Padre & the Boys
Sirs: In defense of the religious work in the Civilian Conservation Corps which Enrollee Mackenzie attacks so bitterly [TIME. Sept. 16], let me say that I have been a chaplain in this organization ever since its inception and, while church attendance is not compulsory, most officers use every legitimate means to guide the boys to the religious service. This they do for they know that the weekly visit of the "padre"' very decidedly helps the camp morale. We who wear the cross try to "woo" the boys into our congregation by giving them, not baloney or piffle, but something practical, helpful and inspiring--something which they can use in their everyday life. I have received many letters from boys who have finished their "tour" with the C. C. C. telling me how much they miss the church services. Some of these boys were "non-churchgoers" before enrolling. Most of the chaplains I know try to make their sermons so interesting and their church services so attractive that the boys hate to stay away. They feel that they are missing something. Of course in every camp we are apt to find someone who has a "crossed-wire" on the subject of religion, politics, etc. I hope that your readers remember that two swallows don't make a summer and that one fanatic doesn't represent the religious reaction of the entire camp personnel.
CHAPLAIN EDWIN W. TODD.
Camp Custer C. C. C. District Camp Custer, Mich.
"Unpublishable"
Sirs: I have just read in TIME. Sept. 16, your story, "Suicide of a Consul." While I know that you will be branded as unpatriotic, revealers of "unpublishable" State matters, and twisters of truth, I want to congratulate you on an excellent example of fearless reporting.
I don't know the true facts of the case other than those you report: plenty of people will protest them. But I do know that there is such a thing as professional jealousy in our various Executive Departments.
From service in the Navy I know how false are many of the accusations which are leveled at officials of the military and civil services-- accusations which obviously cannot be officially refuted.
But so long as TIME can print a story such as this, I know that I can continue to regard its editors, as I have for several years of cover-to-cover reading, as able, thorough and courageous writers of the history of Today.
THEODORE HOFLER
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Sirs:
TIME is to be commended on its reports of the facts leading up to the death of U. S. Consul George C. Hanson. The incident is one more act in the farce of recognition by this government of Soviet Russia.
If the Hanson incident is indicative of the manner in which the State Department serves pur country's interests, that is by pending one of its most able men to a place where he's not needed, then it would appear that the time was ripe for our Chief Executive to use a vacuum cleaner on said Department.
R. M. HILLMAN Springfield, Mass.
Pleased Floridian
Sirs:
TIME is deserving of plenty of praise for its sane and honest description of the supposed hurricane that visited Florida last week. TIME gave a very clear picture of the real catastrophes, namely, the Dixie's grounding and the veterans' drowning. One unfortunate, one unnecessary.
What pleased me most, however, was TIME's refraining from spectacularizing and claiming thai the west coast had been obliterated of towns and that hundreds of St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Tampa folks had been washed into the Gulf, for such were the claims of our dear friends the newspapers (Northern) and absurdly imaginative radio announcers.
L. Q. STETSON
The Evening Independent St. Petersburg, Fla.
Death in Louisiana
Sirs:
I wonder whether it has occurred to anyone (the newspapers ignore it) that Dr. Weiss also was "murdered," by the paid "gorillas" of the Senator. . . .
PIERRE N. CHARBONNET, M. D.
Tulsa, Okla.
Sirs: From grateful Athenians, to the memory of Harmodius and Aristogeiton,* a statue. From thousands in the U. S. and Canada to Dr. Weiss's memory, all praise.
G. CAMERON
Victoria, B. C.
Sirs:
I made the first speech in the U. S. outside of Louisiana, challenging the policies of Senator Long (TIME, Sept. 28, 1931). Since then I have watched his daily public activities.
I regard his assassination as the greatest political tragedy which has happened in this country since the assassination of Governor-elect Goebel of Kentucky in the late 1890's. . . . Wholly differing from the policies of Senator Long yet I saw in him a national asset and deeply deplore his untimely death.
T. H. McGREGOR
Austin, Tex.
