Year!"
... Firstly, she's my idea of a First Lady, and, secondly, she symbolizes woman's rise of late to governmental prominence. . . .
HENRY STONER
Barberton, Ohio
. . .
Sirs:
I nominate Hugh S. Johnson, the Administration having offered him for their sins and let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness--Leviticus 16:10.
EDNA M. KELLY
Woodstock, Ill.
. . .
Sirs:
While choice to foreign lands may call us, Be sure to weigh the worth of Wallace Outstanding man in the present year Great thinker, honest and sincere'
0. B. HARTLEY
Des Moines, Iowa
. . .
Sirs:
My nomination for the 1934 ''Man of the Year":
Melvin Purvis, whose repeated accomplishments in the Federal Government's war on criminals have dwarfed all other news of the year.
A. A. MERTENS
Erie, Pa.
. . .
Sirs:
. . . My choice is Huey P. Long, because:
He believes in the "inalienable rights" not only for the chosen few, but for all.
He has the courage to fight to the bitter end for his convictions and for the underprivileged.
His collection of enemies is the best guarantee that he is not for sale.
His past achievements against overwhelming odds furnish ample proof of his ability and his courage. . . .
M. FALKENBERG
Amelia, Ohio
. . .
Sirs:
. . . My first candidate is Adolf Hitler. Realmleader of Germany, who probably has inspired more fear and diplomacy than any European figure in 1934. . . .
W. S. MALONEY
St. Paul, Minn.
Nominations for Man of the Year are still open.--ED.
--(.)--
Distinguished Deadhead
Sirs:
TIME'S report of record cross-country Douglas transport flight (TIME, Nov. 19) does not mention Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker. According to local papers Capt. Rickenbacker should receive all glory for breaking his former record.
Will TIME please inform me what part Capt. Rickenbacker played in both of these flights and what type of license he now holds?
R. G. TEESE
Cincinnati, Ohio
Since he holds no pilot's license, Ace Rickenbacker, famed auto racer, may not fly a licensed airplane. (Neither has he an automobile driver's license.) His part in the recent Douglas flights was that of distinguished deadhead.--ED.
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Norway's Bjoernson
Sirs:
No "Sweden's Bjornsterne Bjornson" ever received the Nobel Prize for Literature as stated in footnote on p. 40, TIME, Nov. 19. Alfred Nobel's Sweden has to be satisfied with Literature Prize Winners Selma Lagerlooef (1909), Verner von Heidenstam (1916) and Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1931).
What you intended to say was "Norway's Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson," wasn't it? The year (1903) is correct.
ARVID G. SKOGLUND
Baltimore, Md.
. . .
Sirs:
... I imagine that Belgium likes and admires her very own Maurice Maeterlinck. So repatriate him, too.
A. VETTER
Martinez, Calif.
TIME gladly repatriates Bjoernson to Norway, Maeterlinck to Belgium.--ED.
. . .
Sirs:
TIME'S report (TIME, Nov. 19, p. 40) of the recognition once accorded such literary greats as "France's" Maeterlinck and more especially Sweden's" Bjoernson serves only to accentuate the injustice done that staunch English patriot Eamon De Valera. Surely his contributions in word and deed to the development of a better understanding between neighboring people call for the award of a Nobel prize, that for the promotion of peace being perhaps the most appropriate. . . .
HOWARD R. ANDERSON
Assistant Professor of History
State University of Iowa Iowa City, la.
In the same garbled footnotes the names of Spain's Jacinto Benavente & Jose Echegaray, and Italy's Grazia Deledda & Giosue Carducci were misspelled or wrongly accented. To TIME'S Theatre Department, rebuke for stupid errors.--ED.
--(.)--
Tomorrow's Textbook
Sirs:
TO EVERY HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS CLASS AND TEACHER I WOULD RECOMMEND TIMES SCIENCE COLUMN OF NOVEMBER 19 ISSUE STOP SUCH REASONABLE THESES OF TODAY BECOME TEXTBOOK FACTS OF TOMORROW
ARTHUR J. FUNK
Teacher of Physics
Savannah High School Savannah, Ga.
--(.)--
Southern Gentleman
Sirs:
Characteristic, without prejudice, was the TIME, Nov. 19 account of the Negro "Gentleman from Illinois." I fear many Southerners--not only "hot-blooded Congressmen from the South"--will let the color of Chicago's new Democratic Representative Arthur Mitchell shade their opinions of his ability. . . . Moving here eight years ago a Chicagoan until then--I have failed miserably in an earnest attempt to find justification for the Southern attitude toward all Negroes. . .
EVAN L. FELLMAN (white)
Memphis, Tenn.
. . .
Sirs:
Is it your intention to be deliberately offensive to Southern people? Surely not. But if not, then why these frequent references to alleged racial differences between whites and blacks? . . .
Your latest effusion is captioned "Gentleman from Illinois" and is shown under the caption of "Races."
Had it occurred to you that if Chicago's Negro Congressman-Elect Mitchell is a native of Alabama, and has a little common sense, and "would not keep thinking about the fact that" he "was colored," there is not likely to be very much racial embarrassment?
There is very little racial embarrassment between the intelligent white people of the South and those Negroes who have common sense. From what has been said about Congressman Mitchell, he properly comes in the latter category, and probably regrets your article and deplores your ill-advised use of the words "gentleman" and "Mr.". . .
K. S. DARGAN
Houston, Tex.
Indeed TIME does not intend to be deliberately offensive to Southern people. TIME'S only intent is to report significant news. By word and deed directed toward the Negro, Southern people help make that news. Southern Congressmen made news when they barred Negro Congressman Oscar De Priest's Negro friends from the House of Representatives' Restaurant (TIME, April 2). Perhaps Southern Congressmen will make more news when Negro Congressman Arthur Mitchell takes his House seat. TIME'S use of the word "gentleman" was well-advised. As such, under the House's parliamentary rule, Negro Mitchell will be addressed by all Congressmen, Northern and Southern. --ED.
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