Moore's Suicides

Sirs:

I want to thank you for the way you handled "Suicide Disease'' in TIME, Sept. 6, 1937. It was very good of you to mention this and I appreciate it. . . . I like very much to see rather dry, factual material treated with editorial levity and inspiration, to mention Lowells and Kennedys enlightens the material greatly.

I think you might be interested in knowing that the article you referred to was first printed in the New England Journal of Medicine. It happened to be picked up by the Associated Press and sent out in a dispatch that practically covered the U. S. Since that time I have been deluged with perfectly amazing letters from an enormous number of people who are apparently on the verge of suicide and who are waiting for word from me to go ahead. So many of the letters are so pathetic and so complicated that in every instance I am taking the time to answer each letter personally and attempt to get each person who has written me into contact with a local physician or psychiatrist. . . .

MERRILL MOORE, M. D. Boston, Mass.

Stirrers

Sirs:

I was much interested in the proposition of Clem Sputter in his little "apple butter stirrers" in TIME, Sept. 6.

Don't make it a stag organization Clem, or you would shut me out. I'm in my 82nd year and I stirred apple butter every Fall for years in the late 60s--in my kid days I didn't stir it in the back yard though. There was a house built over the spring on my father's farm in Pennsylvania. Downstairs was where the springwater ran through a big trough, and there was kept the milk "crocks," butter jars, etc. In that room, we churned the butter in a good old dasher churn. Don't you remember?

"The churn my dear Grandmother had Was made of cedar wood, And many a good old fashioned rub Of soap and sand had stood. The hoops that bound it were of brass, And shone like burnished gold. Five gallons too of cream or milk, That good old churn would hold. Ker Chunk, Ker Chunk, etc."

Over this room was the "spring house loft" and in it was a big fireplace where hung the iron "crane" with its "pot hooks." On that crane hung the huge copper kettle in which the apple butter was made.

Now I'll tell you something we did, and I can imagine how the sanitary fanatics of today would look with horror at such a proceeding.

To help keep the butter from sticking to the bottom of the kettle, a handful of copper pennies was thrown in the butter and the stirrer would move them about over the bottom of the kettle and when they were retrieved when the kettle was emptied you never saw such lovely bright pennies as they were. Brighter I'm sure than when they came from the mint and none of us got sick from eating that apple butter. Our favorite way of eating it was to put it on nice brown buckwheat cakes and pour over all plenty of rich sweet cream. Did you ever try it?

I wonder how many stirrers you will find.

MRS. M. M. HOLT Newport News, Va.

Sirs:

Mr. Clem Sputter (Hugh J. Crossland) Marion, Ohio

Dear Nephew Clem:

Afore you was dry behind the ears I'd been stirrin apple butter nigh unto forty years. You aint got no call to be initiatin any new fangled sacieties that your elders knowed about fore they ever thought of you. But tain no bad idee at that an' I'm for it. You kin put my name down as a charter member and since you aint goin to charge no nitiatin fee I thenk mebbe one or to other old timers thats done their share of stirrin in these parts 'll come in too. Write you bout that later.

Meanwhile if you'll sort of appint me as vice president of the Former Apple Butter Stirrers' Society Fer the Purpose of Promulgatin, Promotin and Perpetuatin Memories of Apple Butter Stirrin Days I'll se what we kin do in Green Valley to help on the Perpetuatin. I got another nephew up at Cherry Hill mebbe you never heerd of, names Henry O'Hope. I rember one time when Henry was a little kodger his ma and him come over to make us a visit. His Aunt Sarah an me was stirrin Apple Butter out back of the kitchen wen they drove up. Henry jumped out an come over to help me stir. Somethin caught his interest an he turned round and afore you could say jackrobinson he backed up and sot right down in the kittle. Well twant bad enough to burn him much but for few days he had to eat his meals standin up. An' the accident didn't hurt the Apple Butter nuther.

I reckon you can't make this saciety any Stag affair. Your Aunt Sarah says she don't like no stag ideas neither so that's out.

Mebbe while you're at it you better include the sorghum lickers too as associate members. Theys a lot of them round here that got nitiated in that art long as Hank Smith was runnin his sorghum mill.

I still got our old copper kittle an she's 30 gallons if she's a spoon-full. Gittin bout time to bring her out now and bout the time this gets to you we'll be stirrin ourselves to stir up our supply of the best so of fillin that God ever invented with fresh bread. Hopin youre the same.

YOUR UNCLE DAVID Uncle David Graham, Farmer Green Valley, Somers in the U.S.

O. W. BEHRENS Minneapolis. Minn.

Sirs:

Dear Clem:

I aint much of a hand ter join no organizashuns, not even the kind that keeps alive memories of stirrin apple butter, butcherin and all them chores we used to do down on the farm in Indiany. The old purplish-brown apple butter used to come thru them hole in the paddle like somethin it aint so pleasant to think about, but just the same that ain a bad idea of yours. If they has organizashuns for folks that used to pump pipe organs, why not ? But don't you think then orter be a requirement that you had to turn the peeler the night before for the wimmen folks who cored and sliced them apple? Those slicers, by the way, might be permitted to join the auxiliary.

Ennyway, brother, I think you've got somethin there that might be worth continuin. You fellows over in Marion, Ohio always was darn good organizers and sum of the best apple sauce ever made in the country came from there. If your apple butter was only half as good, it was dam good stuff, and so you kin put me clown as a charter member.

IKE N. STIRR (Oran Raber) New Orleans, La.