When the Southern States were wrangling over Huey Long's cotton reduction program in 1931, Representative McGregor in the Texas Legislature said of Louisiana's then Governor: He is "drunk with ignorance and power . . . arrogantly braying from Louisiana. . . . This is the first time in history that ignorance, impudence and insolence combined have crossed the State line and the people of Texas been insulted by political ambition and demagoguery."--ED.
Sirs:
... In this hour of death, the barbed tongue of TIME might well be silent. . . .
I myself am not of the Long following. I saw him ever as dangerous to the established order; but it may be that danger is the soul of progress. None can deny his brilliant intellect, stupendous energy, his disarming, childlike humor, his amazing, and sometimes terrifying sincerity, and his unmatched resourcefulness. He loved life and he loved people. ... He trampled all that hampered him, believing always that the clear end he had in view justified the means. Frequently wrong, he was often superbly right. . . .
It is my hope that TIME will make the amend honorable, will abandon for a moment its attitude of mockery, and stand with bowed head before the grave of the courageous man who said in his last hour, "Oh God, don't let me die; there's a few more things I've got to do."
M. B. ELLIS
Covington, La.
Dictator's Friends
Sirs:
On Monday night, Sept. 9, a few hours before the death of Senator Huey P. Long, the radio announcer for "The March of TIME" stated that the Senator, after being shot, fell into the arms of his henchman, James O'Connor Jr.
On behalf of numberless admirers and friends of Senator Long and as the father of James O'Connor Jr., I protest against the use of a word which today carries a sinister significance. Neither James O'Connor Jr., nor any of the many friends and champions and advocates of Huey P. Long's policies were ever regarded by him as "henchmen." He looked upon them as devoted friends who were doing their utmost to aid him in his struggle to prevent the accumulation of great wealth in the hands of a relatively few and for its redistribution among the masses of his countrymen who he thought had earned that wealth.
The James O'Connor Jr. to whom you referred is a lawyer occupying an enviable position at the Bar of Louisiana. He was elected Public Service Commissioner by the aid of the lamented Huey Long. He is the son of a former judge and former Congressman of Louisiana. ... I respectfully protest against what may have been an unfortunate inadvertence on the part of the announcer of "The March of TIME," which I understand is sponsored by your valuable magazine.
JAMES O'CONNOR
Second Assistant Attorney General State of Louisiana Department of Justice New Orleans, La.
No inadvertence was "The March of TIME's" use of the word "henchman," defined by Webster's New International Dictionary as: "A political follower giving active support; especially one whose support is chiefly a matter of personal advantage." --ED.
Contented Canners
Sirs:
TIME. Sept. 23:
"National Can Co. also tried out a can, had temporary trouble with the lining. Last week the lining was still the canmakers' greatest worry because improper sealing may cause it to peel off, harmlessly clouding the beer."
Had TIME fairly stated that National Can's temporary lining trouble occurred in the experimental laboratories prior to going into production, as was the case with all Can Companies, our objection to the story might not have been as strong. But as your story was definitely unfair and by inference untrue, we request that you publish the following facts regarding National Can Co.:
1) National Can Co. has been supplying cans for beer since early in July 1935 (although your article does not even credit us with being in production).
2) We have delivered in excess of 4,000,000 cans, all of which have been filled and distributed.
3) We are making shipments of cans for beer and ale in large quantities daily. Certainly if the can lining was not satisfactory we would not have been able to make continued shipments. The Schwarz Laboratories of 202 East 44th St., New York City, recognized independent authorities in the Brewery Industry, have continuously tested National Can linings and state definitely that our lining "is in all respects satisfactory." S. L. BUSCHMAN
President
National Can Co., Inc. New York City
To National Can Co. all credit for able beer-canning.--ED.
Dr. Carrel Flayed
Sirs:
Learned men do really become fools.
Dr. Carrel's work Man, the Unknown, accepts his own brain and its peculiar mechanism as standard for the universe [TIME, Sept. 16].
The human family is guided best by individuals not seeking power and the glow of self-importance. So let us still continue our method of developing geniuses where experience and environment build thoughts and ideas--which hardly can be created in a cold superchamber of the "intelligentsia," so-called. There will always be a varied group of humans--and to suppress the egotistical and so-called dictators is pleasant game for the masses or "rabble." Germany and its Aryan and non-Aryan idea is an excellent example of trying to place human beings on the 10-c- and $1 shelf.
