Blue-Ribbon Jury

Sirs:

. . . This Dewey person's "blue-ribbon" jury: How does a "blue-ribbon" jury fit into the American picture? To use the old Stanford phrase "it looks fishy and so smells." Who is the donor of the ribbon? And who made him the holder of the ribbons? . . .

Schuschnigg is going to be tried by a "blue-ribbon" jury in Vienna. . . . Mr. Stalin has rolled up an admirable record of convictions by the "blue-ribbon" route. . . .

PATRICK HINES

Los Angeles, Calif.

Weather

Sirs:

All credit to your reporting of Banker Hevener's humiture in TIME, Aug. 15, pp. 9 & 10. It arouses an interest I developed years ago, namely--why not "do something" about weather to the extent of interpreting it in terms of effect on humans? THEODORE C. COMBS

Los Angeles, Calif.

Reader Combs makes a sound observation. TIME will keep its weather eye open.--ED.

Run-of-the-Mill

Sirs:

"As dull as the Literary Digest," TIME's pages with run-of-the-mill American cartoons. . . .

A. C. STACEY

Asheville, N. C.

Do other TIME readers agree with Reader Stacey?--ED.

Campaigner

Sirs:

TIME which records all significant things will be interested to know that Thomas R. Amlie of Elkhorn, Wis., candidate for the U. S. Senate on the Progressive ticket, is using sound films in connection with his speaking campaign. In one of the pictures, The River, he demonstrates what the cutting over of forest lands has meant to the Mississippi Valley in the way of worn-out land, eroded top soil and ever recurrent floods. In the other film, The Plow that Broke the Plains, the tragic story of the Dust Bowl is developed; Amlie outlines what has been and still remains to be done in soil conservation efforts. Here is a new approach in campaign methods, it appears: education and good manners in place of muckraking and maligning the opposing candidate.

CHARLES ENGELMANN

Milwaukee, Wis.

Stink

Sirs:

Remember the old Ford jokes? Nowadays it's 'Roosevelt. I'm surprised no one has made a collection of them. Here's a good one I heard the other day: A man appeared in court to have his name legally changed. Said the judge: "What is your name?" "Franklin Delano Stink," said the man. "Well, well," said the judge, "I should think you would want to change it. What do you want to change it to?" "Joe Stink."

BEN LARSEN

Wichita, Kans.

The Roosevelt story has indeed become a U. S. phenomenon. Reader Larsen's yarn has the odor of age about it, but perhaps TIME readers can report fresher examples.--ED.

Juneau Ice

Sirs:

You say "because there is ice in Juneau Harbor some months of the year Pan American will use land planes instead of their big Clippers" [TIME, Aug. 15]. Juneau and all other Alaskan seaports are free of ice and open to navigation the year round, except Nome, on Bering Sea, which is open about five months. Juneau, like Chicago, gets its ice from electric refrigeration.

A. W. HENNING

Juneau, Alaska

The harbor at Juneau is indeed ice-free, but not the shore. Icy shorelines make it difficult to land planes for maintenance. Such conditions decided Pan American to shift its New York terminus on the Bermuda run from Port Washington, L. I. to ice-free Baltimore. For the same reason, Pan American will use land planes at Juneau.--ED.

Insurance Salesman

Sirs:

As a representative of the largest insurance company in the world, The Metropolitan, I arise in righteous wrath and indignation at the derision contained in your article under the heading of Labor, TIME, Aug. 8.

". . . Whose principal duty is to trudge from house to house peddling small policies and collecting 10-c-, 25-c- or 50-c- a week from a clientele too poor or too feckless to pay by the year." (The underlining is mine.) . . .

After a number of years in my present occupation and district, I am surprised to learn what my principal task is. And I deny it most emphatically. Multiply my individual efforts by those of thousands from Maine to California and I'll match our production record with that of the representatives of any other recognized old-line company. . . . And I am proud to have produced every year a very satisfactory number of contracts well up in four and five figures--dollars not cents.

I am proud of our collection of minute premiums. I am proud of my contacts with that group of policyholders who represent the mass of our population. Without them where would you or I be? But we do not peddle. Not by a jugful. . .

. . . We are performing a necessary job in a manner that is building a monument of good in the daily lives of thousands of men, in the hearts of unnumbered thousands of families.

Time and again, in the payment of claims, when the spectre of death has darkened the door, have I, as the representative of my company, been the ray of sunshine that has driven away the clouds of despair. . . .

I work in a typical district under the direction of a typical manager. I take my hat off to him. . . . In no other job could I have such independence and, at the same time, done as well financially and have had such mental satisfaction which after all is that which counts most.

HARRY B. PRESS

Santa Monica, Calif.

Apt Phrase

Sirs:

Will you congratulate your Radio Editor for me on his delightfully apt descriptive phrase in TIME, Aug. 22, concerning News Commentator Boake Carter--''cloaking his accounts of daily events in a tone of dark menace." The lack of such a phrase to fit Mr. Carter's dramatic news-rendering has saddened me for years.

CLAVIA GOODMAN

Paris, Ky.

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