Pea Ess: How much fanny mail do you get or whatever they call them letters to moshun pitcher stars? I. N. S.

Wham!

Sirs:

Referring to Mr. Bob de Lany's criticism of your use of the word "whop" [TIME, Sept. 13], and your query as to whether readers agree with this gentleman.

A little over a year ago while crossing a street in San Francisco, an automobile came around the corner striking me from the rear and putting me through a perfect somersault. I did not have the slightest idea as to what happened until I came to in the street some moments later, in rather a bloody and dirty mess. In relating this incident afterwards--it seems that we must all tell of our operations and accidents--I have stated that there is only one word that can describe the sensation and that was one from the comic strip, namely: "WHAM."

Therefore, I am inclined to go along with TIME'S description of the airplane accident as "whop!," admitting at the same time that my opinion can be disqualified as I am more familiar with "whams" than "whops."

HAROLD K. CRANE

San Francisco, Calif.

Sirs:

. . . I think your description of the crash at Daytona was a commendable try. One thing that might have confused Reader de Lany was the lapse of too much reading time between the whop, crash, and smash. Now (ahem) if you had written it thus: "Suddenly, just after the big transport had drummed some 25 ft. above the highway . . ., there was a rending crack! whop! smash! as the ship slammed full tilt into a pine power pole, as the motors ripped out and fell and the rest of the plane bashed into a palmetto thicket"--.

SIDNEY S. DONER

Escondido, Calif.

Sirs:

With regard to the "Whop, Crack, Smash" article, I heartily agree with Mr. de Lany.

ELTON ROSEN

N. Easton, Mass.

Sirs:

. . . Yours for more vivid descriptions but less motors on Douglas planes.

WM. T. BAILEY

Kansas City, Kans.

TIME'S Letters Editor herewith gives himself a richly merited rebuke for an unpardonable anachronism. Since the Model S Stinson, few commercial passenger ships have been trimotored.

--ED.

Staggs Split

Sirs:

On pp. 90 and 92 of your Sept. 6 issue I have read the account of the award of the top prizes in the recent Old Gold contest. Is it not true that William R. Staggs, winner of the first prize of $100,000, had to split this prize with his contest partner, Addison Pound Jr., of Gainesville, Fla.?

DEVEREUX BACON JR.

Tampa, Fla.

Cadet Naval Aviator Staggs split his prize not two ways but five ways. He, Pound, J. D. Lamade, Joe Jaaps and W. S. Pye, all Navy men, had agreed that if any of them won the $100,000 he would share it with the others.--ED.

Persistent

Sirs:

Concerning my letter and your flip reply published in TIME, Sept. 13, may I point out that you have fallen into the understandable error of confusing barretry with barratry. I refer you to Funk and WagnalPs Standard Unabridged Dictionary, where you will find the following:

"Barretry: The offense of exciting lawsuits; the bringing of suits in the name of fictitious plaintiffs, or without a real person's consent; also, the stirring up of quarrels, spreading false rumors of evil import, thus disturbing the public peace; commonly confounded with barratry."

Let TIME cease trying to cover up its errors with smart remarks.

ROBERT ALMY KNOWLTON

Washington, D. C.

Let persistent Reader-Writer Knowlton look into Webster's, the Shorter Oxford English or Bouvier's Law dictionaries and he will find that there is no distinction in the spelling of barratry, the purchase or sale of ecclesiastic preferment, or of offices of state, and barratry, the offense of exciting lawsuits.

--ED.

Pretty Decent Tribe

Sirs:

TIME, how could you, how could you, how could you! The Lowells are a pretty decent tribe. They condescend to speak to the Cabots. It is the clan of the Cabots who, traditionally, converse only with God [TIME, Sept. 6]. And the word isn't speak--it is talk. I visited the grave of my life-long friend, Dr. John C. Bossidy, and, sure enough, he had turned over. Who could blame him ?

Sam Bushnell didn't write the couplet or quatrain though it floated around under his aegis for a long time. But he sent it to Dean Frederick Scheetz Jones of Yale, and Jones wrote a reply which undertook to tell a cockeyed world the kind of town New Haven was or is. ... This is what Dean Jones wrote:

Here's to the town of New Haven,

The home of the Truth and the Light;

Where God speaks to Jones in the very same tones,

That he uses with Hadley and Dwight. . . .

JOSEPH HOLLISTER

Pittsfield, Mass.

Friends in Philadelphia

Sirs:

In your issue of Sept. 13 under Religion you have given one of the best accounts and explanations of a religious group that I have ever read. As a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and of Arch Street Yearly Meeting (Philadelphia) I have frequently been distressed by the entire lack of understanding the Press and public seem to have of our organization.

Your account of the Conference at Haverford and Swarthmore is sympathetic, lucid, and comprehensive. My brother, who has just come from the Conference, is much impressed by the accuracy of your report in the main. . . .

PAUL R. HAVILAND

Pittsburgh, Pa.

Jaja's Name

Sirs:

Your explanation of the pronunciation of Jadwiga's surname [TIME, July 12] will be o.k. everywhere except in Milwaukee, Chicago, Buffalo and a few other cities which have many Polish people. There is a definite "n" sound in it. The correct pronunciation is YENDZHAYOVSKA.

Russ LYNCH

Sport Editor

The Milwaukee Journal

Milwaukee, Wis.

Polish Tennist Jadwiga Jedrezejowska says she pronounces her name Yah-dvee-ga Yed-drze-yoef-ska--ED.

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