Dr. Carrel should stick to his medicine. . . .
DAVID A. YULSMAN
Philadelphia, Pa.
Sirs:
And so old Doc Carrel wants to set up a dictatorship of doctors over the entire human race and appoint himself chief Mussolini of the group. Well, well, what a grand and appropriate finis that would be to a civilization already doddering on the brink because of having been established almost entirely on false premises since the dawn of history. . . .
STANFORD KINGSLEY CLAUNCH
Monterey, Calif.
Dr. Carrel Scooped?
Sirs:
. . . Another salute to the prescient Sinclair Lewis! Arrowsmith, published in 1925, describes Dr. Holabird's iatrocracy about as follows: ". . . would rule, coordinate, standardize and make useful the whole world of intelligence, from trousers-designing to poetry. . . ."
N. H. WENDELL JR.
Chicago, Ill.
Shrapnel & H. E.
Sirs:
On p. 21 of your Sept. 9 issue under "Italy" there appears: ". . . when Corporal Benito Mussolini was down with 42 shrapnel splinters in his epidermis."
Shrapnel is a form of ammunition named for the English army officer who invented it. It consists of one-half inch in diameter lead balls hardened with antimony which are fired from a forged steel case by a charge of black powder exploded by a time fuse when the shrapnel-filled-case is about ten yards above the target on its way down to earth.
In other words shrapnel does not splinter. High explosive shell (termed simply H. E.) is what splinters on impact and causes splinters to fly in every direction. Present war tendencies favor H. E. shell over shrapnel, which is effective only against animals and personnel in the open. Shrapnel bursting charge blows the soft brass fuse from the head of the case and sprays the balls in an elliptical pattern over cone-shaped paths.
S. D. DISTELHORST Associate Editor
Industrial Power St. Joseph, Mich.
Criminal Breed
Sirs:
You may Point with Pride but if I were you I'd View with Alarm the fact that of all the magazines** going to my residence, TIME and LETTERS are the only ones ever filched by co-dwellers-or-visitors/- in my apartment house. . . .
(As you probably know, New York apartment houses are designed by architects who never read magazines and thus aren't interested in installing mail boxes of proper size; so magazines are dumped into a common basket or spread upon a lobby table.)
Apparently reading TIME is conducive to petty larceny. . . . Pardon, grand larceny. I suppose this new breed of criminal starts out by making off with TIME, works up to FORTUNE and then runs away with the firm's funds and prettiest blonde.
can't believe the post office is at fault, for all of the other magazines always show up-- some of them for much longer than the subscription period. . . .
CLARK KINNAIRD
King Features Syndicate, Inc. New York City
Astaire's Discoverer
Sirs:
Your excellent cinema columnist trod on a sensitive spot and misled the public in the article on Fred Astaire (TIME, Sept. 9). Mr. Astaire was established on the screen in Flying Down to Rio, for which picture I brought him to Hollywood and teamed him with Ginger Rogers. . . .
Owing to a slight delay in getting the picture started, he was farmed out to MGM, purely for economical reasons and not because of any lack of esteem on our part for him. The few feet accorded his two feet in Dancing Lady went practically unnoticed, whereas in Flying Down to Rio he was acclaimed by public and reviewers alike all over the world.
I grabbed him as a "sleeper" the minute I saw his first test from New York and practically used the megaphone to tell everyone in Hollywood that here was the next big male draw in pictures. . . .
Mr. Merian C. Cooper, then executive producer on the lot, also saw Astaire's possibilities. Mr. Astaire will be glad to tell you that I accurately predicted to him in New York, before he ever came out here, what his future in pictures would be.
Louis BROCK
Author and producer of Flying Down to Rio
Beverly Hills, Calif.
*Who assassinated the tyrant Hipparchus (514 B.C.) and were in turn put to death--ED. **TIME, LETTERS, FORTUNE, Reader's Digest, House & Garden, Better Homes & Gardens, McCall's, Pathfinder, Literary Digest, New Yorker, Popular Science. /-Apparently of the "white collar" class--$5,000 a year up.
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