Koussevitzky, Toscanini Sirs:

I am astonished that TIME [Oct. 10] should have fallen for an old and, I believe, authentic Toscanini story and attributed it to Koussevitzky in connection with whom it simply doesn't make sense.

ALFRED A. KNOPF

New York City

The "too late to abologize" anecdote (labeled in TIME'S story as probably apocryphal) has been told of more than one conductor, including Toscanini. But Toscanini is the most improbable choice. Reason: his English, at its coolest, is limited, expletive, disconnected. In a tantrum he invariably erupts molten Italian.--ED.

Life-Saver

Sirs:

In his dealings with the Fuehrer, Mr. Chamberlain seems to think that the saving of a million lives was well worth the surrender of England's honor. His conferences with Hitler at Berchtesgaden and Godesberg read like the diary of a young lady crossing the Atlantic for the first time:

Monday--I feel highly honored at being placed at the Captain's table.

Tuesday--I spent the morning on the bridge with the Captain. He seemed to like me.

Wednesday--The Captain made proposals to me unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

Thursday--The Captain threatened to sink the ship unless I agreed to his proposals.

Friday--I saved six hundred lives!

WILLIS H. KINGSLAND

Bantam, Conn.

Washington's Bone

Sirs:

The undersigned constituents of Senator Homer T. Bone will appreciate your giving his record in the Senate, together with an appraisal of his standing.

F. W. MOORE

R. E. GORDON

LOUIS FLIEDER

SADIE G. MOORE

H. A. BABCOCK

Bremerton, Wash.

The record of Washington's Senator Homer Truett Bone is as follows:

Born: Franklin, Ind., Jan. 25, 1883.

Career: Homer Truett Bone is a round-shouldered, kindly little man with a gloomy viewpoint. In discussing the state of the world, he is apt to remark: "This is a dark and sombre picture." Politicians, whose squabbling Homer Bone heartily dislikes, do not understand why Bone, of all men, should be afflicted by melancholy. Indisputably his State's most popular politician, he amassed 243,682 votes in the Democratic primary this year to 196,876 for all his opponents. He spends no money in the primary, except for gas and oil, and has just returned a $500 check from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, explaining that he does not propose to spend any on the election either. This attitude, which might be pose in another politician, seems natural to anyone who knows Homer Bone.

The Bone philosophy was formed by a lifetime of fighting the interests, only lately has begun to pay political dividends. His father was a disabled Civil War veteran who married his mother after her first husband had been killed at Gettysburg.

As a boy Bone fell down an elevator shaft and almost broke his neck, which remained stiff and now gives him a look as rigid as his principles. The chief of these, public ownership of utilities, he has fought for ever since he worked his way to a law degree and was admitted to the bar in 1911. While practicing law for such clients as Tacoma's Central Labor Council and the Port of Tacoma, Bone tried to clear the way for publicly owned utilities, using any political broom that came to hand. He has been a candidate on the Socialist, Triple Alliance, Farmer-Labor, Republican and Democratic tickets, a fact of which his opponents like to make capital.

In 1922 Bone won his first election, to the State Legislature, as a Farmer-Laborite. In 1928 he ran for the Republican nomination for Congress, losing, he says, because on election day the power mysteriously failed on Tacoma's privately owned streetcar line, keeping humble voters at home. In 1932 he beat conservative Lawyer Stephen F. Chadwick, present National Commander of the American Legion, for the Democratic Senatorial nomination.

In the Senate Bone and his junior colleague, Lewis Baxter Schwellenbach, have been faithful Roosevelt men, rewarded with plenty of PWA and WPA money. Bone has shown some independence: he supported Pat Harrison for Senate Leader against the White House demand for "Dear Alben" Barkley, he voted to override the President's bonus veto, and he voted against the Reorganization Bill this year. With these major exceptions, however, Bone's record is that of a consistent New Deal Senator.

A forceful, vitriolic speaker when he is aroused, Homer Bone is as unrelenting as ever toward the men he calls the big-dough boys." Besides Franklin Roosevelt, his enthusiasms are his son "Home," 16, locomotives, and oysters, which he sometimes eats for breakfast.

Once Homer Bone brought a case of Alaskan salmon to the press gallery at the Capitol, invited the newsmen there to help themselves. They tried to, but could not remove the tightly bound wire around the case, whereupon Homer Bone made a sardonic and highly characteristic remark. Said he: "Do you mean that with all the knockers around here you fellows haven't got a hammer?"--ED.

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